Merchant

A merchant traded in goods. In big ports the word suggested importers and wholesalers, while in American towns it often meant the owner of a retail store.

Census instructions pushed for detail. In 1870 and 1880 a merchant who fit a single word, such as grocer, was to be called that, otherwise dry goods merchant and the like, and 1870 asked to add wholesale or retail. In 1910 enumerators were again told to tell retail from wholesale, as retail merchant, dry goods.