Working on Wednesday: Chauncey Shepard Porter (1822 - 1891), Bookseller

Chauncey, the oldest brother of my paternal grandfather Orville Tracy Porter, listed his occupation as "Bookseller" in the 1855 New York State Census. (We also learn that he was living in a frame--not log--house worth $700 and a boarder named Alfred Tubbs was residing there.)

[Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1855 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Census of the state of New York, for 1855. Microfilm. New York State Archives, Albany, New York.]

Five years later his occupation is given as "Pedlar" and I wonder if he was still selling books. (His family had grown and his house was still worth $700.)

[Year: 1860; Census Place: Mexico, Oswego, New York; Roll: M653_838; Page: 525; Family History Library Film: 803838. Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

Chauncey lives in Mexico in Oswego County, New York, for the rest of his life and in later census records he was called a farmer. He's buried in Mexico Village Cemetery.

I worked in bookstores for many years so the occupation of this third great-uncle naturally caught my eye.





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