History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

TRADE AND BARTER. 763
street, then dubbed Whiskey street, the denizens of
which were often rebuked in the tabernacle for their
iniquities, rapidly became the business quarter of the
city, John and Enoch Reese, the third firm in historic
date, building a store on the ground later occupied by
the express office, and J. M. Horner & Co., the fourth,
occupying a portion of the premises of the Deseret
News. 31 Among the men who had become prominent
at the time of the Utah war were Gilbert & Gerrish
and William Nixon, the latter being still termed the
father of Utah merchants. 32
Before the Utah war and for several years afterward,
internal trade was conducted mainly by barter
and the due-bill system. At this period the settlers
had little use for money, and preferred taking in exchange
for their commodities something that they
could eat, or drink, or wear, and which could not be
had at home. Thus scores of well-to-do farmers, with
families to clothe and educate, while living in greater
comfort perhaps than those of the western or Pacific
states, seldom possessed a dollar in coin. Should one
of them, for instance, require clothing for wife or
child, he consulted the store-keeper, who agreed, perhaps,
to supply him for so many loads of wood. If
he should have no spare wood, he searched out some
neighbor who had a surplus and offered him its equivalent
in butter or poultry. Perhaps, however, this
neighbor did not need butter or poultry, but required
a few loads of gravel or adobes. In that case the
farmer must find some one who was willing: to exchange
31 Horner & Co. reduced the price of sugar to three pounds for Si, whereupon
Livingston & Kinkead sold it at 30 cents a pound, calico at 18| cents a
yard, and marked all their goods 25 per cent below former prices, giving a
guarantee never to exceed these rates. Deseret News, Sept. 28, 1854. In 18.>5,
however, coffee and moist sugar were still selling at 40 cents per lb., and
domestics at 25 cents a yard, tea being worth §2.25 per lb., flour $6.25 per
100 lbs., bacon and cheese each 30 cents, and butter 3G to 40 cents. Chandler's
Visit to S. Lake, 345. Horner & Co. continued but a short time in business,
being succeeded by Hooper & Williams.
32 Gilbert & Gerrish were a gentile firm, and William Nixon was a Mormon
of English descent, who began his commercial career at St Louis.
Among his pupils were the Walker brothers.