Round the Square
December 27, 2025
**BACK IN TIME: This is a bit different, but we liked it. **
Are New Year’s gifts a thing? It was once considered the time to swap presents, so we suppose in December of 1887, it wasn’t out of place.
That year, Brennan & Davis Jewelers, Booksellers and Stationers at 21 Main St. ran a sizable ad giving an alphabetical list of appropriate gifts they had available for sale. Albums, artotypes and artists’ studies; books, Bibles, bric-a-brac shelves, brass goods and baskets; clocks, canes, card cases, collar and cuff boxes, cigar cases, cigarette cases and celluloid Christmas souvenirs.
Dressing cases — all kinds, in plush and leather for ladies and gents, Dictionaries for pockets and for school, diaries – the Excelsior, and diamonds; Easels — bamboo, brass and wood; fans — fine feathers and gauze, handpainted; Globes, gold pens and holders; Handkerchief boxes in plush and leather; Inkstands in brass, wood, leather, glass and iron; Jewelry — new solid gold, silver, gold roll plate and amber, Japanese goods; Knives; Letter cases and letter racks’ Manicure sets, magic lanterns (ooh, with a Genie?), mirrors, triples mirrors; novelties from all over the world;
Olive wood novelties; Pocketbooks, pictures, prayer books and hymnals, plush boxes, picture frames in plush, leather, wood and ivory finish; Quartz specimens; Razors; Silver — sterling silver, stationery and spectacles — eyes tested free.
Gosh, this store sounds amazing so far!
Toilet sets, table gongs, thermometers, traveling cases, toys; Umbrellas — Fine silk umbrellas with sold, silver and natural stick handles, $3 to $20 each. (That’s $101.52 to $676.77 in today’s funds. This predated the Dollar General.) Vinaigrettes; Writing desks and work boxes; Young folks’ histories; and Zylonite mirrors and toilet sets.
Their stock was the largest and prices the lowest, the advertisement stated.