Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 1
Agreable to your desire Upon my first coming into this Country I made Enquiry concerning the price & the circumstances of a Vessell's Loading with barrell Staves. I should have wrote you by Capt. Emerson, but I had not satisfy'd my self in the thing, since wch. I learn that there are no blls. Staves fit for the Irish Market sold under twenty six & eight pence Proc.; but then they are sapt & drawn & 32 Inches Long. Capt. Jno. Campbell says that upon sutable notice he would engage to load a vessall of about 120 tones in three Weeks. Severall Vessells loaded here last Year & gave that price for their Staves, & many more are expected in again. If you see cause to pursue that Voyage, I heartily wish you Success. I Subscribe my self your very humble Servt.,
Solomon Davis (1716–1791) was a prominent Boston merchant. He was later a son of Liberty and a member of the Fire Club. A close companion of Boston merchant John Rowe (1715–1787), Davis appears often in the latter's diary. See John Rowe, Letters and Diary, 1759–1762, 1764–1779, ed. Anne Rowe Cunningham (Boston, 1903), 26, 28. 3off.