Last Updated: February 27, 2025

Yankee peddlers were a common sight in the Connecticut countryside in the mid-19th century. These traveling salesmen would move from town to town in carriages or carts carrying everything they had to sell. They often had goods ranging from pots and pans to hardware and spices.

The Nutmeg State

It is from peddlers’ sale of nutmeg that Connecticut received one of its nicknames, “the Nutmeg State.” Legend holds that crafty peddlers would substitute wooden nutmegs for the real thing and sell the imposters to unsuspecting customers. Many people believe that this legend is false; the time and cost of carving wooden nutmegs would have outweighed the cost of simply selling the real thing.

Eventually, the peddler business began to fade in the late 19th century due to the flourishing empire of catalogue sales from companies such as Sears & Roebuck.

This article was partly adapted using content from the Imagining Connecticut exhibit that formerly hung in the Connecticut State Capitol and Legislative Office Building starting in 2000.

This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here.