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Introduction
Tools played a critical role in the early economic history of colonial America. Critical colonial trades that used tools included the miller, millwright, and cooper. Nearly every city and town had at least one mill, and likely one or more coopers making shipping containers required to safely transport all sorts of goods. A recent discovery of the papers of eighteenthcentury Philadelphia Quaker, miller, husband, father, and civically dedicated politician Thomas Livezey ( 1 723-90) allows us to peer into this world and find rare details, many previously unknown. I initially came to know Thomas Livezey and his family while studying the history of a Windsor chair that was said to have been given by Benjamin Franklin to Livezey. That research led to my exploration of this family's history1
This three-part paper will describe findings about important businesses associated with producing flour. I will look at who Livezey was and why he was an important player in our nation's early economic, civic, and political formative years. Then I will carefully follow the building of his mill, house, and mill-complex outbuildings. I will show which trades came to repair and expand the mill complex, follow the mill's planned and emergency shutdowns, look into its cooper shop, and finally discuss the shop's operation. I will also examine Livezey's two-hundred-year-old cooper tools, which were discovered as part of this work. Livezey's early documents bring to life his mill, which had been located in Roxborough Township near Germantown, six miles from the center of old Philadelphia.2 On another level, I will explain his important capital investments, and his excellent milling and financial skills, which created one of the largest merchant flour mills in colonial British North America, making Livezey one of the major suppliers of "high quality" flour to the world.3 Initially, there had been reports about the early flour he produced having some problems, ". . .lacking the means of refining the grist brought to the mill, the flour sometimes had traces of garlic in it. This was not saleable in Philadelphia, but there was a ready market for it in the West Indies. Hence grew up a large foreign trade. . .."4 Later, the quality must have improved since Livezey sold flour in Philadelphia and to the...