We thoroughly enjoy books, bookstores and almost anything associated with them. Not long ago, while researching early New Westminster book dealers for a future presentation and answering a question about the availability of books and newspapers in early New Westminster, we uncovered a very comprehensive advertisement for a local "bookseller and stationer."
ST Tilley, or Seth Tilley as he was more commonly known, was prominent in the colony, and his establishment was called the Colonial Book Store on Columbia Street in New Westminster. The year was 1862, and Tilley was, through this comprehensive notice, letting the paper's followers know that he was fully prepared to meet their reading and writing needs.
First, since we write this for a newspaper, we should start by saying that Tilley's store offered "the latest newspapers of the day received from all parts of the world, if required. All British and American reviews, magazines, periodicals and new novels, by the best authors, received by every steamer."
He was bringing in materials from San Francisco via Victoria, where he also had a business, and these included novels from English and American publishers along with "all the standard works" of poetry and fiction. His shelves also held a variety of prayer and hymn books for various denominations along with Bibles.
Finding your way around the colony was also addressed at Tilley's store as he featured "maps, plans etc. . (with) plans of all the cities and towns on the Fraser River, maps of Cariboo and the whole country west of the Rocky Mountains."
The stationery side of Tilley's business was also very comprehensive.
The ad contains a long list that offered, among many other items, "memorandum and blank books, tune books, ledgers, journals, cash and day books, indelible inks in bottles of all sizes, steel and quill pens, sealing wax, seals and every other article in the stationery line."
Need something else to write on? Tilley advertised "blank cards of every description and colour. Foolscap, folio post, letter and note paper of every size and quality, all sizes and colours of envelopes to suit the various descriptions of paper."
This business must have had connections to a musical instrument supplier in San Francisco as his store in the Royal City also offered "guitars, banjos, violins, accordions, flutinas, clarinets, flutes, etc. etc."
This was most definitely a business that focused on a particular market and need. It took orders from elsewhere in the colony, "orders from the Upper Country punctually attended to," and if they didn't have it they would get it: "orders for articles not in stock, can be obtained with the utmost dispatch."
New Westminster in 1862 certainly had a knowledgeable and reliable source for books and stationery items.
Seth Tilley wasn't the only supplier, but he was very good at what he did.
