The material in this collection is primarily the receipts for books, clothes, passages, a rhinoceros, etc., while he was in Calcutta. There is also a small volume (approximately 50 pages), a duplicate receipt book which he kept as the Consul for the U.S. in Vera Cruz, Mexico.
Physician Marmaduke Burrough served as the U.S. Consul at Calcutta, India and Vera Cruz, Mexico.
Provenance
Presented by Mrs. Helen Taylor Currier and Dr. Edward Teitelman and accessioned, 1969 (1969 27ms).
General physical description
16 items.
Early American History Note
Marmaduke Burrough was a physician who served as U.S. Consul to Calcutta in 1828 and then Vera Cruz from 1835-1838. This collection contains a range of receipts relating to Burrough’s expenses as consul in both Calcutta and Vera Cruz. The Calcutta receipts begin in 1829 and end in 1830. These loose leaf receipts capture a range of Burrough’s activity, including bills from physicians, expenses for entertaining, and one for the passage of “a living rhinoceros” to Philadelphia onboard the Georgian. Burrough bought and then brought the second live rhinoceros to the United States in 1830. The animal was displayed in Philadelphia before being sold to a traveling exhibit.
The Vera Cruz records are in a bound journal entitled “duplicate bills” and record many of the same consul activities, minus the purchase and export of a live rhinoceros.
There is one letter in the collection. The letter from Prosper Wetmore, a prominent New York businessman, in is long and contains some retrospectives on his life.
The consular records provide insight on the growth of U.S. interests abroad and can offer insight into the activities of U.S. diplomats on these assignments.
Genre(s)
- Bills.
- Business Records and Accounts
- Diplomatic Material
- General Correspondence
- Official Government Documents and Records
- Receipts.
Subject(s)
- Americans Abroad
- Consuls -- United States.
- Diplomatic History
- Diplomats -- United States.
- Zoological specimens -- Collection and preservation.