Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 28

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

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But the manufacture of hats did not cease by any means in Brooklyn with his failure.

In 1853, Mr. HOSEA O. PEARCE, who had learned the business in Danbury, then as now, a great centre of the hat manufacture, came from that placc, and became foreman of Mr. Prentice's factory. In 1858, Mr. Pearce established himself as a manufacturing hatter in a small brick building, still a part of the present site of the large manufactory of Pearce & Hall. The firm was at first H. O. Pearce & Co. In 1860, it was changed to Pearce & Brush; in 1866, to Pearce & Benedict, and in 1868, to Pearce & Hall. Mr. H. O. Pearce retired in 1878, and the business has been conducted since under the name of Pearce & Hall, Mr. Henry O. Pearce taking his father's place. It is now the largest felt hat manufactory in Brooklyn, and one of the largest in the United States.

HOSEA O. PEARCE .- New England thrift is noted the world over. A peculiar combination of industry, enterprise, perseverance and tact, characterizes the Puritans' descend- ants. In most countries poverty acts as a narcotic, but in ours as a stimulant, for which reason, in so many instances, the poor boy becomes the rich man. An accumulated for- tune is the sure indication of superior qualities in its ac- cumulator, and a glance at the successful self-made men of our time, shows that a large proportion are sons of New England. Many of them have been attracted to the metrop-

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

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RFEN

PEARCE & HALL'S HAT FACTORY.

olis and her sister city, and conspicuous among these is the gentleman whose portrait is herewith presented.

Mr. Pearce was born a farmer's boy in Danbury, Conn., in 1821. His father was a man of sterling worth, but not of large means, and the support of his family of eleven children was no light task in those days of hand labor, poor markets, and scarcity of money. Consequently the lad could look forward to a life, not of ease, but of labor, and his future lay in his own hands.

Ile had no educational advantages better than the com- mon schools, but he so well improved his opportunities there as to acquire a good English education.

His boyhood was passed upon the farm. but at the age of eighteen, like most young men in those days, he was appren- ticed to a trade, in his case the hatters' craft.

At his majority he decided to enter mercantile life, and with a capital of only two hundred dollars, he opened a re- tail store in Carbondale, Pa. But his business was not pros- perons, and after six months' experience, lie closed it out and returned to Danbury, a sadder and a wiser man. He then commenced making hats, taking out work from the factories to be done at home. After a few months he bought a little place and erected a small work-room behind his dwelling house, where he continued to carry on the trade for half a year longer. Then ambitious to enlarge his busi- ness, he built a factory and commenced the manufacture of hats for the trade. In this he continued about ten years. increasing the production to fifty dozen per day. During this time, in his numerous journeys to New York for the purpose of disposing of his goods, he formed an acquaint. ance among the business men of the city. Conscious that his powers were adequate to larger undertakings than were possible in the country, he determined to remove his man- ufacturing interests to the vicinity of New York, which he did in 1853.

Afterwards he bought a plot of ground on Stockton street, near Nostrand avenue, in this city, and erected a brick build- ing. 25x100 feet, where he commenced manufacturing for par-

ties in New York. In 1861 he added largely to his buildings, and opened a store in New York for the sale of his goods. The size and production of his factory were steadily in- creased until the buildings covered the entire lot, 100x250 feet, with a capacity of one hundred and fifty dozen per day. Mr. Pearce was familiar with the details of his busi- ness, and introduced system and method into all its branches. Skillful in forecasting the market, he bought and sold to advantage, while his careful financial management insured his abundant prosperity. It is a matter of pardonable pride with him that he always met his obligations promptly, paid his workmen at the end of the week, never failed to pay a hundred cents on the dollar, and passed with credit unim- paired through all the financial erises that occurred during his business career, although at times he had several hundred men in his employ and disbursed thousands of dollars each week.

At length Mr. Pearce determined to withdraw from active business, and to enjoy the reward of his labors free from the incessant demands of such large interests. Accordingly he retired in 1879, leaving his business to his sons and his partner, Mr. Charles Hall. Since that time his cares have been fewer, but his energetic disposition will not permit leisure to degenerate into idleness; accordingly, we find him actively superintending his investments.

Mr. Pearce is happy in his home and family. Married when he was twenty-one, his household now consists of his wife, two sons and one daughter. His church relations are with the East Congregational Society, in whose affairs he takes a deep interest.

When the present house of worship was erected a few years ago, his practical business ability was sought and utilized on the building committee, while his open hand gave a large portion of the means for its completion. Ilis up- rightness, and his good judgment have won the confidence of the community, and he has been elected trustee of various financial institutions.

Mr. Pearce is a man of strong political convictions; was first a whig. and afterwards a republican, but has never been an active politician. He was instrumental largely in shap- ing the legislation, which culminated in the law prohibit- ing the employment of convict labor in the manufacture of hats. As a citizen of Brooklyn, he is proud of lier improve- ment, and has done much toward building up the Twenty- first ward. Here he has invested largely of his means in real estate, anxious to promote the material welfare of that portion of the city, and awaiting his return in the general advance. Here lie lives in an elegant home, amid the fruits of lus well-earned success.

HENRY O. PEARCE-an energetic and successful hat man- ufacturer of the present firm of Pearce & Hall-was born in Danbury, Conn., in 1845. He is the eldest son of Hosea O. Pearce, whose biography will be found above in these pages, and who was the founder of the large manufactory of which his son is now senior partner. Mr. Hosea O. Pearce removed to Brooklyn with his family in the spring of 1853. The son was educated at a boarding school in Danbury, and at the Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. At the age of seventeen he became a clerk in the jobbing trade in hats, and was so employed until 1868, when he entered the store of his father in New York. In the spring of 1870, he began assisting his father in the management of the busi- ness at the factory. In the autumn of that year he was al- lowed an interest in the business, and was admitted as a general partner in 1874. From the date of his becoming a member of the firm, he interested himself in devising ways

He O Peau

THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

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LITTLE

Deny Glance

for felting hats by machinery, and also for the use of shaping machines for expediting the processes of the hat manufac- ture. Up to this time, although many efforts had been made to use machines in felting or condensing the forms, as they came from the " former," none had proved successful; the hats being shrunk or felted by hand, and in very hot, but not boiling, water. This process was too slow for an establish- ment which turned out from 150 to 200 dozen hats a day. Mr. Pearce possessed a fine mechanical genius, and, aided by expert machinists, he patiently experimented, till he suc- ceeded in producing a machine whichi passed the hats be- tween rollers and plunged them in boiling water after each pressure between the rollers. The motions were necessarily very rapid, as in boiling water the felted fabric is shrunk very quickly, and the product might easily be marred. By the machine, as finally perfected under his supervision, the felting is performed with great rapidity and precision, and the product is fully equal to the hand felting, while an equal quantity can be produced by half the number of hands, while these hands can earn about 25 per cent. more than they can by hand-work. Other machines followed for di- minishing the amount of hand labor without injuring the product ; till now more than half the processes in felt-hat

making are performed by machinery. These machines have been adopted by other manufacturers, and Mr. Pearce is now at the head of a company for manufacturing them.

In 1878, in connection with Charles Hall, he purchased his father's interest in the business, which has since been con- ducted under the firm name of Pearce & Hall. Mr. Pearce has been, since his boyhood, so assiduous in his devotion to his business that he has never found time to become actively engaged in political matters. He is not, however, indifferent to anything affecting the public welfare, and is a liberal supporter of all worthy objects. He is president of the Bushwick and East Brooklyn Dispensary, and is connected with other charitable institutions. In 1868, he was married to Miss A. Stevens, of Portchester, N. Y.

In 1859, Messrs. Ames & Moulton, who had been con- nected with Mr. Prentice's Raymond street factories, resolved to go into the manufacture of hats, and pro- ceeded to erect a large hat factory on Nostrand ave- nue, between Myrtle and Park avenues. The main building was 200 feet by 25, and three stories in height.

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

A smaller building was ereeted on the same premises 30x30 feet. The buildings and machinery were ereeted with great care, the purpose being to make it, in all respeets, a model factory. The factory was put in operation in January, 1860, and had about $15,000 of stock in the building in various stages of manufacture, when, on February 3, 1860, the boiler exploded with great forec, tearing ont one end of the factory and wrecking about one-third of the large building, killing nine persons and wounding eighteen more. There were 200 hands employed in the factory, but only thirty-five of them were in the building in the morning when the explosion took place. The factory was purchased by Mr. James HI. Prentice & Co., and became their Nos- trand avenne factory.

Mr. Hooper, who had been a hat manufacturer in Newark, New Jersey, was employed in Pearee & Hall's establishment in 1868, but returned to Newark after- ward, and, in 1873, started the present hat manufae- tory of Hooper & Pryor on Park avenue. H. M. Sil- rerman commeneed manufacturing hats of fine grades in Brooklyn in 1874, and the Brooklyn Felt Hat Com- jmy and Dickerson & Brown a little later, though that firm sueeeeded to J. D. Bird & Co. Messrs. R. Dunlap «& Co., who had been large manufacturers of silk and very fine felt hats for their own retail trade in New York city, removed their felt hat business to Brook- lyn in 1880, and have since greatly enlarged it, and are now just completing a very large manufactory, where they will have their silk hats also made under the same roof. They also contemplate ereeting a factory on ad- jaeent lots for their straw hat business, which is now condueted in New York.

An industry of such importance deserves some de- seription of its processes of manufacture. These vary materially with the different kinds of hats. The silk hat, vulgarly known as " the stovepipe hat," is made in large part of imported materials; the frame and the brim are of muslin of a peculiar mannfacture, each layer stiffened with shellac, and the whole again charged with that gum. These bodies are imported, to some extent, from France, though the bodies manu- faetnred here are equally good. The covering, of silk plush of a peculiar quality, is also imported from

France. Our silk manufacturers ean make a phish of equally good quality, but there has been some ques- tion as to the permaneney of our American dyes. The art of putting this ou without any wrinkle or drawing, and without showing the stitches is only acquired by considerable practice. Much of the binding and bands also come from France, though the American are equally good, but the japanned and skiver sweat lea- thers are made here.

The making-up, pressing, lining and finishing are done here. All the imported articles pay a heavy duty. It was computed three or four years ago that the duty on the imported materials going to make up a fine silk

hat was about one dollar. It is now somewhat less. Silk hats are also made, for summer wear, of the same material and in the same way, but covered with a white, or more nearly, a pearl-grey silk plush, of equally fine quality. This style, which has been out of fashion for some years, is, it is said, likely to be revived for the benefit of the ultra-fashionable. Another style of high and stiff erowned hats, formerly in great de- mand, is now seldom seen, except for ladies' wear- the beaver hat, as it was called, thongh sometimes other furs than that of the beaver were used in its manufacture. Thirty or forty years sinee, a beaver hat was the distinguishing mark of a well-dressed gentle- man. The witty Boston poet, O. W. Holmes, says in his " Urania; a Rhymed Lesson:"

" Have a good hat; the secret of your looks Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks." .

The fashion may come around again; but, meantime, the fur of the beaver is largely utilized in the felt hat. It may have been with some prophetic foresight of this that the poet continues, in this poem, so full of happy eoneeits:

" Mount the new castor; ice itself will melt; Boots, gloves may fail; the hat is always felt !"

There are silk hats of inferior qualities, made with pasteboard brim and frame; but the eovering of these is not, we think, of American silk, but of the old pluslı removed from battered hats of better quality, and re- vived and ironed to give it the appearance of newness. The silk hat, in its best estate, is rather an expensive luxury, its retail price ranging from $6 to $10.

2. Felt Hats. As we have already stated, there are two distinet methods of making these. Machinery is used to a considerable extent in both, but one style is known as "hand-made," and the other as machine- made. The preliminary processes do not differ in the two. The fur, whether eoney, hair, beaver, untria, muskrat, mink, otter, seal or whatever it may be, eomes to the factory in masses, which contain many lumps or knots, and, not seldom, considerable dirt. These masses are subjected at once to the pieker and blower-teeh- nieally ealled the "devil"-and, by this powerful and complicated machine, are torn into single hairs and blown through perforated eylinders till they come out clean, free from knots, and only the finest and softest fibres pass into the loose bat at the end, where they are eoiled up in tubs. These tubs are next sent to the weighing room, where the quantity required for each hat is weighed and put into a compartment of a box holding the sufficient amount for a dozen hats. As many of these boxes are filled as there are dozens of lats to be made in a day. In the larger factories this may require 150 to 175 boxes. These are now ready to be put into the "former." The " former," first sug- gested by Thomas Blanchard of Boston, assumed its present form in 1846, in the invention of Mr. Henry A.

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THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

Wells of New York, which was still further improved by Mr. Henry A. Burr, Mr. Yule and others.

To understand the office of the former (which is now usually of Yule's latest improved pattern), we must remember that fur, like some descriptions of wool (the felting wools), and, unlike hair, possesses the felting property, i. e., that each fibre of fur has little hooks, beards, notches or scales, which, under favorable cir- cumstances, interlock with the other fibres, and pro- duce the substance called felt, a substance which can be made as dense and firm as woven cloth. It was discovered, about forty years ago, that if the fur or felting wool was exposed to a rapidly revolving per- forated cone, through which a strong current of air was passing, the fur would be attracted to the surface, and felted evenly and uniformly. This felt, of course, took the form of the cone, and when the prescribed amount of fur was thus deposited on the cone, a cloth was thrown around it, a cap of the same metal was placed over the cone, and the whole lifted off and plunged into a bath of water, which rendered it more dense, and another cone substituted for it over the fan, which repeated the process for another hat. After its plunge bath, the cone was lifted out, its cap taken off, and the embryo hat, a cone-shaped rag, stripped off, to under- go a further felting process. Here the two methods of hat-making begin to diverge; the hand-made hats are plunged into water as hot as can be borne by the oper- ator, wrung out, twisted and plunged again, and tlie process repeated, until the hats-three or six of them are handled at once-are shrunk to the requisite size, and are rendered uniform in density. This process is slow, and hard on the hands of the operator. Without careful supervision or inspection, there is a liability to imperfect work; but with it, the felting is very perfect, and the hats remarkably free from defects. By the machine method, the hats-half a dozen in a bunch- are rolled up, plunged into boiling water, seized by the operator, passed between rollers in different directions, thrown out, rolled in a different way, again plunged and passed between the rollers, the intense heat of the water insuring their shrinking and felting much more rapidly than by the hand method. To the casual ob- server, this method appears more certain of producing the desired results than the hand method; but experts say that there are liabilities to imperfect felting in both. When thus completely felted, the hats are placed upon stretchers to be dried, and then, by the machine method, they are shaped by machines. By the hand process the shaping is deferred till later. The hats are next sub- jected to the stiffening or shellacking processes. There are three of these: one by water charged with gum, another by the use of a solution of gum shellac, applied by rubbing and rolling, till the whole hat is saturated with it; while a third, which is called the winc-stiff, consists of the application of alcoholic vapor, some fine gum or gum resin being dissolved in it in small

quantity. Generally, only the very finest and lightest hats are subjected to the wine-stiff; but the water and shellac stiffenings have been so much improved, that they are used on much of the finc stock. After the stiffening, when again dry, the hat is ready to be dyed, if it is to receive any coloring. Here, again, the two methods slightly diverge. In the hand method, the dyeing is done by hand, in vats or tubs of compara- tively small size, and the color is made uniform in the hat by sundry wringings and rubbings. By the ma- chine method the hats are plunged, in large numbers, into immense vats, where they are rolled and stirred around in the boiling dyes, and finally thrown np by a false bottom, when they are tossed out in half dozens by the operatives. The colors employed are various, and, in the fancy colors, the aniline dyes are much used. While the hat is still moist, it is taken to the blocking room, where, by the hand method, the crown is shaped on wooden or metallic blocks, and thoroughly pressed in moulds, while the brim is pressed flat. By the machine method the same results arc attaincd by machines which press the hat into shape very rapidly. When transferred to the dyeing room, the liats blocked by hand are subjected to a heat of 110° F., and then sent to the shaping and pressing rooms. The machine hats are cooled off with cold water on the blocking machines, and in the shaping rooms a slight nap is first raised, the superficial shellac being discharged; the curl is given to the brim, according to the latest style. In the hats with flexible brims, the brim is wired, and the hat is ironed, and is ready for the final finishing, in which it is bound, lined, leathered, tipped and banded. In the machine process, the tips are made by a machine, but the rest of the work is done by hand. At every stage the hats are carefully inspected, and if the least defect or imperfection is discovered, the hat is rejected, and is sold, generally untrimmed, as a second quality. The inspection in the hand-made hats is of the severest kind, and the rejected hats form an important item. These are generally sold to retail dealers at a very low price, and finished by them, and usually have their names on the tips.

When completed, the hats are packed in dozens, each in its own box, and sent to the warehouses for the re- tailer or jobber. These are the hard or stiff felt hats. The soft felt is made in considerable quantities, but is not so popular now as some years since. The principal difference in its manufacture is that it has but a small infusion of shellac, is not shaped with so much care, is not trimmed so closely, and the brim is trimmed but little, and is not curled, and sometimes is not bound.

3. The straw hats are of numerous varieties and pat- terns. They are, as we have said, made up from the braids, which are either made at the factories, or sent from other states or countries, being often braided by women and children at their homes. When sewcd, they are stiffened to a greater or less degree; if intend.

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

ed to be white, they are partially or wholly bleached, pressed and trimmed. The retail prices range from 75 cents to $5 or $6 for American goods, and sometimes reach much higher prices for Panama, Guayaquils or other foreign products, when these happen to be in fashion.

We can give no detailed account of the wool hat manufacture, nor of the numberless forms and styles of caps. The fashions and the processes for making the latter, change from month to month, except in the mih- tary and naval styles, and even these have occasional, though less frequent, modifications.

The principal hat manufacturers in Kings county are : In silk hats, Robert Dunlap & Co., who have a very large factory on Nostrand avenue, near Park; James W. Peck & Son, Fulton street; Messrs. Balch, Price & Co., and perhaps one or two smaller houses. All the silk hats made here are for the retail trade, and, we believe, exclusively for the retail trade of the man- ufacturers themselves. Messrs. Dunlap & Co. make from 85,000 to 100,000 silk hats, which are sold in their retail stores in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago. The hats have a high reputation.

In felt hats, the leading manufacturers are Pearce & Hall, whose factory is in Stockton street, and who turn out from 125 dozen to 150 dozen daily, and, in the busy season, with their factories elsewhere, can pro- duce 200 dozen a day; they use the machine pro- cesses, and sell their hats to jobbers all over the coun- try and abroad ; Hooper & Pryor, on Ellery street, near Nostrand avenue, whose production is almost as large as that of the preceding house, and of nearly the same qualities; they also sell to the jobbing trade; The Brooklyn Felt Hat Co., 301 Park avenue, whose spe- cialty is ladies' felt hats, and whose large factory has recently been burned ; they manufactured, when full, about 100 dozen ladies' hats a day, and sold to the job- bing trade; R. Dunlap & Co., also have a large fac- tory on Nostrand avenue, and make about 48 dozen felt hats a day of the best quality and highest price, by the hand processes, which are sold exclusively in their own retail stores ; H. M. Silverman & Co., of 100 Grand avenue, near Myrtle, who makes about 36 dozen felt hats daily, of the best quality, by the hand process ; Dickerson & Brown, 44 Kosciusko street, who turn out about 24 dozen hats daily, of the best quality, and by the hand process. The last two sell, we believe, mainly to the city retail trade.

So far as we are aware, these are the only houses engaged in the manufacture of felt hats. There are others who buy unfinished hats, and finish them up in such styles as they desire, putting in their own tips and trimmings; but these are not manufacturers. With- in the last two or three years several manufacturers have failed. The amount of capital invested in the felt hat manufacture is somewhat more than a million dollars; the number of hats turned out, when running

full, somewhat more than 2,200,000 ; the number of hands employed over 1,600; the amount of wages paid about $1,200,000; the annual product somewhat more than $2,700,000.

In straw hats, the principal manufacturers are : The Novelty Straw Works (Charles M. Evarts), Park ave- nue, City Hall, a very large establishment, employing 350 hands or more, and turning out immense numbers of hats, though generally of the cheaper styles ; this establishment was burned in September, 1883 ; Balch, Price & Co., who import and purchase from New Eng- land and Canada very choice braids, and make them up in their own works; their straw hats are of high grade, but their manufacture limited ; Robert Dunlap & Co. have a very large straw hat factory in New York, which they will remove to Brooklyn early in the next year (1884).

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 28

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360