Prices and Wages by Decade: 1800-1809

The 1872 Report of Commissioners on Bureau of Labor Statistics to the [New Hampshire] Legislature is an incredibly rich source of both prices dating from the 1800s: pages 34-36 focus on 1800-1810; pork, beef, veal, and butter prices are discussed on p.24; and a chart (p.32) provides prices for particular foods, articles of clothing, shoes, various household supplies and construction materials in two New Hampshire towns in 1808.

Source: Sixteenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, for 1885.

• Furniture
  Price of bedsteads, bed cords, bureaus, tables and chairs are listed, with some prices dating to the 1790s.
• Carpetings
  Prices date to 1794.
• Cutlery
  Prices for table knives and forks back to 1780s, and pocket knives back to 1801.
• Paper
  Letter paper, priced by the sheet, dating to 1780s.
• Tallow, candles, soap, etc.
  Soap prices date to 1770s.
• Oils for Illumination
  Oils to light lamps and lanterns, dating back to the 1780s
• Fuel
  Charcoal, oak wood, pine wood, coal, etc.
• Miscellaneous, not elsewhere classified
  Price for brooms, brass kettles, brick, matches, tubs, tumblers, clocks, candlesticks, silver watches, feathers (by the pound), wine glasses and more. Prices for some items date to 1750s.
• Tobacco and snuff
  Prices for cigars by the dozen, and tobacco and snuff by the pound or (sometimes) ounce.  Tobacco prices date to 1760s.

This advertisement in the October 13, 1809 issue of The Enquirer of Richmond, Va. lists prices (in dollars per single ream) for various types of paper.

Source tells the price paid by the federal government to supply the Navy. Individual prices include for a barrel of beef, pork or flour; for bread, rice, cheese, suet and butter by the pound, and for gallons of molasses, vinegar, and spirits. Clothing prices are itemized for suits ($19 each), caps, pairs of shoes, watch coats, and knapsacks ($1 each)

This source contains entries from merchant's accounts in the Chester, NH area dating from 1803 to 1806. Includes various types of cloth (baize, calico, drugget, linen, India cotton, and woolen cloth), shoes, a pair of mitts, silk gloves. Else where this sources gives prices of palmleaf hats in 1806 and fulled cloth for men's wear.

Chart provides prices for particular foods, articles of clothing, shoes, various household supplies and construction materials in two New Hampshire towns, Dunbarton and Lyme.

Source: Sixteenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, for 1885.

• Clothing
  Prices of hats, handerchiefs and stockings back to the 1760s; gloves, breeches, pantaloons, hose and coats back to 1780s; shawls and vests back to the 1790s
• Cloth
  Prices for some types of cloth back to 1770s
• Dress goods
  Prices for alpaca wool and calico by the yard, as well as batiste, cambric, cashmere, crape, gingham, gauze, lawn, muslin, linsey woolsey, plaid, poplin, satin, silk, velvet and many other fabric types, some back to the 1770s but most back to the early 1780s.  More fabrics are listed under the Dry Goods heading.
• Dry goods
  Prices for blankets back to the 1780s, cotton flannel, damask and denim, diaper cloth, shirtings, ticking, and more, some dating to the 1750s.
• Boots, shoes and leather
  Prices reported by the individual pair or by component such as buckles, leather, buttons, braid, fringe, etc. Detailed prices for style and type of shoe, boot, sandal, slipper, rubber overshoe, etc.  Earliest price dates to 1750s.
• Buttons and dress trimmings
  Button prices reported by the dozen.  Fringe and tape by the yard.  Earliest price dates to 1780s.
• Ribbons and laces
  Prices date to 1783.
• Small wares
  Yarn, needles, pins, embroidery silk, cotton and linen thread.  Some prices date to 1770s.

This publication gives the prices of the first umbrellas owned in NH as $5 in Sandown in 1803 and $3 in Long Meadows in 1804. Source: History of old Chester [N.H.] from 1719 to 1869 by Benjamin Chase (1869).

Chart provides prices for particular foods, articles of clothing, shoes, various household supplies and construction materials in two New Hampshire towns, Dunbarton and Lyme.

Source: Sixteenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor

• Tools and implements
  Hoes, shovels, spades, files, etc. priced by the dozen or when sold individually.  Earliest price figure is from 1790s.
• Lumber
  Price for boards, plank, shingles, timber, clapboards, etc. by the foot.
• Tacks, brads and nails
  Priced by the pound.  Earliest prices date to 1790s.
• Rates for carpentry service in Boston, 1800, reported in dollars and cents
  (Decided at a meeting of the town's carpenters in August 1800)
  Framing houses, floors, roofs per square foot or linear foot; Rough boarding, window frames and window caps outside; Sashes, clapboarding, shingling, gutters, facia under eaves, water tables, corners, etc.; Casing and cornices, pedastals and pilasters, luthern windows; Turrets, frontispieces and porticos, outside door cases for brick walls, outside cellar doors; Rough ceilings, casing inside and outside doors and windows, battened doors and shutters, mouldings; Inside door caps, inside window shutters, stairs; Wainscoting, finishing windows inside; Doors; Chimney pieces and casings, floors, fences, posts, gates

One company's advertised coach fare was $1 for a five-hour journey from Wilmington to Philadelphia, a distance of about 40 miles. Source: Wilmington Delaware Gazette newspaper, July 12, 1809.

A stage coach company was advertising fares between Petersburg VA and Charleston SC at 7 cents per mile with a 20 pound baggage allowance. Source: Richmond VA Enquirer, January 14, 1808.

This expense report for a journey from Litchfield, CT to Detroit and back in 1801 shows the stage coach fare for each leg of travel. Source: American State Papers, Vol. 5 (1832).

Papers at the Maryland Historical Society show anecdotally that one person's expenses for ocean passage amounted to $80.64. Source: Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science publication, 1904.

An account of the author's travels, this book includes what was paid for various modes of travel such as the engagement of a wagon and steam ship fare from Albany to New York. Source: Travels through Canada, and the United States of North America in the years 1806, 1807, & 1808 by John Lambert (1816). Not a government document.

This account of the authors travels tell what he paid for a horse, with saddle and bridle, in Savannah, Georgia in June 1806.

We recommend using the Library of Congress' "Chronicling America" website to find prices and subscription rates for individual newspaper titles in specific years. Click into the site and set the year boxes to your date range. Click "GO" and then check the "Show only front pages" box. If the price is not in the masthead, search for publisher's information somewhere in the body of the paper - often in the left column of the front page. Annual subscription rates are likely to be described there.

Chart from the Historian of the United States Postal Service shows price to mail a domestic letter. Not included are postage rates for ship and steamboat letters and "drop letters" (for local delivery), which were assigned different rates.

Tells cost of a share and annual fees. Source: Travels in the United States of America, in the years 1806& 1807, and 1809, 1810, & 1811 by John Melish (1812).

Advertisement for Rumford Academy in the January 13, 1809 issue of the Virginia Argus of Richmond, Va. gives prices (in pounds) for board and tuition.

Advertisement for a private day and night school in Richmond tells tuition (in dollars). From the March 18, 1808 issue of The Enquirer of Richmond, Va.

Advertisement for a private boarding school for boys and girls in Albemarle County with prices (in pounds) for boarding and tuition, including individual cost per term and cost of services like wardrobe care. From the December 26, 1806 issue of the Virginia Argus of Richmond, Va.

Advertisement for Wingfield Academy in the December 21, 1805 issue of The Enquirer of Richmond, Va. gives cost (in pounds) of board, tuition, and washing.

This biographical piece tells the fee a physician charged an aspiring doctor for four years tuition ($400) at his home in Cincinnati.

This article in the August 1, 1804 issue of The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser explains some costs (in dollars) of attending Georgetown College.

The mineral water was believed to help "in all cases of debility; in rheumatism of the chronic kind; in gout; in bilious and febrile habits; in an incipient consumption, where ulcers or tubercles are not yet formed in the lungs; and in all complaints of the kidneys, bladder, and urinary passages" in addition to being effective for sores and rattlesnake bite (page 156). A notice on the mineral springs of Virginia published in the Philadelphia medical and physical journal in 1805 gives the price of board at Sweet Springs in Bottatourt County, VA as $6 a week in 1800.

One Virginia doctor advertised his fees for 1800 as follows: "Visiting patients, a quarter of a dollar for every miles riding in going & returning...Attendance at the rate of Seven Dollars for twenty-four hours. Prescriptions Three Dollars each. The lowest price for a Surgical operation, one Dollar."

Lists average price for land near towns, the cost of house rent and wholesale prices for food such as butter, cheese, potatoes, lard, codfish, wheat, corn, rice, flour, herring and ham. Also includes the price of tobacco and tallow. Covers the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Charleston, and includes a "U.S. average." Source: History of wages in the United States from Colonial times to 1928.

This amazing table shows wholesale (not retail) prices per pound for wheat flour, sugar, raw cotton, wool, nails, etc. as well as wholesale prices per yard of cotton sheeting, per ton of coal, gallon of turpentine, per 1000 bricks, and more for every year from 1800-1970. Source: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970.

Find wholesale prices for hundreds of items in "Philadelphia Prices Current," published weekly in the Philadelphia newspaper Gazette of the United States & Daily Advertiser.

The newspaper Ming's New-York Price Current listed the price of foods, beans, meats, nuts, wine, rum, spices; building materials including nails, lumber by the type of wood, shingles, glass panes. Also shows prices for gunpowder, candles, deer skins and fur pelts including beaver, mink, otter, red fox and more.