What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“JAMES LAMB and SON, From BOSTON, … intend to carry on the TAYLOR’s business.”

James Lamb and Son used an advertisement in the September 4, 1775, edition of the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford, to inform the public “that they have opened a shop at the next door to the Golden Ball in Middletown.”  They listed dozens of items they stocked, mostly an assortment of textiles but also ribbons, buttons, buckles, thread, pins, sugar, indigo, and coffee.  Their inventory rivaled those that ran in newspapers prior to the Continental Association going into effect.  The Lambs did not mention when or how they acquired their wares.  Instead, the header for their advertisement focused on their origins, “From BOSTON.”  Like others “From BOSTON” who advertised that they opened shops in other cities and towns in New England in the summer and fall of 1775, the Lambs might have been refugees displaced by the siege of Boston after the battles at Lexington and Concord in April.  They could have left the city when they had an opportunity, taking merchandise with them in hopes of establishing themselves in a new place.

A nota bene indicated that they offered residents of central Connecticut the same quality and range of service that they previously provided to customers in Boston.  They were not, after all, shopkeepers but also skilled tailors who “intend to carry on the TAYLOR’s business in all its branches as usual in BOSTON.”  That last phrase meant “as they had in BOSTON,” signaling to prospective customers that the Lambs had experience as tailors.  As newcomers, they needed to start building their reputation; for the moment, their own account of their experience substituted for local clients familiar with their work.  Yet that did not prevent them from making bold claims.  “Any Gentlemen who will favour them with their custom,” the Lambs proclaimed, “may depend on having their business done with fidelity and dispatch.”  In addition to exemplary customer service, the Lambs promised the highest quality.  They “warranted” their work “as complear as can be done any where in America.”  The tailors “From BOSTON” asserted that their garments rivaled any from Charleston, New York, Philadelphia, or any other city or town in the colonies.  They hoped such claims would attract customers as they began building their business in Middletown in the first year of the Revolutionary War.