1823 Circular from Marseille-Based Mercantile Firm Fitch Brothers & Co

Marseilles, France, 1823. Single three-page printed letter. Folded; Near Fine.. Fitch Brothers & Co. was a mercantile and commission house founded in the late 1810s or early 1820s by Asa Fitch, his brother Douglas Fitch, and his nephew William D. Lee. Asa Fitch (1787–1865) had worked at the American consul in Alicante, Spain, from around 1805 to 1809, where he established his reputation as a merchant and banker. In 1814 he moved to Marseilles and opened a commission and banking house patronized by the French government in “appreciation of his courtesy" for managing the financial affairs of “several of the royal exiles” while in Alicante.[1] Douglas Fitch and William Lee then joined him. According to the family history, the firm was also a supplier of the US Navy in the Mediterranean. Asa Fitch returned to the US in 1828 to manage the US side of the business and invest in New York City real estate; on his retirement, he built up and founded Fitchville (now Bozrah) Connecticut.

This circular was sent to Enoch Silsbee (or Silsby), a merchant and ship owner from Boston who was primarily involved in the cotton trade. The circular contains prices for goods from opium to Gruyère cheese, and the text following the price listing gives more detail about the market for particular goods including coffee, pepper, and indigo.

[1] Roscoe Conkling Fitch, History of the Fitch Family, A. D. 1400–1930, Vol. 2 (Record Publishing Company, 1930), 172–173.