Letter book of Joseph P. Hornor (1785-1845), hardware dealer in Philadelphia, with copies of his outbound letters. Although Hornor was sometimes known as a hardware merchant, the letters describe a general mercantile business spreading throughout the Philadelphia hinterland as far as the upper North Branch of the Susquehanna River, and mention commodities such as Mediterranean wines and Kentucky tobacco. After July 1821, the letters are signed by his brother-in-law George M. Coates (1779-1868) and Samuel Grant as assignees, a business failure in the wake of the Panic of 1819. The subsequent letters cover the attempts of Hornor's assignees to settle his debts using Hornor's surviving assets. The diminishing number of letters from the decade after 1827 deal with settling the debts of Garrick Mallery of Wilkes-Barre.