The Eliphalet Davis records are comprised of the business and personal receipts of Eliphalet Davis, and includes a license from the Internal Revenue Department allowing Davis to carry on business as a soap manufacturer in Cambridge, Mass. Among the receipts are a few bills to his clients, but the majority are billed to and paid by Davis. The receipts are often itemized, making it possible to sketch the growth of an increasingly successful business.
The more modest bills give way to bills for thousands of printed labels for his soaps, often on special colored papers with colored ink designs and lettering. The soaps had various names, ranging from the mundane "diamond soap" to the more imaginative "veritable swoon," and Davis also started selling "Saponaceous Dentifrice" in the 1850s. Another mark of his success is that at about the same time that he paid for advertisements in New England newspapers he started paying various express services, presumably for shipping quantities of his stock to eager long distance buyers.
In addition to supplies for his business he bought basic provisions. Foodstuffs included figs, raisins, oranges, molasses, salmon, coffee and tea. In an early example of the benefits of recycling, Davis received a discount on his porter by providing his own bottles. His clothing purchases included a bonnet, moleskin hat, alpaca vest and doeskin pants. A violin and four marble hearths were two of his more luxuriant purchases.
There are several distinctive letterheads of Cambridge and Boston businessmen, especially for printers and engravers. Most printing services were performed by Dutton & Wentworth, and the principal engraver was Nathaniel Dearborn. Both businesses were in Boston, as was Ammi Cutter & Cummings, who "constantly keep for sale, LIVER OIL and BLUBBER..... Also, NEATSFOOT OIL, and the best of Winter and Summer Strained SPERMACETI OIL, TALLOW, &c." Davis bought quantities of oils, tallow and ashes in order to make his soaps.
During the mid-nineteenth century, Eliphalet Davis was a fancy soap maker operating a business at 333 Main Street, Cambridge, Mass., with a home around the corner at 58 Cherry Street. In 1813 he left Bradford, N.H., for Massachusetts, and by 1817, he was working in Cambridge with David Oliver. By 1857 he had his own company (with J. M. Davis), which may later have been sold to the Lever Brothers.
Several other members of the Davis family had their own soap firms in Cambridge. George M. Davis is identified as a soap boiler in the Cambridge city directory of 1848. Isaac Davis & Co. (with James C. Davis) was a soap manufacturer with a business located on Mason Street. By 1857 Isaac was a spring bed manufacturer, but James C. was still in the soap business. Curtis Davis & Alexander Dickinson were listed as soap and candle manufacturers. Curtis Davis' later went into partnership with Lysander Kemp.
Little is known about Eliphalet's personal life. His wife, possibly Ann Bemis, and he had a son who attended C. G. Hazeltine's school in Westboro, Mass., in 1845-46. Enoch Davis, possibly Eliphalet's brother, died in 1831 or 1832, and Eliphalet settled his estate. In 1845, Eliphalet is noted as the guardian of John F. Davis, possibly Enoch's child. Eliphalet and Enoch were both members of the First Universalist Society in Cambridge.
