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Terry, Fanny.

The subscriber has opened a Store at the house lately occupied by Samuel T. Strong, in the town of Islip, Where She Has a General Assortment of Dry-Goods…

New York: Printed by Van Pelt & Riley, 9 Wall, corner of Broad-st., 1817. Broadside, 18.25” x 11.5”, text within ornamental border. CONDITION: Very good, light foxing, two partial cloth mounting strips to top margin at verso.

An appealing and detailed broadside announcing a new store, run by a female proprietor, in what was then a hamlet on Long Island, listing dry goods, groceries, and hardware, as well as boats and tackle “to let by the day”—and absolutely no liquor for sale in the evening.

Fanny Terry here advertises her new store in Islip, Long Island, where she sells “a general assortment of Dry-Goods,” groceries, and “Hard-Ware,” with numerous examples listed under each category, which range from handkerchiefs, “English, India and American cottons,” “Lute-string, and Bombazets,” to rum, brandy, gin, “very old Madeira,” ginger, “Salt Petre,” “Pearl Ashes,” snuff and tobacco boxes, and “Tools of the most approved construction, warranted, particularly, the patent horse hoe…and the Thrashing Machine, that will thrash and clean 300 bushels a day.”

Terry also stocked “A supply of useful Drugs and Medicines” and “Boats in complete order with Fowling Pieces and Fishing Tackle to be let by the day or longer.” Wholesale prices (“as low and perhaps lower than they can be had in New-York”) are offered to “Country Grocers and Tavern Keepers” and the broadside is firm in specifying that, while “she will sell [her goods] very cheap for prompt pay,” she will “on no account…give credit.” Likewise, “No spirituous liquors will be sold under the quantity of half a gallon, nor will the store be open in the evening.”

At the time Terry published this broadside, Islip, Long Island—now one of the largest towns in New York—was a village of about 1000 people. With exception of an advertisement in The Long Island Star the following year, reflecting a stock expanded to include a variety of hats and bonnets, as well as “an extensive assortment of Blue and White CHINA and EARTHENWARE,” we find few records of Fanny Terry. There are, however, several generations of a Terry family on Long Island in the 1700s and 1800s, and she may be the same “Frances Terry,” born in 1794, who appears in some records as the youngest daughter of Timothy Brewster and Elizabeth (Davis) Terry.

A wonderful broadside detailing the wide range of goods for sale at a woman-owned store in Islip, Long Island in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

REFERENCES: “The subscriber…” The Long-Island Star, December 30, 1818, p. 4; “Terry Family” at Farmingville Historical Society online; “Terry, Frances” at Long Island Surnames online.

Item #10379

Price: $1,800.00

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