Daily AncestorColporteur
A colporteur was a traveling seller or distributor of religious books, Bibles and tracts, often employed by a religious society.
Colporteurs went door to door, sometimes on foot or horseback across rural districts, selling or giving away Bibles, hymnals and religious pamphlets. In the United States many worked for the American Tract Society or similar groups.
In a census or church record the word marks a missionary book agent rather than an ordinary peddler.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1880 to 1920 census
Silas Mead, 37, Colporteur, Tenn.
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Daily Ancestor. "Colporteur." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/colporteur. Last checked 2026-10-01.