Salem Impost on this day records ships arrived at the American port from Calcutta, Manila, Surinam, Guadaloupe and Sumatra.

Salem then was a leading exporter of pepper and the page shows a lot of pepper having arrived from Sumatra. The ship from Calcutta, Eliza, with “Benj. Lander, master from Calcutta”, had carried 1,02,802 pounds of brown sugar and 810 pounds of sugar, among other articles.

The other ships had carried sugar, molasses, pepper, coffee, indigo, tea, and cotton.

The ship from Manila had carried 1,15,133 pounds of indigo.

Impost books were records of ships entering a port, their port of origin, their merchandise and the duties they paid to the US government on these goods.

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