The records of the Brewer store are very full. Most significant are the firm's daybooks, which are virtually complete for the entire period of the Brewer's operation of the store. Such gaps as exist are adequately documented through secondary record groups, such as blotters and salesbooks. In addition to this complete documentation of the goods sold each day, their price and purchaser, there are several inventories, a few timebooks, and a small body of correspondence related to the store.
The Brewer family was also involved in local real estate speculation and agricultural production, and a few records documenting these interests were retained with the store's records. Most complete is the hay scale register, covering the years 1839 to 1879. There are also records of land purchases, both in rural areas and in Marshall's "Eagle Block" which the family owned; land rental agreements; and timebooks apparently for laborers who worked the family's farmland.
Finally, the collection contains a few records generated by firms not owned by the Brewer's themselves. Most interesting are those of the Ceresco Mill, Ceresco Distillery, and the Fink & Butler store in Marshall. These records, however, are very incomplete.
The majority of the Brewer records retained at the Michigan Historical Collections are available on microfilm only. Filming was selective and information that was redundant or of minimal value was not placed on film. All original material not retained by the Michigan Historical Collections, whether filmed or not, has been placed on permanent loan with the Marshall Historical Society.
The Brewer General Store of Marshall was owned and operated by the same Michigan family for almost 100 years. The store was founded in June 1836 as a partnership venture of Chauncy M. Brewer and Charles T. Gorham. Although this partnership lasted but four years, the store continued to be managed by Brewer family members until 1926. Brewer General Store first did business just five years after the founding of Marshall. In a sense then, the store grew with the city, and its history is the history of Marshall itself.
Chauncy Brewer was born in 1814 in Oneonto County, New York. He lived on a family farm until 1827, when he became a clerk in a local general store. He continued working in the store until 1834 when he and a boyhood friend, Charles Gorham, struck out to the West to make their fortunes. During 1835 Brewer worked in a general store in Clinton, Michigan. In 1836 he and Gorham toured the southern part of Michigan's lower peninsula looking for a suitable location to open their own general store. In June 1836, they opened a store in Marshall. In 1840 Gorham dissolved the partnership to enter banking.
Brewer replaced Gorham with two new partners, his brothers-in-law Edward Butler and John Dusenbury. Despite these family ties, the partnership was dissolved in 1845 and Brewer chose to operate the store as its sole owner.
As time passed Brewer's sons became increasingly involved in the business, while Brewer himself increasingly was interested in other financial matters. In 1873, with the rebuilding of their building, Chauncy Brewer stepped aside and his sons, Edgar G. and Charles D., became the business' proprietors. This partnership ended in 1890 when Charles left the business and Edgar became its sole owner.
While the record is unclear, Edgar may have sold the store to H.E. Hart of Battle Creek about 1900. If the sale did occur, by 1905 the Brewer family had regained control of the business. The family continued to operate the store until 1926 when it was sold.
For most of this period the store specialized in dry goods, although it always carried a selection of other goods. At some point in the late nineteenth century the business began to carry a few groceries. After 1905 they also carried an extensive line of groceries along with the firm's more traditional merchandise. The venture into groceries, however, seems to have been unsuccessful and the store's merchandise became increasingly more narrow. By 1926 it seems to have carried dry goods exclusively.
