Lucy Mack Smith said her husband, Joseph Smith Sr., was drawn into the ginseng trade—or what she called his “China adventure”—a few months after they opened a mercantile in early1802. Their brief business adventure led to catastrophic failure with far-reaching consequences for the extended Smith and Mack families, and led to part of the family leaving Vermont within a few years. Although Lucy's family memoir highlights the major events of the story, there are other records that amplify or correct details she tried to recall forty years later about events that occurred while she was near death.1 These additional sources help us understand more fully what happened.Lucy's brother, Stephen Mack, was a land developer who owned and leased farms in Orange County, Vermont, but especially in Tunbridge Gore surrounding Smith Settlement where Joseph's family lived. Stephen and his wife Temperance Mack lived with their children in The Market, the central village in the township about an hour-and-a-half walk from Smith Settlement. But Stephen Mack needed Jesse Smith, one of three town selectmen, to approve his lease of 150 acres.2Stephen also knew Jesse because they were both merchants. Stephen owned a store in the township's central village with business partner John Mudget, and Jesse owned one in the settlement that drew customers from the southern part of the township.3 They both had unmarried siblings and Stephen introduced his nineteen-year-old sister, Lucy, to Jesse's twenty-four-year-old brother, Joseph. Four months after Temperance Mack delivered her twin girls, after mother had recovered and the routine care of the babies was established, Lucy married Joseph on January 24, 1796.Jesse's store relied on the family of his wife, Hannah Peabody Smith. She was from the Salem Peabodys—the most successful shippers in New England—and her uncle Joseph Peabody imported rum, “spice” (allspice or Jamaican pepper), and cinnamon, all goods Jesse sold. Her father, Benjamin Peabody, made iron barrel hoops for coopers but also cast spoons like Jesse sold.4 Jesse drew from local sources as well, including a merchant in nearby Hannover, New Hampshire, Richard Lang, who owned a large store overlooking Dartmouth College and brought goods from his brother's store in Salem that he then sold to other merchants on credit.5 Jesse owed Lang money for goods, and after Hannah delivered their son Ira on January 30, 1797, he left for Canada on business where New York exporter John Jacob Astor bought furs and ginseng.6 Although his relationship with Astor as competitor or partner is not known, Smith could not sell his goods, and when his horse died in March while he was still in Canada, he wrote to Lang begging for an extension on his loan.7 It is not known if or how Smith resolved his debt with Lang, but afterward he borrowed money from his father-in-law and used his land as collateral.8Five years later, when Jesse's brother Joseph needed a loan to start his own store, he did not use Lang as a financier but borrowed $1,800 from Higginson, Higginson, and Salisbury in Boston.9 The Higginsons encouraged their clients to trade with China and may have encouraged Joseph as well.10 Stephen Mack used this same lender, and since financial institutions usually made loans based on recommendations and assurances from their proven clients, Mack likely endorsed Joseph Smith to the lenders.11Joseph and Lucy rented a store in 1802 before spring planting three-and-a-half miles west of Smith Settlement in East Randolph village.12 The community was a flourishing industrial center, and at that time was the largest village in the township. It had three stores, distilleries, factories, mills, and other enterprises—many of which catered to the turnpike traffic coming down from Canada to Bennington and then through East Randolph, continuing south to the boat docks on the Connecticut River at West Lebanon.13Six months after Joseph and Lucy opened their store, Joseph's brother Stephen Smith died and Lucy became ill. Doctors called their sickness phthisis, the public called it consumption, and before the end of the century everyone called it tuberculosis. During this time, Joseph may have learned the Chinese used ginseng to treat consumption.14 But he would also receive it as pay. Ginseng was used as currency in America's barter economy. Jonathan Smith, a merchant in Randolph Village eight miles west of Joseph and Lucy's store, offered hard cash for it to attract customers.15 Other Vermont merchants advertised instructions about digging and processing it.16Many factors may have nudged Joseph into the ginseng business. Widespread enthusiasm about trading with China prompted most Vermont merchants to consider it. Marmaduke Wait, a merchant in Woodstock who had a brother-in-law with a store in Windsor, vigorously promoted the ginseng trade. He convinced shopkeeper Amos Porter to get into the business. Porter sold his farm for one hundred pounds of ginseng, purchased more, and set off in April 1802 bound for China. When Porter got to Canton, Wait was already there.17Joseph heard “that crystalized ginseng root, bore a very high price in China; that it was used as a remedy for the plague, which was then raging in that country.”18 If Joseph's source suggested the bubonic plague—the black plague—was then in China, the information was wrong.19 But if his source suggested consumption—the white plague—was in China and was treated with ginseng, it was right. But the disease had been there for centuries and was not at epidemic levels.20 And plague was a minor story when compared to earlier ones about John Jacob Astor returning from China with a fortune.21While Lucy was still recovering from tuberculosis, and “Soon after he commenced trading,” Joseph “went into a traffick of this article.” He “appropriated all his means” to the project. Lucy said he had at least $4,500 worth of ginseng to sell that had to be dug between the end of August and early October 1802.22 Ginseng experts Robert Beyfuss and Scott Persons conclude Joseph needed to start with 3,375 pounds of green root, or more than 32,500 individual plants to get his $4,500 of finished product.23 This cost Joseph Sr. about $675 if he hired out the labor.24Finding that much root in about a month required several hunters to work quickly. While many merchants hired Native Americans to collect the root for them, some also hired mountain settlers as well. Vermont ginseng hunters believed if they used an ax to notch a tree during the summer months to mark the root's location, the ginseng would move before they returned in the fall.25 And so they needed to find it when it was ready. This was not easy among the ferns, Virginia creeper with its red berries, and other ground cover. Vermont's hillside dwellers discovered divining rods helped them locate it quicker.26 These rods had religious overtones and users believed God influenced their movement. Near Stockbridge, Vermont, where a man who would become Joseph Sr.’s partner in the ginseng trade had a store, “People were saying that certain persons were directed by rods to certain plants and roots that they used to cure diseases, in many cases which they thought almost miraculous.”27 These same people believed Joseph Smith Sr. learned secrets of the rod after he moved to New York, and not from them. Joseph could not gather the ginseng himself anyway and had to hire others. But he would become familiar with the process through their efforts.28After the workmen dug the roots, Joseph paid for about 320 hours of work washing them.29 Then he “crystalized” the ginseng. Crystallization was likely done by steaming fresh roots until their sugars caramelized.30 Steaming sweetened the flavor slightly and helped preserve it in the drying process—increasing its value to four dollars a pound. After steaming, it took 45 days to dry under normal conditions, but Smith had a hop processing oast that could dry the ginseng in half the time. He would have ended up with about 1,125 pounds of roots ready for the market.31While the costs and time are only approximations, Smith paid about $1,250 getting his ginseng ready for market. He then needed barrels to pack it; he paid to ship it downriver to New York; and he rented cargo space onboard a China bound vessel. Total costs were around $1,800.As September ended, so did the principal ginseng harvesting window. When Joseph “got a quantity” of ginseng ready for market, Elkanah Stevens Esq., a merchant in neighboring Royalton, “offered him three thousand dollars for the whole lot.”32 Shopkeepers often supported each other by trading an excess of some goods to cover a shortage of others or pooling resources for transportation. Smith and Stevens had a lot in common. They both came to the area in the fall of 1791. They were both from Massachusetts. Elkanah and Elizabeth Stevens lost their three-year-old son Lowell in the consumption epidemic, and buried him in Royalton on August 14, 1802, two weeks after Joseph's brother died of the same disease in the same village.33 But there were also differences between the two. Stevens was eleven years older than Smith. He handled legal cases on local land issues and owned rights to build a series of locks on the river to promote and control trade. He owned a tavern and an ashery. And he rented a quarter-acre lot in the village from David Waller (whose brother John married Joseph's sister Priscilla Smith in 1796) where he ran his “red store” with a second one in Stockbridge twenty miles away run by Alex Ralson.34 Stevens stocked his stores with imported goods from Boston, the West Indies, and England. He did not mention ginseng or Chinese goods but advertised for ashes and salts of lye as payment he processed in his ashery.35When Stevens offered to buy Smith's $4,500 worth of ginseng for $3,000, it may have been before it was all gathered. In Lucy's revised draft of her account, she edited “a large quantity” and then said Stevens offered Joseph money for “what he had.”36 Joseph turned down Stevens's proposal, “saying he would rather ship it himself than accept the offer.”37 But Joseph had other options as well. He could have taken the ginseng to the export merchants and sold it to them. He could have sold it to a ship's captain, as they often traded on the side in a practice known as “private trade.” Joseph decided, however, to “ship it himself,” a choice requiring a great deal of self-confidence and some naïveté.Lucy recalled, “In a short time my husband went to the city of New York with the view of shipping his ginseng.”38 She never mentioned Salem—the port city nearest their home, and one Joseph needed to pass on his way to New York City. His sister-in-law's uncle Joseph Peabody was the most powerful man in America's shipping industry and sat on the board that controlled all shipping leaving Salem.39 Joseph Smith either consciously passed on Salem—a sign all was not good with his brother Jesse who was operating a store near him—or he stopped there to learn no ships were bound for China with cargo that year.When Joseph arrived in New York, he had two options for a China-bound ship. One was the Devotion with George Duplex as captain. Duplex had just stumbled doing business in China and was desperate for another chance. A friend wrote, “Duplex has had a losing voyage which makes all crooked.”40 Duplex, however, took on consignment the Pierrepont ginseng shipment.41 This left the Severn as Smith's only option. It arrived from China on March 16, 1803, making the journey from Canton in 135 days, a record turnaround.42 The ship's owners were John Whetten and John Jacob Astor who made their money by selling imported goods wholesale to retail merchants.43 Astor already had a reputation for success and had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of New York real estate.44 His ship would have been an attractive option.As Smith looked the ship over, he found it was fairly new. Built in 1792, Whetten and Astor bought it at auction after it was plundered by French pirates. The 279-ton schooner was 91.5 feet long with ample room for a large cargo. It could also make good time. It would soon be the first American ship to return to the United States from Canton in one hundred days on March 9, 1805. Fast trips cut costs and benefited both owners and clients.45If Smith talked directly with Astor as the ship was unloaded from its previous voyage, cleaned, provisioned, and loaded again, he found the German-born trader full of optimism. Astor wrote a friend on April 26, 1803, that he was going to send his ship to Canton again, and “the Severn will make the best voyage this Season.”46 Astor became senior partner and Whetten the junior partner for the 1803 voyage to China.47Sometime between the day the Severn arrived in port on March 16 and the day it left again on May 23, 1803, Smith arranged with its new captain, William Howell, to act as his agent selling his ginseng. Howell had recently returned from China after a successful voyage as captain of the Betsy out of New Haven, and had experience in the Far East.48 Smith's arrangement with Howell was common. Captains filled their cargos with the goods of the merchants who hired them. If there was extra room, they used it themselves.49Profits were not just made in goods sold, but in well-chosen goods purchased for the home market. Some ships arrived in China loaded only with silver to buy goods. Those most profitable, however, arrived full of goods and returned full of goods. Merchants who knew what they were doing would rather get tea for ginseng than money.50 According to Lucy, Joseph “made arrangements with the captain in this wise: for the captain to sell his ginseng in China and bring him the avails thereof . . . which he (the captain) bound himself to do, in a written obligation.”51Merchants usually agreed quickly to contracts with ship captains. One merchant took his goods to New York harbor bound for China and found the ship he wanted to contract with was preparing to leave the dock four hours early; he barely had time to get his goods loaded and get back on the dock before it set sail.52 Joseph made his arrangements well in advance of the ship's scheduled departure, allowing him enough time to return to Randolph and tell Elkanah Stevens. Stevens went to New York, found the Severn, arranged with Captain Howell to ship his ginseng also, and sent his son along, “in order to take charge of it.”53Howell already had “more furs than usual” with 6,133 beaver skins, 3,000 seal skins, 1,270 fox skins, and 697 otter skins from Astor's Canadian business. He had chests full of $62,000 in silver coin so he could buy additional goods to return with a full ship packed equally tight on its return voyage. And after squeezing in the Smith and Stevens barrels, he set sail with 22,528 pounds of ginseng—most of it coming from Astor's Canadian trade or through other merchants.54Stevens's son who accompanied the ginseng was between twenty-three and twenty-nine years old. He was probably Jesse Stevens who lived by Elkanah in his declining years, but the father-son relationship is not yet confirmed.55 If young Stevens went “in order to take charge of” Elkanah's ginseng, the Stevens family must have understood the wisdom of sending someone along to supervise business. Trading on the international market was difficult as “many fell victim to scams and trickery.”56 In addition to potential deceit, traders also faced bad weather and pirates that added risk to their adventure.57 To protect against unforeseen tragedy, Astor insured the ship's cargo on May 19, 1803, for $30,000. The Severn then set sail on May 23, 1803.58 A week later, although Astor expected his “best voyage” that year, he took out an additional $10,000 of insurance at a premium of 9 percent.59It is unlikely Astor knew that additional ships were leaving ports that spring loaded with ginseng. The Eliza left Boston harbor with 933 pounds. The Rosseau left Havre De Grace (a small port north of Baltimore) with 4,398 pounds. And out of Philadelphia the Ohio, George Washington, and Plough Boy embarked with a combined 106,640 pounds of ginseng.60In Vermont, as the Severn prepared to sail, Stephen Mack began to make heavy investments in new enterprises. He had already moved to make a major expansion in 1800 when he bought out his former partner John Mudget for $8,000. About the time Smith was in New York arranging to ship his ginseng, Mack significantly expanded his business efforts on April 5 and April 6, 1803. He and Samuel Bement leased property together along the river to control the mill dam and build a series of factories where they could grind meal, cut nails, saw lumber, press linseed oil, and card wool. Mack finished the deal May 17, 1803, one week before Smith's ship left for China.61 Mack also borrowed money from several lenders to fund his expansion including a loan for $1,811.21 from the Higginson brothers in Boston. Loans were frequently made for a year and this may have been a way of refinancing Smith's $1,800 loan made at the beginning of 1802.62 Eight days after the Severn left, Asael Smith also borrowed $1,000 due about the time the ship would return. He began helping his younger sons acquire land with the money. Since Joseph Sr. was buying his land on “halves,” he could pay his father what was owed after his ship returned.63 The future looked bright to the whole family.Smith's ginseng made good progress on its way to China. A gale blew on September 23 and pushed the ship Devotion off course. It arrived in port two days later. The Severn was likely impacted but arrived five days behind the Devotion on September 30, 1803.64 Chinese officials carefully regulated foreigners. All ships stopped at the Macao port on an island at the mouth of the Pearl River, as they were not allowed to sail the seventy miles upriver without an escort. Captain Howell received a permit and was assigned a Chinese pilot who directed him to Whampoa, the anchorage for foreign ships eleven miles south of Canton.65 Only ships’ captains, their mates, supercargoes, merchants, and other senior staff could leave Whampoa and travel upriver to Canton. A supercargo was a business agent responsible for selling the cargo on behalf of the owners “which included judging the fairness of prices offered by Chinese merchants.” He also purchased goods for the return voyage and approved their quality and price. Astor did not use supercargoes. He delegated all these responsibilities to Howell who had the freedom to negotiate as needed.66Despite Astor's strategy, young Stevens was apparently allowed into Canton and must have gotten in as a supercargo since Lucy recalled, “when he arrived in china [Stevens] sold the ginseng which my husband sent.”67 Lucy could only report what she had heard from others, however, and if she was correct that her husband signed a contract with Howell to sell the goods, then Howell was responsible for selling the ginseng and would have received a percentage of the price. Lucy later said nothing of Howell's involvement, however. She laid the entire blame for the unraveling of her husband's business deal on young Stevens.The trade was complex. The Hong traded in peculs, the amount a man could carry on a shoulder pole that was standardized to equal 133.33 pounds. The price per pecul was negotiated in taels, silver coins weighing 1.3 ounces each. Since an American silver dollar weighed 1.06 ounces with 10 percent copper, a tael was worth a little more than a dollar. All exchanges with foreigners were made in fractional units of taels. All business was conducted in Cantonese through an assigned interpreter and using Chinese units of measurement.A Hong trader and Smith's seller began the negotiations with the established price for “Canada fine” ginseng set at 43 2/10 taels per pecul for the 1803 season. The trader pushed down the price from there.68 Smith's crystalized ginseng from Vermont would be premium product. But if Vermont merchant Amos Porter's experience the year before foreshadowed that of young Stevens, the Hong merchants did not accommodate those without experience. When Porter arrived, his naïveté showed. He wrote about “pickles” and dollars in his diary as he tried to figure out what he was getting. He approached the American consular agent, Sullivan Dorr, for help. Dorr was inundated with ginseng shipments and complained Americans were driving the price down. He remarked, “I cant be pester'd with ginseng” and advised Porter to sell quickly because the ginseng spoiled in humid weather.69 Porter sold low, and, unsure what to acquire, he quickly purchased nankeens (a durable cotton fabric used for trousers) only to see others buying them for 20 percent less before he left. As he was preparing to leave, he heard that prices of exports were expected to drop further. Porter was an experienced merchant who had a successful business in Vermont, but he got taken both selling and buying.70One of the most popular products, and one useful for figuring out the value of the Smith ginseng, was tea. The most expensive tea was hyson that sold for 28 3/10 taels per pecul in 1803. This green tea came in two varieties, young and mature. Merchants could also trade for mid-priced teas such as congo and bohea. Bohea was so popular in America it was often a synonym for tea and 242 chests of it were thrown into Boston harbor in 1773. At least one Randolph merchant sold both hyson and bohea.71 Most merchants offered inexpensive options, too.Captain Howell sold more than eleven thousand animal skins and the rest of the ginseng. He would have followed Astor's detailed instructions on what teas to buy and in what amounts, as he did also for nankeens, silks, chinaware, rhubarb, and the other items.72 After the Stevens and Smith ginseng sold, according to Lucy it was Stevens who “took possession of the avails.”73 This is a shift from her assertion that Joseph contracted with Howell to bring him the “avails.” If the “avails” consisted of Chinese goods, it was exactly what was needed to make a handsome profit. If it was simply money, it was a grave error.Since Smith's 1,125 pounds of ginseng was 8.44 peculs of high-quality product, it could have sold for up to 365 taels—enough to buy 12.88 peculs (or 1,718 pounds) of the finest hyson tea. This was worth about $2,267.76 in Vermont. Even if young Stevens sold high in a market with too much ginseng and no epidemic, after Joseph retailed the tea and paid his workers for processing and Howell for the shipping the ginseng, he would only have a few hundred dollars left over—about what he would have made as a common laborer during the same time. But he would have made a profit.74Captain Howell purchased for the return voyage 1,721 peculs of soft sugar, 761 peculs of green tea (probably some of both hyson and young hyson), 452 peculs of black tea, 459 peculs of nankeens, 141 peculs of chinaware, 127 peculs of silk piece goods, 63 peculs of “China root” (probably ginger but possibly turmeric), 12 peculs of an unidentified item, nine peculs of lacquered ware, five peculs of vermillion, two peculs of matts, two peculs of sweetmeats, and one pecul of glass beads. Granule sugar was cheaper to grow and refine in China than in the West Indies, and it easily sold in the American market. The records do not show which purchases were private trade and which were done for Astor, but the Severn returned to New York loaded with goods in high demand.Although the Severn arrived in Canton five days after the Devotion, its crew was quick, and after a little over two months it left only a day after the Devotion on December 2, 1803. Howell made good time and arrived in New York harbor on April 15, 1804, after only 130 days. The entire journey from beginning to end was a startling 328 days and was newsworthy.75Under Howell's “efficient management” the quick trip cut costs for Astor, and it should have cut costs for Smith, too.76 Astor advertised full chests of hyson tea, young hyson tea, and hyson skin all “perfectly free from damage.” The papers announced whole, half, and quarter chests—small boxes with about thirty-five pounds of tea. Astor also advertised his other wares and sold some of his tea directly to merchants without advertising.77 His trip was successful. A month later Astor bought out Whetten and became sole owner of the Severn.78 His 1803 trade put him in a position to expand significantly as New York's exports grew by over 500 percent over the next four years. Astor transformed the city.79 His decision the following year to send 117 1/2 peculs of ginseng to China suggests his 1803 ginseng sold near the high end of the market. If Howell made the trade on Joseph Smith's behalf as Lucy said he was contracted to do, Smith should have made a modest profit on his trade.80Lucy implies her husband, who was so unwilling to let Stevens buy out his ginseng, waited passively in East Randolph for young Stevens to come to him with the avails of the voyage. When he heard young Stevens “returned to Tunbridge,” possibly meaning he was living there since his parents were in Royalton and the Smiths were in Randolph, Joseph went immediately to young Stevens.81 In Lucy's recounting the experience, she then shifted responsibility back on the captain and said Joseph “inquired respecting the success of the Captain in selling his ginseng.” Young Stevens told Joseph “quite a plausible tale . . . that the sale had been a perfect failure, and the only thing which had been brought for him from China, was a small chest of tea, which had been delivered into his care.” The chest was probably a quarter chest worth about forty-six dollars. When Lucy revised her narrative, she deleted the reference to the delivery, leaving it unclear as to whether Joseph had already received it or was about to do so, and whether Howell or Stevens was the giver.82If Stevens conducted the exchange as Lucy suggests, Howell needed to be in Canton while he did it and knew the details of that exchange. If Stevens lied to the Smiths about what happened in China, Howell had to lie as well. But there was clearly more to the story. If young Stevens was the source of bad news about the shipment, he arrived in Tunbridge within a day of disembarking from the ship, and Smith never went to Howell to confirm the story. Three days after the Severn put into port, Stephen Mack went into the Tunbridge clerk's office and transferred his deed to his land and other business holdings as payment for the $2,500 he owed to the Boston lenders. There appears to have been some urgency because the completed transfer was entered into the deed book on the same day it was arranged, although it usually took weeks to get similar transactions recorded. The local justice of the peace, Seth Paine, witnessed the transfer and attested to its entry. Mack promised Stephen and Henry Higginson he would make regular payments for a year until the loan was paid. If he “paid on time, the above sale is void,” and Mack could keep his property. Since Mack had recently paid $8,000 for half the property and was putting the entire holdings up as collateral for a $2,500 debt, he had ample motivation to pay the refinanced loan.83Earlier, as the Severn neared its return date, Elkanah Stevens advertised in the newspaper on December 20, 1803, that he was calling in all debts due at his stores in Royalton and Stockbridge (managed by Moses Cutter) by January 1, 1804. He gave his customers three weeks to pay debts before suing them.84 Any lawsuits would be resolved by the spring session of the court and the payments with anticipated ginseng returns would allow him to pursue other interests. While it is possible Stevens knew his son would return claiming his trip to China was a failure and he was preparing to leave town, this cynical view is not the only way to understand the data. Stevens may have planned to expand in a new direction when his ship came in. A few weeks before the Severn embarked, he had 2½ “lands,” a house, a watch, three horses, and two milk cows when taxed in March 1803. By the time taxes were assessed again in September 1804, Stevens had increased his holdings. Although he no longer had a watch, he had 3½ “lands,” three houses, and four horses.85 During the same period, he quit advertising his Royalton store and only advertised his one in Stockbridge. Soon he sold everything he owned in Royalton and moved to Stockbridge.86Lucy did not mention how Elkanah Stevens's ginseng did in China, but she did note young Stevens “hired a house” from Mack in Tunbridge where he had “8 or 10 hands” working to crystalize ginseng.87 This was probably at the Mack ashery on Potash Road that had a large kiln. Lucy based her accusations of young Stevens's perfidy, and her conclusion that her husband would have indeed been successful in his business endeavors if it had not been for the dishonesty of others, on what transpired there. Young Stevens “got fairly at work” when Mack found him one day “considerably intoxicated” and asked him in a “careless and indifferent manner” how much money Smith's “adventure” had made. Stevens opened a chest and said: “‘There, sir, are the proceeds of Mr. Smith's ginseng’; Showing him a vast amount of silver and gold.”88Mack seems to have not suspected anything, as he was “much astounded” by what Stevens shared. Mack rushed to the Smith residence at “about 10 o'clock that night.” He had to cross two rivers, go through the woods at night, and traverse Kelsey Mountain on a back road to get to the Smith residence in East Randolph in the dark. While in daylight he could have made the six-mile journey on horseback in about an hour, it could have taken most of the night to make the journey in the blackness of the mountain forest. Lucy noted Stevens sobered up in the meantime, realized what he had done, and “went immediately to his establishment, dismisse