Elizabeth Kelly-Griswold: Connecting the Past with the Present at Blue Mango Books and Manuscripts
Elizabeth Kelly-Griswold, the owner of Blue Mango Books and Manuscripts, of New Hope, Pennsylvania, collects and sells early American primary source material, including journals, diaries, account books, and bibles. She loves finding stories and connections in the material she collects. A big part of being able to sell these items is researching what they mean and the people involved.
She uses platforms like Find A Grave in order to do extensive research on the people mentioned in these books and manuscripts. Oftentimes, she’ll go on Ancestry and try to connect family members to important pieces of their history that she happens to find. In her words, it's important for her to “connect the past with the present.” Kelly-Griswold is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and the Bucks County Antique Association, and she closely works with local historical societies in order to connect local towns to glimpses of their history.
A significant part of Kelly-Griswold's journey is her interest in genealogy, biology, and the environment. She set off for college at the University of Wisconsin where she graduated with a degree in water resources and fisheries management. Her original career was as a fisheries biologist in both Wisconsin and Minnesota, where she focused on lab research. She credits a lot of the skills that help her focus on researching history nowadays, to the attentiveness and levels of observation she held in the lab setting.
In 2011, she moved to Pennsylvania where she began attending local auctions. It was here on Saturday mornings that she began buying and collecting bibles in hopes of eventually researching and selling them. A big part of this process included genealogy and connecting these bibles with descendants of the family lines in which they came from. This was all very different for her, she came from a family of physicians, but there was always a value placed on history. She remembers looking at old medical journals, recipes, and photos of her ancestors as they went through their medical careers. This part of her journey didn’t take off until a few years before she was contemplating full retirement. Currently, she spends her time between her three children and her grandchildren when she isn't collecting and researching. She wants others to know. “It's never too late to start a second career and do what you love and love what you do.”
Kelly-Griswold is looking forward to exhibiting at the upcoming Northampton Book Fair after selling, earlier this year at a variety of venues outside the region. She loves New England and Historic Deerfield in particular, often calling it a home away from home. She’ll also be participating in the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair in November and the Brooklyn Rare Book Fair in December.
She is extremely excited to showcase some of the early American primary source material, books, and folk art she's come across recently, and will have a collection full of history, meaning, and connection for others to look at and buy. One of the things, Blue Mango will have for sale is:
From Dog Skins to Dollars!
The Account Book of Josiah Gilson,
Tanner of Vermont
"Josiah Gilson (1793–1879) was born in Rindge, New Hampshire, the son of Abel Gilson (1764–1837) and Margaret Cary (1764–1857). In 1821, while living in Washington, New Hampshire, he married Vashti Wright (1792–1882), daughter of Benjamin Wright and Rebecca Copeland. At the time of his marriage, Gilson’s occupation was recorded as tanner. By 1830, Gilson had settled in Cavendish, Vermont, and became associated with the village of Proctorsville, where he operated a commercial tannery employing several workers. The tannery was among the early industries that helped establish Proctorsville as a growing commercial and manufacturing center. An account book dating from 1845 to 1874 documents many years of its business. Gilson was also active in town government. He served as a Cavendish selectman from 1828–1831 and again from 1845–1852, as a Justice of the Peace, and later represented Cavendish in the Vermont House of Representatives in 1865–1866." Kelly Griswold writes in her catalogue description.
"This 434-page folio account book, with entries dating from 1846–1874, documents the day-to-day operation of Gilson’s tannery. Among the many tanning-related entries are purchases of dog skins, sheep skins, horse hides and pelts, as well as sides of leather, green hides, hemlock wood and other materials necessary to the tanning trade. The account book records tanning charges and transactions involving hides and leather, offering a glimpse into the practical workings of a nineteenth-century rural Vermont tannery. The account book also reaches well beyond the tannery itself. Gilson recorded purchases and payments for sugar, oil, wood, bark, apples, pumpkins, squash, mutton, grass seed, wrapping paper, blank books, printed circulars, a volume entitled Domestic Animals, a saw frame, mittens, chair bottoming, barrels of cider, neatsfoot oil, vinegar and lime. There are entries for chopping wood, keeping cattle, digging graves, making boots, paying taxes and highway taxes, and numerous other services and household or business transactions. A particularly interesting tipped-in letter on page 308 is addressed to Gilson and reads, in part: “I have a few hides on hand and hoping you will pay me the highest prices.” The letter provides a direct connection between the ledger and the local hide trade. The ledger also records the business “Gilson & Richardson” on page 208, suggesting a partnership or related commercial enterprise," Kelly Griswold writes.
Blue Mango Books and Manuscripts will have much more up for exhibit, and Kelly-Griswold is excited to share the story behind these stories with others as passionate about history as she is. “It’s fascinating to me to read and to study about the lives that have gone before us,” she says.
To learn more about Blue Mango Books and Manuscripts. For book fair tickets and information.
Written by Meghan Cenci on November 23, 2022. Updated by Mark Brumberg on October 30, 2026.
Comments