David G. Hubbard letter book

1822-1825

David G. (David Greene) Hubbard (1773-1825), a New York City merchant, was born in Norwich, Connecticut to William Hubbard and his first wife, Lydia Coit. He was established in business in Manhattan by the mid-1790s. In 1825 he also became a director of the New-York City Insurance Company, headed by Elisha Coit. In 1799 David G. Hubbard married Lucy Manwaring (1778-1868) of New London, Connecticut; they had ten children surviving infancy. He died on December 29, 1825. The David G. Hubbard letter book (1 volume, with index) contains Hubbard's copied outgoing business letters and some personal letters dated January 3, 1822 to November 30, 1825, recording wholesale dealings in commodities such as coffee, tea, molasses, sugar, rice, indigo and cotton; the buying and selling of stocks, chiefly shares in American banks; trading in currency; and other investments. Hubbard wrote frequently to Charles E. Dudley of Albany, merchant and politician; Gardiner Greene, a Boston merchant; and the firms Macdonald & Ridgely of Baltimore, and J.D. & M. Williams and Munson & Bernard of Boston, giving detailed reports on prices and current economic conditions. Also included are letters to Coit and Hubbard family members and friends, notably his half-brother, jurist Samuel Hubbard (1785-1847), of Boston. Some concern business matters, but most are written to or about Hubbard's children and his wards, the children of Daniel Jepson, regarding their activities and upbringing. His son and assistant David M. Hubbard (1804-1884) wrote letters on his father's behalf during the City's Yellow Fever epidemic in 1822, and after his own return from a voyage to South America in 1823-1824 as a supercargo. David G. Hubbard's correspondence in the latter part of 1825 reported increasing local business failures and money scarcity, reflecting financial crisis in London, and the impending Panic of 1826. The rear loose endpaper contains a brief note, dated June 1825, recording C. E. Dudley and H. D. Sedgwick's recommendation of Joseph Cogswell and George Bancroft as teachers.