Letterbook containing retained copies of outgoing business letters written by William R. Rodman from 1806-35. Rodman was alternately a merchant in New Bedford, Mass. and Philadelphia. The letters concern orders and invoices, prices, shipping, and sales of goods, as well as the financing of his various ventures. While Rodman sold a variety of goods, his sales concentrated for a time on whale oil and other whale products (New Bedford) and textiles and woolens (Philadelphia). Rodman also owned, for a time, a whale fishery in Havre (France).
