Joseph Smith Bag Seal, Image by StuE, Found by Sue Clark
Found in the Colchester Region.
The Smit could be Smith as there is space for several letters after it. MARCH is written below and on the other side is UPERS is written in larger letters - there is space for a letter at the beginning but none is discernible. Probably Supers as this was known to refer to a grade of flour used for coarse 'household' bread and animal feed, see:- Windmills and Millwrighting By Stanley Freese.
This seal has now been donated to the March & District Museum by Sue Clark.
The following information was supplied by Richard Munns of the March & District Museum:-
Joseph Smith, or his family, owned two sites in March. The older one, on the river side, was purchased at the beginning of the 19th century from the Gray family, who had a maltings and granary there. The Smiths first used the site, called the Acre, for their business of coal, turf, timber and corn merchants, also plying barges to and from Kings Lynn twice weekly and once weekly to Cambridge. Eventually they constructed a long range of buildings on the west and south sides of the area, part of which were two-storied for milling purposes, a manager's cottage and a bricked wharf. The whole of this site, with the exception of The Acre public house, has now been demolished and part of the site is the location for the Library.
The second site that Smiths owned was in High Street, shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1902 as the 'new mill'. This was taken over at some time in the 1940s or 50s by Vitovis and was then used as an iron and steel fabrication unit. It too has been demolished and 'luxury' apartments built of the site.
The Smith family are reputed to have left the town in the 1940s.