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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.
��understands it, and its causes and effects ; and, if they do not forget it, will profit by it. It affected Mansfield in common with the rest of the world; in common with the rest of the world, she has passed that period, experienced her " ups and downs," and remembers that the " ups " were ver3' high, and the '• downs " very low. Busi- ness was wonderfully stimulated ; wholesale houses, factories and machine-shops sprang into existence ; more retail houses started than could live ; many of her citizens waded into the stream of debt over their heads ; built fine houses ; found the current of that stream too rapid for them ; were swept into the whirlpool, and — have generally repented in "sack- cloth and ashes." There ma}' be consolation, how- ever, in knowing that they had plent}' of company. Mansfield went on a " bum," to use an expressive word, over the good things the great victor}' brought ; she has since "sobered off;" seen the folly of so doing, and is now walking care- fully and cautiously on solid gi'ound, after the manner of a man who has been in a scrape and learned by experi- ence.
The wholesale grocers were the pioneers of the wholesale trade of Mansfield. Fortunately for the cit}', three great trunk lines of railroad, connecting the largest cities in the country East and West, converge and diverge at this point. Men were not slow to perceive the excellent shipping facilities thus presented ; the advan- tage of competition in freights from the East, and the opportunity for easy distribution of goods. Until 1865, no exclusively wholesale house existed in Mansfield. Several houses
���OPERA HOUSE, MANSFIELD
��were doing a wholesale and retail business to- gether, but none had the nerve to branch out into wholesaling exclusively. A Mr. Davis had for some 3^ears been wholesaling groceries in a small way, and Mr. E. Clapp (now living on Fourth street, having retired from active busi- ness) kept quite a large retail grocery and candy manufacturing establishment on the cor- ner of Fourth and Main, and did some whole- saling. No effort, however, was made to whole- sale ; if purchasers came from the country and wanted to buy in quantities, they were waited upon, but no traveling men were out drumming up the trade as in later times. Col. Hiram Miller was among the first who attempted to sell goods on the road from Mansfield. He traveled a short time for Mr. Davis, before he engaged with Tracy & Avery, with whom he remained many years. When he first went on the road, he would take orders from the country merchants, carry them about in his pocket until his return, be- fore filling them. He only traveled a day or two out of a week, or a week or two out of a month. In 1864, he was employed by Tracy & Avery, who kept a wholesale and re- tail establishment on the northwest corner of the public square (where it still remains), and who were probably the first to keep a traveling man continually on the road. About the 1st of December, 1865, Messrs. Peter Remy, James A. Hedges and A. C. Cummins formed a part- nership, purchased the establishment of E. Clapp and began an exclusive wholesale busi- ness. The next year, 1866, Tracy & Avery closed up their retail business, and began wholesaling exclusively, and have continued
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