USA > Maine > Waldo County > Belfast > History of the city of Belfast in the state of Maine, Volume II, 1875-1900 > Part 22
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An official report of the condition of the bank at the close of 1900 contained the following figures: Loans and discounts, $325,057; value of banking house and fixtures, $29,000; money reserve, $23,947; surplus, $33,000; undivided profits, $30,000; deposits, $228,406.
The officers of the bank, December 31, 1900, were John George Brooks, William Bachelder Swan, Asa Abbott Howes, Thomas Whittier Pitcher, Charles Bellows Hazeltine, directors; John George Brooks, president; Clement Wescott Wescott, cashier; Herbert Tobey Field, assistant cashier; Wilson Ellis, Clerk.
BELFAST SAVINGS BANK
This institution, established in 1868, commenced occupying its present location, four years afterwards. In 1886, the rooms were much improved and neatly furnished. In August, 1888, Asa Faunce, who had been president since the act of incorpora- tion, resigned on account of ill health, and Hon. Nathan Foster Houston was chosen his successor.
During the winter of 1896-97, a series of improvements in the building occupied by the bank were made. They in- cluded its exterior and interior. The entrance on Main Street was changed to one on the corner of Church Street, new windows and doors were added, and the vault remodelled and strengthened.
In January, 1900, after the death of John Haraden Quimby, who had been treasurer since the bank was established, his son, William Henry Quimby, was elected in his place, and Wilmer Judson Dorman as clerk.
The bank has never failed to make a semi-annual dividend; for several years it has paid three per cent.
The last statement of the Bank Examiner, in July, 1900, shows: Deposits, $1,202,769; reserve fund, $54,500; undivided
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HISTORY OF BELFAST
profits, $5674.57; estimated market value of resources above lia- bilities, $170,839; annual expenses, $4000.
The trustees of the bank, in 1900, were Nathan Foster Hous- ton, president; John George Brooks, Charles Bellows Hazeltine, William McGray Woods, Edward Johnson, and James Howard Howes.
THE PEOPLE'S NATIONAL BANK
This association was organized in Belfast, September 4, 1892, with a capital stock of $50,000. The corner store in Masonic Temple was fitted for banking rooms, and the bank commenced business there, February 15, 1893. The first directors were Lewis Allen Knowlton, Edgar Filmore Hanson, Robert Franklin Dun- ton, and James Pattee. Mr. Knowlton was the first president, and Frank Rudolph Wiggin, cashier.
An interest department was established, February 1, 1894.
Upon the death of Mr. Knowlton, in March, 1898, Hon. Robert Franklin Dunton was chosen president.
At the close of 1900, the loans and discounts were $110,385; value of banking rooms and fixtures, $2000; money reserve, $24,767; surplus fund, $10,000; deposits, $198,626. The officers were Robert Franklin Dunton, Charles Prescott Hazeltine, Charles Edward Knowlton, James Pattee, directors; Robert Franklin Dunton, president; Frank Rudolph Wiggin, cashier; and Joseph Emery Thombs, bookkeeper.
THE BELFAST LOAN AND BUILDING ASSOCIATION
This association was organized January 21, 1891, with the fol- lowing officers: A. Cutter Sibley, John George Brooks, George Brooks Ferguson, William Bachelder Swan, John Murray Fletcher, Sanford Hills Mathews, Albert Cargill Burgess, Albert Gammans, Robert Franklin Dunton, directors; John George Brooks, president; Joseph Williamson, Jr., secretary; William Henry Quimby, treasurer. It commenced business with four hundred shares at a matured value of $200 per share.
The financial condition of the association in 1900 was as fol- lows: Liabilities: accumulated capital, $32,125.18; guaranty fund, $596.93; interest, $194.88; premiums, $29.80; fines and transfer fees, $2.57; profits, $125.54. Resources: loans on mort-
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FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
gage of real estate, $31,834; on shares, $96; temporary expense, $7.25; cash, $1137.65.
The officers are the same as above, except that Clement Wescott Wescott is secretary and treasurer, and Arthur Irving Brown, Charles Franklin Ginn, and William Henry Quimby are directors, in the place of George Brooks Ferguson, John Murray Fletcher, and Sanford Hills Mathews, deceased. (1900.)
CHAPTER XXXIII 1
INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
Axe Factories - Clothing - Cigars - Creameries - Foundries - Granite Quarries -Grist Mills - Hay - Ice - Leather-Board - Machinery - Marble - Marine Railways - Shoe Factories - Sash and Blind Factories - Sawmills - Ship-Building - Condon Company - Block Company - Patents and Inventions - Dana Sarsaparilla Company - Other Patent Medicines.
ITTHE following comprise the principal industries of Belfast, during the past quarter of a century, both extinct and in existence.
Axe factories. Benjamin Kelley continued in the same location on Goose River where his father commenced the business in 1822. Walter Basdwin Rankin was associated with him from 1874 until the death of the latter in 1895. An extension to his factory, giving a building one hundred and forty feet in length, was completed in 1882, and gave a capacity for making twelve dozen axes daily. Above the Kelley establishment Hardy & Sher- man manufactured axes on a limited scale in 1875. The business ceased at the death of Mr. Hardy, in 1884. Thompson & Sher- man erected a factory in 1881, farther down the stream, adjoin- ing the old paper mill, and operated for several years.
Clothing. In 1875, Hersey & Woodward manufactured panta- loons in the Washington Hall Building on High Street. John Llewellyn Sleeper and Pote & Quimby carried on a vest-making business the following year, which was continued by the latter in Hayford Block until 1897.
In 1886, William M. Priest, Pendleton & Co., Mark Andrews, Sidney Kalish, and William Andrew Clark manufactured goods for wholesale dealers abroad.
In 1889, C. S. Marston & Co. entered upon the business of manufacturing clothing in the Coliseum Building, employing seventy-five persons. They suspended the following year. Selwyn Thompson, Lawrence & Cates, and Henry Oscar Dodge were also engaged in this business.
1 Many statistics in this chapter relating to conditions in 1900 have changed in 1913.
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
In 1900, the clothing establishments were those of William B. Lawrence and William W. Cates in the Coliseum Building, who employed one hundred hands; Thompson & Foster, in the Dana Building on Front Street, with over a hundred employees; and Henry Oscar Dodge Clothing Company, on North High Street.
Cigars. Irving Lawrence Perry commenced the manufacture of cigars in Herbert E. Bradman's store on the East Side, in 1895. He now occupies a large house on the Searsport Shore Road. Bailey & Havener have a factory at Citypoint, under the name of the Standard Cigar Company. Paul Carnes has a fac- tory on the East Side of the river. (1900.)
Creameries. The Belfast Creamery, in 1889, manufactured a high grade of butter. It was succeeded, in 1897, by the Belfast Jersey Creamery. F. C. Baker & Co., of Boston, under the name of the Belfast Farmer's Creamery, did business, first, in the Fred- erick Austin Knowlton store at the foot of Main Street, and later in the Rudolf Building near the railroad station. The concern failed the next summer, owing the farmers of the vicinity of Bel- fast large sums for cream. Its place was supplied by the Emer- son Creamery, of Bueksport, and F. J. Gerry & Co., which were soon combined. The latter continued business in the basement of the Dana Sarsaparilla Building. A corporation, to be known as The Belfast Creamery Company, was organized in March, 1900, with Edward Sibley as president, and Ben Davis Field, clerk and treasurer. The capital stock was fixed at $10,000.
Foundries. After the destruction of the Belfast Foundry Com- pany's buildings by the great fire of 1873, its business was car- ried on in the old Wilder establishment at the Head of the Tide. With increased capital and under the management of William W. Castle, new buildings were erected on the old site, in 1876. They had a frontage of one hundred and eighty feet on Front Street, and extended one hundred and twenty feet in the rear. After a short experience, business was suspended, and the works remained idle until 1881, when Cyrus James Hall placed them again in operation. Two years later they were conducted by a new corporation under the name of The Belfast Machine Works, which continued until the sale of the premises to the Dana Sarsaparilla Company.
The Belfast Machine and Foundry Company, organized in 1891, succeeded to the work and machinery of the last-named
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HISTORY OF BELFAST
corporation. It first occupied the Mansfield store at the foot of Main Street, but soon erected the present building at the corner of Front and Federal streets, where it was in 1900. In 1897, power was changed from steam to electricity.
Granite. The first important development of this industry in Belfast was in the early seventies, by the Oak Hill Granite Com- pany, composed of Samuel Otis, George Brooks Ferguson, Eben Newell, Ebenezer Littlefield, and Albert Gammans, who pur- chased three hundred acres of land at Oak Hill, in Swanville, three miles from Belfast, formerly owned by Rufus Bradford Allyn. The stone was shipped at Citypoint, where buildings for dressing it were erected. In 1883, the New England Granite Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, had an extensive manufac- tory at City Point; procuring the material from Oak Hill. In 1886, the original proprietors were incorporated, with a capital of $50,000, under the same name. William H. Mitchell, of Quincy, Massachusetts, became a stockholder and manager. Operations were conducted by it and by other parties under permits, until 1890, when the quarries were leased to the Sargent Granite Com- pany, which employed one hundred and fifty men. During the first year they exported twenty-five cargoes of paving-blocks. Legal complications suspended its operations in 1893. Hartwell Leon Woodcock succeeded to its rights, and the next year, under his influence, the Maine Central Railroad Company built a spur track from near Waldo Station to the base of Oak Hill, enabling stock to be brought directly to tide waters. Owing to labor strikes and other causes, the business did not prove successful. In 1890, the rails were removed, since which time the quarries have been substantially deserted.
In 1882, Cyrus James Hall opened a stone yard, in connection with the iron foundry and commenced dressing and polishing granite from his quarries at Somes's Sound. This was continued on a large scale until 1890, furnishing granite for the Congres- sional Library at Washington, the State Capital of Illinois, and for many other buildings throughout the country; giving employ- ment to over two hundred men. Labor difficultics, induced by trade unions and other organizations, prevented him from enter- ing upon new contracts with any security, and compelled the abandonment of one of Belfast's most prosperous industries.
In 1883, the Adams Oak Hill Granite Company operated a
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
quarry on the eastern slope of the mountain. Fernald Brothers worked stone brought from Lincolnville and Northport. The Bay View Granite Company had sheds near the Lower Bridge, and near them was the shed of George Mayo. The Hutchins Brothers and Gilbertson & Woods were granite firms in Belfast in 1890. Since then, some minor operations, principally in cemetery work, have existed, but as a wholesale business, the manufac- ture and shipment of granite is at an end.
Grist Mills. There were two grist mills in Belfast in 1875; one at Hiram Dale Falls, on Goose River, owned by Hiram Emery Peirce, and one between the Head of the Tide and Citypoint, run by Samuel G. Ellis. Both are now abandoned. Richard Anthony Gurney built a mill above the Head of the Tide in 1886, which still continues.
The Electric Light Company started a grist mill in Peirce's Block in 1889. It was removed the following year to Lewis's Wharf, but was discontinued in 1895.
In 1898, the Swan & Sibley Company placed on its wharf a mill driven by electricity, which with that of the late Richard Anthony Gurney, that of Frederick S. Johnson, at Poor's Mills, and one at the manufactory of Mathews Bros., on Cross Street, comprise all that now (1900) exist in Belfast.
Hay. For several years previous to 1890, Belfast had an ex- tensive business in shipping hay to Jacksonville, Florida, and many three-masted schooners were built for that traffic. The West now supplies the Southern market at cheaper rates than can be afforded from Maine. The Belfast Fuel and Hay Com- pany, Albert Martin Carter, and L. T. Shales & Co., are now (1900) the principal dealers.
Ice. In 1875, Benjamin Francis Bickford and Charles Prescott Hazeltine erected houses at the east end of the Lower Bridge, and for several years shipped ice harvested in Goose River.
In 1880, the total failure of the ice crop on the Hudson turned New York dealers to Maine for a supply, and during March prices advanced to three dollars per ton. The New York Ice Company brought 20,000 tons by rail from Unity Pond, and loaded it upon vessels at Belfast. Charles Prescott Hazeltine cut 10,000 tons on Goose River, and Sibley & Townsend nearly as much from Little River, where they erected a wharf. A large quantity was also cut in the paper-mill pond.
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HISTORY OF BELFAST
In 1882, the first cargo of ice ever sent from Maine to England went from Belfast in the ship Louis Walsh.
From 1884 until his death, December 30, 1892, Hiram Emery Peirce, who had resumed the privileges leased to Hazeltine & Bickford, harvested about 15,000 tons of ice each year from Goose River.
The mild season of 1889-90 was favorable for Maine ice, and in some instances four dollars per ton was offered. Besides Hiram Emery Peirce, Conant & Marshall cut on Goose River, and the Crystal Ice Company on the pond of the Water Company. About 20,000 tons came by rail from Unity, and 60,000 tons were shipped from Belfast, employing ncarly one hundred vessels, more than ever before came to Belfast in a single season.
In 1896, a corporation called the Belfast Ice Company cut ice on Goose River. Subsequently their business was trans- ferred to the Belfast Light and Power Company which had pur- chased the Peirce property. It cuts about 10,000 tons annually, and is now (1900) the only wholesale dealer in Belfast.
Leather-board. In 1879, Isaac Holbrook Sherman and Ho- ratio P. Thompson began the manufacture of this article in the Lower Paper Mill. The process is almost identical with that of paper-making, the material used being hemp rope scraps, hard paper, and leather remnants. Subsequently Elmer Alfred Sherman succeeded Mr. Thompson, under the name of Sherman & Co. In 1887, they purchased all the interests of William Au- gustus Russell on Goose River, and the following year, having demolished the old White Paper Mill, erected a new establish- ment on its site. In 1893, they tore down the Upper Paper Mill, so called, and two years later built an additional mill at Mason's Mills. They have continued since and now are running three mills; and a dam at the upper one, built in 1890, gives the control of the water from Swan Lake.
Machinery. Franklin Augustus Howard, the manufacturer of several patented articles, - screw-drivers, mitering-machines, proof-presses, etc., - became established in Belfast, in 1876, in a new brick building at the western end of the shoe factory, which he exchanged nine years later for the present quarters on Wash- ington Street. His son, William Russell Howard, became a part- ner in 1895, and continues (1900) making among other specialties, New Method Rolls for the Condon Manufacturing Company.
SHERMAN LEATHER-BOARD MILL, EAST BELFAST, 1912
JAMES PATTERSON WHITE PAPER MILL. BUILT 1852
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
Marble and cemetery work. Clark & Fernald had the principal Belfast establishment in 1875. Subsequently Hutchins Brothers, William T. Howard, Harrison Wood & Co., and Mark Wood & Son, commenced business which they continue to the present time.
Marine railways. The Merchants' Marine Railway, organized February 7, 1884, with a capital of $10,000 with William Bachel- der Swan as president and Carter & Co. as managers, commenced operations in Belfast the following September. The location was at the corner of Miller and Front streets, and the power was de- rived from horses. During the first two years forty-nine vessels were repaired. In 1900, George Alden Gilchrist bought the es- tablishment, and substituted steam for horse power.
Paper mills. In February, 1878, business depression caused the abandonment of the three paper mills of Belfast, which for several years had been managed by W. A. Russell & Co., of Lawrence, Massachusetts. The property was subsequently pur- chased by Sherman & Co., manufacturers of leather-board.
Shoe factories. From 1875 to 1897 the factory of the Critchett, Sibley Company, was operated by Oliver Gordon Critehett, suc- cessor of Richardson & Critchett, under a lease from the Belfast Manufacturing Company and made shoes for Jenkins, Lane & Sons of Boston. Mr. Critchett, with Adin V. Chipman, of Boston, then conducted the business on their own account until the summer of 1880, when it was terminated, and the factory re- mained idle for two months.
In October of that year, Ami Cutter Sibley became interested, and formed a partnership with Mr. Critchett. In 1884, Ho- ratio Palmer Thompson was admitted as a member of the firm, which adopted the name of Critchett, Sibley & Co. Three years later, Mr. Sibley purchased the property of the Belfast Manu- facturing Company for $7245, and increased the size of the build- ing. The next year further enlargements took place, including a detached power-house on the opposite side of the street, and a tower. Another addition was made in 1893. After the death of Mr. Critchett, in September, 1900, the manufacturing business of the late firm passed to a new corporation, called the Critchett, Sibley Company, and its real estate to the Manufacturing Real Estate Company, Mr. Sibley being president of both.
Since 1880, the factory has run steadily more days than any other establishment in New England. Its specialty is now boys'
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HISTORY OF BELFAST
and youths' medium-priced shoes; the capacity being two thou- sand pairs a day. It is fully equipped with the most approved machinery, and the employees are nearly all permanent citizens.
In September, 1896, to promote the general prosperity of the city, a number of citizens formed a corporation called The Bel- fast Industrial and Real Estate Company, and purchased the Dana Sarsaparilla Building for $10,500. This they rented to the Legro & Spalding Shoe Company, a corporation established for the manufacture of shoes. A portion of the stock in the latter was taken here. After being in operation for a year, the Shoe Company failed. The creditors received about fifty per cent and the stockholders lost all their investment. Those who em- barked in the Real Estate Company have received no dividends, and are left with the unproductive building on their hands. The affair was disastrous to all concerned.
Sash, blind, and door factories. The oldest of these in Belfast is that of Mathews Bros. established in 1854, in the old foundry building, by Spencer Walcott Mathews. His brothers, Noah Merrill and Sanford Hills Mathews, were afterwards associ- ated with him. Their business was suspended by the great fire of 1873, but in seventy days the present building on Cross Street was ready for work. Subsequent additions have since greatly enlarged its capacity. All the brothers are deceased. A stock company was formed in 1890. The business was carried on by Frank Bowdoin, son of Sanford Hills Mathews, after the death of the latter in 1896, until his own death in 1898. The manage- ment then devolved upon the women of the family, who deter- mined to continue it. Thus, in 1899, the following officers were elected: Mrs. Clara Starrett Mathews, president; Mrs. Addie Richmond Mathews, vice-president; Miss Maud Eliza Mathews, treasurer; Maud Eliza Mathews, Addic Richmond Mathews, and Orlando Ephraim Frost, board of directors. Mr. Frost, the superintendent, came to Belfast in 1898, and gradually assumed control of the business. He has enlarged the plant and increased its output.
Franklin Houston Durham and Cyrus Brainard Hall opened a factory in 1876 on Pleasant Street, receiving power from the Shoe Factory. Mr. Durham died in March, 1893, and the next year his son, James Clinton Durham, succeeded to the business, which he continues to conduct.
CRITCHETT AND SIBLEY SHOE FACTORY IN 1907. ORIGINAL BUILDING ERECTED 1872
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
Sawmills. In 1890, Brown & Tozier of Monroc, converted the old Hardy Axe Factory, above the Kelley Factory on Goose River, into a sawmill. It is now run by Elmer Irving Rankin. Richard Anthony Gurney continues to saw lumber at liis privilege above the Head of the Tide. These are the only sawmills here.
Ship-building. An account of this branch of industry forms part of another chapter.
Among other corporations may be mentioned the Condon Manufacturing Company, organized in 1896, which manufac- tures the New Method Roll. It has (1900) an establishment on High Street fitted up with electric power and machinery.
In 1882, the Belfast Block Company, with a capital stock of $5000, was organized for the manufacture of vessel blocks. It is now extinct.
PATENTS AND INVENTIONS
Since 1894, patents have been granted to citizens of Belfast, as follows: -
1875. William Williams Castle, hammer for dressing stone.
Lucius Franklin McDonald, garter.
1876. George Washington Burgess, proof-press.
At the Centennial celebration at Philadelphia, Lemucl Rich Palmer exhibited a specimen of his patented stave jointer; William Williams Castle, a granite polisher. The Howard Manu- facturing Company displayed an assortment of machinery under charge of Hollis A. M. Poor.
1881. William Frank Wellman and William C. Thompson, leaf sup- porter.
Horatio Johnson Locke, leaf supporter.
Oliver Gordon Critchett, heel burnishing machine.
1882. Cyrus James Hall, machine for dressing and polishing stone. Frank West Limeburner, match cleat for vessels' booms.
1883. Robert Hudson Coombs, roller skates.
Charles W. Bradford, three patents on bag fasteners.
William Frank Wellman, head-rest for chairs.
E. A. Wellman, presser foot and gauge for sewing-machine.
Oliver Gordon Critchett, toe-swedging machine for boots and shoes.
1884. William Frank Wellman, bushing for slieaves.
1885. Henry Wadsworth Marriner, washing-machine.
1885. Edward L. Whittier, implement for cutting ice.
1890. Franklin Augustus Howard, improvement to Allard spiral screw- driver, invented by Isaac Allard, Jr.
John F. Rogers, vamp-making machine.
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HISTORY OF BELFAST
1894. Captain Ernest O. Patterson, drag for deep-sea dredging.
1896. John F. Rogers, vamp-making machine. Martin Luther Mitchell, flush-tank for water-closets.
1899. James and John N. Stewart, apparatus for raising sunken vessels. Walter Cooper, typewriter attachment.
PATENT MEDICINES
Dana Sarsaparilla Company. In 1888, the success which had attended a sarsaparilla compound, formulated and patented by Dr. Gustavus Clark Kilgore, resulted in establishing a laboratory on Bridge Street, Belfast, where the next year, with Edgar Fil- more Hanson as promoter, the manufacture of the article upon a larger scale was undertaken, followed by the organization of a stock company with the above title, having a capital of $25,000. By judicious advertising and enterprise, the business increased beyond the most sanguine expectations of its originators, and two dividends, one of twenty and one of a hundred per cent, were declared. In 1891, 300,000 bottles of the medicine having been sold, more extensive accommodations were required, and the foundry building on Front Street was purchased and enlarged. During the first six months after removal the sales reached half a million bottles. Such good fortune soon attracted outside parties, and in July, 1892, the controlling part of the stock was disposed of to a Boston syndicate for $300,000 cash. The holders thus received twelve hundred per cent on their original invest- ment, besides the previous dividends of one hundred and twenty per cent. Nearly all of this remained in Belfast. Arrangements for placing immense quantities of the article were at once entered upon. The importation of ingredients by the ton, the establish- ment of a printing-press costing $30,000, and the circulation of millions of advertising sheets which doubled the revenue of the Post-Office, constituted some of the new features. The concern flourished during 1893, but the next year, owing to the transfer of its headquarters to Boston, resulting from a change of man- agement, and dissensions among the stockholders, it began to decline, and the following year became a thing of the past. In June, 1896, its whole property was sold at auction by the sher- iffs to satisfy the claim of a New York creditor. Such was the rise and fall of a corporation whose career is remarkable in the history of patent medicines.
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