Residents of Preston are fortunate to have several memoirs by residents born in the 1880s, detailing daily life in a way most of us can scarcely imagine. One such is “Nine Dollars Per Month and Board: Reminiscences of Lewis R. Peckham 1882-1967,” edited by Helen Haase Johnson.

Published by the Preston Historical Society in 1975, Peckham’s narrative voice is conversational and honest. His is a dry wit, coupled with a strong work ethic and moral sense to propel us through the decades. Keenly aware of changes that had taken place in his lifetime, Peckham’s careful descriptions make this little book both a wonderful piece of hyper-local oral history and a fascinating read.

Peckham’s boyhood included “hiring out” to farmers or neighbors who needed help. He grew up to become a truck farmer, entered into several business partnerships, and eventually owned five greenhouses. Known as the “Celery King,” he frequently lectured about his specialty in Connecticut and surrounding states.

When Peckham describes “narrow, crooked roads that were either a bag of dust or a sea of mud” in the warmer seasons, it rings true. (In fact, it reminds me of the roughly 700 feet down to our house and barn we laughingly call “the driveway.”)

In winter, Peckham writes, “There was far more snow years ago than there is now, and farmers had to break out the roads for themselves.” Neighbors worked together – remember that a little more than a century ago just about everyone in Preston lived on a farm – yoking as many as 10 pair of oxen as they moved from farmhouse to farmhouse. It was an effective way to really “wallow down” the snow into a pathway for sleighs and sleds.

These residents’ degree of isolation and self-sufficiency was the norm in rural areas. But in those days before paved roads, rural free delivery, and mail-order catalogues, there was a class of independent businessmen who prefigured entrepreneurial, hard-working men like Peckham. These were the itinerant peddlers, and they filled a real need among Preston’s country-folk.

The “aristocrat,” and probably most prosperous of these peddlers, according to Peckham, were the tin merchants. They invariably drove an enclosed stagecoach-like wagon pulled by a horse.

These cavernous wagons were painted red with doors on either side for easy access to the merchandise. Goods that weren’t damaged by the elements were hung on the outside of the wagon on hooks, and there were racks chained to the back of these wagons to carry sacks of rags.

Sometimes the tin peddlers took rags in trade for their goods, which included a large inventory of household goods like tinware, glassware, stoneware and crockery.

Ever the businessman, Peckham notes that while the volume of tin peddlers’ business was not large, their profit margins probably were.

“No rent, no lights, no help to pay, and almost certainly no bad checks, the peddler’s only expense was the keep of himself and his horse.”

Peckham is expansive in discussing this early goods and services marketplace, providing a comprehensive taxonomy of the other traveling merchants and middlemen serving Preston’s rural families.

One such were the fish and clam men. According to the author, fish were more plentiful than today and could be bought cheaply from actual fishermen docked in Norwich.

Clams could be had for the digging, and so anyone with a horse could ride out to the country to sell the catch of the day. Fish and clam men all used a tin horn to announce their approach; if no one came out of the house, they wouldn’t even stop.

The better class of peddlers, Peckham notes matter-of-factly, procured ice before setting out for the day.

Then there were itinerant peddlers traveling on foot (remember those road conditions!), with packs attached to their bodies, sometimes both front and back. They included scissors and knife grinders; umbrella repairmen; pack peddlers dealing a variety of notions like needles, pins, thread, and buttons; and ragmen who paid cash for a household’s saved rags.

Although not specifically explained, we know that worn-out clothing and even fabric scraps from sewing were in great demand by the area’s paper mills, which didn’t begin using wood pulp as a substitute raw material until later in the 19th century.

Peckham encountered these groups of peddlers on the road as a boy, but also remembers distinct individuals with specialty products. One man was “very tall and thin, wore a long black coat that almost reached the ground, and, I think, a beaver hat – very sedate and dignified.”

This individual sold something called “McCall’s Salve” in a small, flat tin box. Peckham never knew if the seller was also the maker, but the man certainly made an impression on him.

Other occasional peddlers he remembers sold spectacles, prepared horseradish, and farm products like butter and hulled corn. Sometimes women, usually “well along in years,” would travel the more thickly settled areas selling small items like potholders and aprons.

Even boys got into the act, going door to door selling wild greens, berries and other foraged foodstuff.

Peckham philosophizes a bit about the bygone business of peddling compared to “modern standards.”

With one leg planted in rural 19th-century life and the other in mid-20th-century commerce, Peckham died several decades before personal computers became commonplace. One wonders what his finely-calibrated sensibility would make of today’s digital economy, online shopping, and social media.

Donna Bowles is past president of the Preston Historical Society. For more information, email prestoncthistoricalsociety@gmail.com.