What is a "stave dealer"?

Background: Today's post was going to be about a research breakthrough, but I ran into something needing resolution before the intended post can be published. I worked many hours on the problem, but it may require more resources than available online. I'll keep working on it, and hopefully its resolution will be found.

An alternate post needed creation. While researching the problem, I came across an occupation called "stave dealer." I looked up the definition of the word "stave," finding it is a piece of wood used in making barrels. An entry for the occupation "Cooper" in a mid-nineteenth century British publication explained:

The business of a Cooper is to make vessels for the safe keeping of liquids. Those vessels are made of different kinds of wood, oak being generally used for the larger vessels where the staves are required to be of great length and thickness. They are cut before they are imported into England from the Baltic, and are sold to the Cooper by the stave-merchant who imports them. Staves are sent here cut to the lengths required for various sorts of vessels, and are sold under the following designations: viz. pipe staves, five feet, six inches in length, two inches thick, and six inches wide; hogshead staves, four feet long; barrel staves, three feet, six inches; there are also long and short headings of various sizes. The stave-merchant sorts them for the Cooper, according to the quality required calling them best and seconds. There are a vast quantity of staves imported from Canada; but though they are finer in the grain and make up better to the eye than the staves of the north of Europe, they are not found to be so durable.*

Other online sources indicate the stave industry thrived in the United States as well. The stave dealer I found worked in Illinois.

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* N. Whitlock, J. Bennett, J. Badcock, C. Newton, et al. The Complete Book of Trades, or the Parent's Guide and Youth's Instructor in the Choice of a Trade or Profession . . . London: Thomas Tegg, 1842, pp. 160-161.

Mystery Occupation

1900 U.S. Federal Census, Franklin County, Kentucky, population schedule, Frankfort, Ward 1, SD 7, ED 66, p. 27A (stamped & written), dwelling 465, family 534, line 10, John R. Dean; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 1 Nov 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 521.

Last night I came across this record. I've consulted with several other genealogists and posted a link on my personal page hoping someone could determine the occuption of this young man.

I know that John R. Dean's uncle, Milton, was a huckster. Milton is listed as a grocery merchant in this 1900 census,¹ but in later censuses, he is called a huckster.² My best guess at this point is that he was driving for his uncle and the enumerator could not spell huckstery. However, I'm not sold on my best guess and would welcome other opinions on this.

For those who do not have a subscription to Ancestry.com, the census may be found at FamilySearch as well.

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<sup>1. 1900 U.S. Federal Census, Franklin County, Kentucky, population schedule, Frankfort Ward 3, SD 7, ED 68, p. 77 (stamped), sheet 23B (written), dwelling 448, family 572, line 85, Milton Dean; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 22 Jul 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 521.↩
2. 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Jefferson County, Kentucky, population schedule, Louisville Ward 1, SD 5, ED 39, p. 233 (stamped), sheet 5B (written), dwelling 90, family 115, 1652 Story Avenue, line 72, Milton Dean; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 22 Jul 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 483; 1920 U.S. Federal Census, Jefferson County, Kentucky, population schedules, Louisville, Ward 12, SD 5, ED 224, p. 83 (stamped), sheet 20B (written), dwelling 399, family 431, line 64, 2100 W Avenue, Milton Dean; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 23 Jul 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 582; 1930 U.S. Federal Census, Jefferson County, Kentucky, population schedule, Louisville, 10th Ward, SD 5, ED 151, p. 244 (stamped), sheet 16B (written), dwelling 263, family 284, line 68, 2100 Gaulbert Ave., Milton Dean; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 24 Jul 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 75.↩</sup>

Thoughts on Census Occupations

If you've ever looked at census records from Southern states, you know that the majority of the persons enumerated have a single occupation that was listed variously as "Farmer," "Farm laborer," "Farm hand," "Works on farm," etc. Occasionally on a big plantation, you'll run across "Overseer" but you know that person also worked on the farm.

Today as I was transcribing 1870 Massachusetts census records in the town of Plymouth, I was reminded of how varied occupations were in the north. I did have one farmer and one farm laborer on that page, but I had several mariners. (I wondered if the oldest one was the famed "ancient mariner," although I knew Coleridge was an English author and that his mariner predated this one. However, I did wonder if others in the town associated the poem with this man.) There was one person who was listed as working for the "shoe man." I don't know if this meant he sold shoes or worked in shoe repair or both. It was an interesting occupations though. The Superintendent of Schools was also on this page. It was interesting that this man had been born in Jolly Old England rather than in the states. One man worked in an iron foundry. Most of the women were listed as keeping houses. Most of the older children were "attending school" while the younger ones were "at home." A few young ladies had "no occupation." My favorite occupation on that first page was "paper box maker."

On the next page I indexed, I found a brick mason, an engineer, a bookkeeper, a rope manufacturer (I'll bet those mariners visited his business quite a bit), a locomotive engineer, a huckster (I'm picturing Mr. Haney from Green Acres in a much earlier incarnation), and two farm laborers and two farmers. Interestingly, the first laborer was an African-American--the first black family I'd encountered in indexing Plymouth. (This family, however, was born in Massachusetts rather than the South.)

In nearby Wauham Wareham, my next page yielded a couple of wharf workers (one of whom was a black man born in North Carolina; he was probably a former slave who migrated north after being freed), a mariner, several Irish iron works employees, and a stevedore (someone who unloaded and loaded the ships). There was actually what was likely a boarding house full of Irish workers for the iron works on this page!

One can actually learn a lot about a community by paying attention to the various occupations enumerated on a census. These communities definitely had occupations in keeping with their waterfront locations. The presence of a locomotive engineer means that the railroads were becoming an important means of getting goods from the shipyards to the outlying areas and the rest of the country.

My next batch is taking me to a different part of Massachusetts so I'll end my thoughts for now. I'm sure that I'll be able to tell as much about this next community as I was the others (and even those Southern communities where farming was the driving force).

Okay - I can't resist one more occupation that I ran across later because I'd never seen it listed as an occupation before (especially for 1870)--trance medium. I did find this person listed in the 1900 census as a "lecturer."