Foster and Company records

The Foster and Company Records consist of cashbooks, invoice books, journals, ledgers, other account books, and letterbooks which document the business transactions of a retail and wholesale grocer in Hartford, Connecticut. The records date from 1836 until 1890 but the bulk of the material dates before 1865. The records include accounts for Foster and Hosford (1836-1837) and James P. Foster (1837-1839), predecessor firms to Foster and Company. The firm was run as Foster and Co. by James Phelps Foster and his brother Ralph Henry Foster and, after 1880, by James Phelps Foster's three sons.

The records are arranged by record type and include an extensive, though incomplete, set of the standard general ledgers and journals which characterize double entry bookkeeping. There are also nine volumes of cashbooks, which detail cash expenditures and income and seven volumes of invoice books which record wholesale purchases. The invoice books also contain annual inventories of stock and net worth; the 1839 value of the company was $5,238, while the 1862 inventory lists this total as $12,787. Other volumes include accounts of bills payable and receivable, charges by Wells and Burnham and Bell and Baldwin for carting, a journal of Ralph Rose Foster, and a "Ham Book", which details purchases of ham, lard, pork, apples, and cider. Two letterbooks contain copies of out-going letters concerning purchases for the store and other details of its operation.

The library purchased the records of Foster and Company in 1943 from Armstrong. The records were transferred from the Account Books Collection (MS 29) in 1985.