"Compare Stinson's shop goods with those of Ruth Webb, who died just two years later. In partnership with Mary Taggart, Webb had created a much more specialized and successful retail establishment. Webb and Taggart carried a large variety of imported spices such as cloves, various liquors including rum, and a variety of fine fabrics. Webb, who was single, had emigrated from Ireland during the mid-1730s. After working as a servant, she began a partnership with Taggart, another Irish immigrant. By 1756, the two were jointly assessed for taxes and were listed as residing in Mulberry Ward. Webb's will named Taggart and shopkeeper Mary Coates as executors of her estate. After specific legacies to two relatives and four other female friends (including L50 to Coates), Webb willed the remainder of her estate - probably over L400 - to Taggart; of course Taggart also received her half of their joint shop goods. While Ann Stinson apparently conducted a very modest business, serving people who could afford only work clothes, Webb and her partner served a wealthier clientele. Webb and Taggart, selling more luxurious imports, also made a better living.
"Webb and Taggart benefited from an essential component of any entrepreneur's success: their connections. Webb's personal, religious, and economic associations with the natal and marital families of Mary Coates helped her establishment. As a former servant in the home of Coate's step-father, the wealthy Quaker merchant Samuel Coates, Webb may have worked in his business. When she started her shop with Taggart, the two Quakers counted on assistance and patronage from their friends and co-religionists. Coate's merchant husband, Samuel, purchased small items from Webb; Coates herself bought goods at auction in partnership with Webb and Taggart. For women, drawing on networks of association was good business; indeed, it may have been the only way to do business." (1)
Karin Wulf, Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2000), 145-146, note: Ruth Webb was received by the Philadelphia Quaker Meeting on January 29, 1737 (10th month 29, 1736), from Lurgan, Ireland. Albert Cook Meyers, The Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750 (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 1902), 295. Will of Ruth Webb, L175, 1759. Patricia Cleary notes that Webb was a servant in the home of Mary Coates's stepfather, Samuel Preston. Cleary, "She Will Be in the Shop," 194. Taggart also came from Lurgan Meeting, in 1750 with her husband, John. Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy; Roach, "Taxables in Philadelphia." It is possible that Webb and Taggart were sisters; a list of Quakers living in Philadelphia between 1757 and 1760 lists Taggart in Mulberry Ward as living with a sister. Also quoting Receipt book of Samuel Coates, 1740-1756, Gratz Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.