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Written on attractive Fairbanks Scale Manufactory, Established 1830 letterhead with a small printed platform-scale vignette, the letter is dated St. Johnsbury, Vermont, February 21, 1871 and addressed to C. G. Brewster, a Boston natural-history dealer associated with the trade in live exotic birds and specimens.
This is a particularly interesting Fairbanks letter because its subject is not routine business. Fairbanks is ordering live parroquets, including an “Aus. Shell Parroquet,” almost certainly an Australian shell parakeet or budgerigar, and gives specific instructions for their safe transportation by railroad express.
He warns that birds left on the platform at White River Junction during a cold winter stop could perish, writing:
“The train waits there an hour or more, & the goods by Express are left out on the platform, & if it is a cold day the birds would perish.”
He also comments on price, noting that he had previously been charged $10 a pair.
Transcription
Fairbanks Scale Manufactory
ESTABLISHED 1830.
St. Johnsbury, Vt. Feb 21 1871.
Mr C. G. Brewster
Dear Sir
Yours of 18th is at hand.
You may send me one Aus. Shell Parroquet, as I have one left of the pair I bought of you last year. If the red nosed Parroquet are of the size of the “Shell Parroquet” you may send me a pair of those.
Send by Express & mark them, or give instructions to have them carried into the Express office at White River Junction while the train is waiting there.
The train waits there an hour or more, & the goods by Express are left out on the platform, & if it is a cold day the birds would perish.
You charged me 10 $ a pair for the others, & that seems high enough.
Very truly yours
Franklin Fairbanks
Verso docket:
F. Fairbanks
St Johnsbury, Vt
Feb 21
Birds
Franklin Fairbanks Biography
Franklin Fairbanks (1828–1895) was a member of the prominent Fairbanks family of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, whose firm, E. & T. Fairbanks & Co., became internationally known for its platform scales.
He was the son of Erastus Fairbanks, co-founder of the scale company and twice Governor of Vermont. Franklin became involved in the family manufacturing enterprise but was also deeply interested in natural history, science, collecting, and education.
Over many years he assembled an extensive cabinet of natural-history specimens and curiosities, including birds, shells, minerals, fossils, ethnographic objects, and other material from around the world. His collections became the foundation of the Fairbanks Museum, which opened in St. Johnsbury in 1891 and remains an important Vermont natural-history institution.
This letter is therefore especially relevant to Fairbanks’s biography because it directly documents his personal acquisition of exotic birds.
Charles G. Brewster Biography
Charles G. Brewster was connected with Boston’s nineteenth-century natural-history trade and was associated with the firm Mann & Brewster, which operated a natural-history establishment on Tremont Street in Boston.
The business dealt in items such as live birds, cages, shells, minerals, aquarium supplies, taxidermy, and other natural-history specimens. Brewster would therefore have been exactly the type of dealer from whom a collector such as Franklin Fairbanks might purchase exotic birds and specimens.
Historical Significance
This letter is appealing on several collecting levels:
- Franklin Fairbanks autograph
- Fairbanks Scale Manufactory letterhead
- Vermont industrial history
- Natural-history collecting
- Exotic bird and aviculture history
- 19th-century railroad express transportation
- White River Junction, Vermont
- Direct connection to the collecting interests that helped create the Fairbanks Museum
The passage describing the danger of birds freezing on a railway platform provides an unusually vivid glimpse into the practical difficulties of transporting live exotic animals in the nineteenth century.
Condition
Original 1871 manuscript letter with expected age toning and horizontal and vertical folds from original mailing/storage. Ink remains clear and legible. Attractive Fairbanks Scale Manufactory letterhead and bold Franklin Fairbanks signature. Please review all photographs carefully for exact condition.
A scarce and highly displayable piece combining Vermont industrial history, natural-history collecting, exotic birds, and nineteenth-century railroad transportation.
