USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884 Volume II > Part 40
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THE COLLEGE OF DENTAL SURGEONS was incorporated in 1865, and was opened in 1567 at the corner of Twenty-third Street and Second Avenue. Its purpose is to educate men to practice dental surgery as a specialty of general surgery. It is well equipped for practical den- tistry. The operating room has 110 feet of continuous window front. and in the laboratory are 150 running feet of students' work-tables furnished with drawers. The college is open continuously, offering a practical school for students and gratuitous professional services to the poor. Over ten thousand operations are annually performed in the dispensary. The college is empowered to confer two degrees. For several years it was under the exclusive control of Frank Abbott, M. D .. as superintendent, who in 1882 was dean of the faculty.+
THE COLTON DENTAL ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK, founded during this decade, has a remarkable history. It was established by Dr. Gardner Quincy Colton, who in his early manhood had prepared for the practice of medicine, and was widely known as a lecturer on chemistry and natural philosophy. He made pleasing exhibitions of the effect of nitrous oxide or " laughing gas." While lecturing at Hartford, in December, 1544. Dr. Colton administered the gas to several persons. Among those present was Dr. Horace Wells, a dentist of that city. One of those who inhaled the gas, under the violent excitement caused by its inhalation, struck himself against the benches with such force that the blood flowed from his bruised shins, and vet he declared he felt no pain until the operation of the gas had ceased. Impressed with
* In 1883 Salem H. Wales was president, Edmund Dwight vice-president, William Clarke secretary, and H. N. Twombly treasurer.
+ The officers of the board of trustees in 1882 were : William H. Allen, president : William T. Laroche, D. D.S., vice-president ; M. MeN. Walsh, secretary : Alexander W Stein, M. D., treasurer.
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this fact, Dr. Wells the next day induced Colton to administer the gas to him, and while under its effects he had a neighboring dentist extract a molar tooth. It was done without pain. Here was a wonderful discovery -- perhaps the most beneficent in its effects of any discovery of the century. Dr. Colton was the occasion of the dis- covery. This was two years before experiments in ether had been made, and three years before chloroform was discovered.
Dr. Wells adopted this wonderful anesthetic in his practice with great success. He was ridiculed, and even persecuted. Ile died a martyr in 1848, before he could convince the medical and dental pro- fession of the value of the gas as an anasthetic, and it was forgotten .* More than twenty years afterward Dr. Colton revived it, established the value of the discovery, and in 1863 founded in the city of New York the Colton Dental Association. Not being a dentist himself, Dr. Colton employed expert practitioners. He simply administered the gas while they operated. The method soon became very popular, and now almost every leading dentist in the city sends him patients who need an anasthetic, and there is scarcely a physician in the city who does not do the same. From February, 1864, until now (Novem- ber, 1583) Dr. Colton has administered the gas to about one hundred and thirty-five thousand persons, whose names and autographs he has on record. t
# In Bushnell Park, in the city of Hartford1, is a fine bronze statue of Dr. Wells, erected as a testimonial of appreciation of his services as a benefactor of mankind.
+ Gardner Quincy Colton is the youngest of a family of twelve children of Deacon Walter and Thankful (Cobb) Colton. He was born in Georgia, Vermont, February 7, 1814. He learned the business of a chairmaker at St. Albans, worked at his trade in New York from 1835 to 1842, and then he studied medicine in the office of Dr. Willard Parker and attended the required course of lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. At the close of his studies he began lecturing on chemistry and natural phi- losophy, and at Hartford, on December 10, 1541, occurred the event mentioned in the text, which led to a great discovery. Dr. Colton instructed Dr. Wells how to make the gas, and then continued his lecturing tour.
In 1849 Dr. Colton went to California, where his brother, the Rev. Walter Colton, had filled the office of civil governor of the Territory. On his return to New York he became a correspondent from that city of the Boston Transcript. After engaging in several enter- prises Re resamed his scientific lectures, and his exhibitions of nitrous oxide gas. in 1861. Having observed that the danger attending the use of other and chloroform was making them unpopular as anastheties, he determined to revive the use of nitrous oxide gas as sneh, and, if possible, demonstrate its value to the dental profession. At New Haven Dr. Colton induced a dentist to extract teeth for one weck while he should admin- ister the gas in subdning pain. The experiment was entirely successful. They contin-
. ned the business three weeks, during which time they extracted over three thousand tooth without pain. So triumphant was the result that Dr. Colton determined to go to New York and establish the business of extracting teeth, under the influence of gas. There
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he associated himself with three distinguished dentists under the name of the Colton Dental Association. Then began a great battle. The dental profession declared that it wa- only a revival of an old imposture -- a method long ago tried and abandoned as a failure. Every species of abuse and ridicule was employed against the association, and it was nearly a year before the receipts exceeded the expenditures. Dr. Colton's associates, discouraged, withdrew ; but he, strong in his faith, persevered, " fought the good fight," and conquered. He spent every cent he could spare in advertising ; his business steadily increased, and every customer, satisfied, became an advertisement. He in- creased his working force, overcame all prejudice and opposition, and established : business which has won for him fame and fortune.
In 1867 Dr. Colton attended the International Exposition at Paris, where he exhibited his apparatus and demonstrated the value of the gas as an anæsthetie to the scientific world. He accepted an invitation of the late T. W. Evans, the Emperor's dentist, to remain with him a year and give him thorough instruction in the manufacture and use of the gas. Then he travelled in Europe with his family six months, went to London. and assisted Charles James Fox, an eminent dentist of that city (who had begun using the gas), in developing and establishing its value there.
The children of the elder Colton started in business life without an inherited dollar, but richly freighted with the results of sound moral and religious training and inherited virtuous qualities as well as wise instruction from their parents. They all prospered. The Rev. Walter Colton was a chaplain in the United States Navy, and was well known in the literary world. The doctor himself is a chaste writer. In theology he is a Unitarian. He is an earnest Christian worker and a most exemplary citizen in all the relations of life.
CHAPTER V.
TE have observed that the effects of the Civil War which oc- curred during this decade wonderfully stimulated business of every kind throughout the country, and particularly in the city of New York, creating new industries and greatly expanding old ones. A few examples will suffice to illustrate this point.
The wholesale dry-goods business finds a notable representative in the well-known house of Bates, Reed & Cooley, at Nos. 343, 345, and 347 Broadway, which was founded in 1854, and is second only to the largest establishment in the dry-goods jobbing trade in the city of New York. This house has had a most honorable and successful career of about thirty years' duration.
In 1834 Levi Miles Bates, with Cyrus Clark and Harris H. Pardee, joined Frank Vincent as partners in the business of selling silks and fancy articles at No. 20 Warren Street. The firm name was Vincent, Clark & Co., the ". company" being Messrs. Pardee and Bates. They were successful from the beginning, for they had all brought to the business energy, intelligence, integrity, and good judgment. The first vear their sales amounted to about 8250,000. In a few years Mr. Vincent withdrew with a handsome competence, and still lives at a beautiful country seat on the Hudson. On his retirement T. E. Roberts and Phineas Bartlett were admitted into the firm, when its title became Pardee. Dates & Co., the business being conducted at the same place, where in five years (which reached into the period of the Civil Ware the sales grew from half a million to $1.250.000.
The influence of this house now began to be sensibly felt in the mercantile world. Their business rapidly increased, and they were compelled to seek more commodious quarters. It about this time Mr. Clark retired and became a dealer in real estate and a projector of great building enterprises. The name of the firm was changed to Pardee. Bates & Co .. the latter being Messrs. Moore, Roberts, Bartlett, and Reed. They removed to the large store at No. 343 Broadway, where they remained six years, at the end of which time their annual sales increased to more than $3,000,000. Subsequently Pardee and
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Moore retired, each leaving to his associates the precious jewel of an unsullied name as a man and a merchant.
The firm was now reorganized under the name of L. M. Bates & Co. Very soon their increasing business demanded more room. They found it at Nos. 451 and 453 Broadway, where, in the course of ten years, they paid an aggregate rental for the double store of half a million of dollars. During that time their yearly sales had increased to $5,000,000. They paid liberal salaries in order to secure the best helpers in all depart- ments, and they had agents in various parts of Europe procuring supplies to meet the demands of the multitude of buyers who were attracted to their establishment. Finally Mr. Bates associated with himself John II. Reed (formerly Bartlett & Reed) and Martin I. Cooley. of the firm of Cooley, Bigelow & Nichols, and the title of the firin was changed to Bates, Reed & Cooley, which it still bears. In Isso they removed to the premises now occupied by them, and in this grand building-one of the finest commereial buildings in the city-which covers three city lots on Broadway, their business expanded more rapidly than ever, their annual sales having increased in a few years from $5,000,000 to $15,000,000. The members of the firm seem to possess a combination of qualities adapted to the formation and success of a great commercial house-the sagacity of Bates,# the monetary skill of Reed, and the business enthusiasm of Cooley.
Levi Miles Bates, the senior of the firm of Bates, Reed & Cooley, is a native of Richmond, Vt., twelve miles east of Burlington, where he was born September 18, 1823. When a lad he worked on a farm to earn means for obtaining an education. He toiled hard, made many sacrifices, and finally received a knowledge of all that the tutors at Bicknell Academy, at Jericho, Vt., could impart. At a suitable age he began the life of a merchant as clerk in a dry-goods store in Burlington. Thoroughly endowed with ster- ling virtues of every kind, and possessed of great vigor of body and mind, and with $400 in his pocket, he went to New York when he was twenty-seven years of age and procured a clerkship in a dry-goods jobbing house in Cedar Street, with a salary of $400 a year. In the course of two years he entered a silk jobbing house on the corner of Cedar and Nassau streets, where his excellent moral habits, his evident business ability, his indus- try, and his faithfulness so pleased his employers that his salary was raised from time to time until it was 81200. He was finally offered-a partnership in the business, which he declined, and, as we have observed in the text, he, with others, established a silk and dry-goods jobbing house, in 1854, in Warren Street. Mr. Bates's business career has been briefly sketched in the text.
From the beginning of his business life Mr. Bates has been uniformly successful in his enterprises. This success was not the offspring of luck, but of sound business prin- ciples judieiously exercised. Through the firm changes and business vicissitudes of more than a quarter of a century, all his obligations, both at home and abroad, have been met promptly and in full. He possesses in a remarkable degree the natural qualities- tions of a merchant, having great organizing and executive abilities, and that peculiar
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
The grocery business is represented by the house of Francis H. Leg- att & Co., and their store fronts on three streets : Variek. Franklin, and West Broadway. Francis HI. Leggett and his elder brother formed a copartnership in 1962, which continued until 1870, when he withdrew, and formed a new firm with his youngest brother, Theodore, commenc- ing anew at No. 74 Murray Street, under the same firm name it now bears. The business increased so largely in the course of three years, that they removed to the more commodious quarters Nos. 97, 99 and 101 Reade Street. Very soon afterward the store No. 117 Chambers Street was added to the premises. Still greater facilities for conducting the business were soon demanded. it had grown to such vast proportions. Land was purchased in the fall of 1850, and the great building now oc- cupied by the business was erected upon it. It is one of the largest and most substantial and best appointed edifices for the purpose in the world. This building was first occupied on May 1, 1852, and for eligibility of location it is unsurpassed.
The house at present is doing a very large business, their annual sales amounting to between seven and eight million dollars. Two hun- dred and eighty-five persons are employed in the establishment. The firm also has an extensive canning establishment at Riverside, near Burlington, N. J., at which place vegetables of superior quality are prepared by the canning process in large quantities for their trade. The house of Francis II. Leggett & Co. is one of the largest, if not the largest in its operations, engaged in the wholesale grocery business in the city of New York."
tident which enables one to take advantage of the times and turn them to business development.
Mr. Bates is associated in an official capacity with several moneyed organizations and charitable institutions. In support of the latter he gives freely both time and money. Most of the benevolent organizations in the city have felt the blessings of his bounty and artive sympathy, and he is among those men who continually give substantial aid to the poor and needy of which the world knows nothing. He is an admirer and encourager of the fine arts, as his choice private collection of paintings and sculptures attests. Public- spirited, everything that promises to promote the prosperity of the city commands his attention and co-operation. Honor. integrity, enterprise, foresight -- all the qualities which constitute the model merchant-are found in the character of Mr. Bates.
* Francis H. Leggett. the founder of the house of Francis H. Leggett & Co., was born in New York City March 27. 1840. He is descended from the ancient English family of Lezats of Essex, England. one of whom. Hemingius Legat, was high-sheriff of that county in 1404. Gabriel Leggett, the head of the American family of that name, came to this country from England in 1661, and from his son William, born in 1691, the subject of this sketch is descended. His ancestors for three generations were born at Mount Il avint, Westchester County. His father, Abraham Leggett, who married Sarah Lee, i. achter of Richard Lee, was born in 1505, and died in New York City in 1978. He was
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The drug business is represented by the famous house of Mckesson & Robbins, wholesale druggists and manufacturing chemists, in Fulton Street, organized under its present firm name in 1853. It is one of the oldest and most extensive in its operations now in the trade in the city of New York, and is supposed to have the largest jobbing trade of any like house in the United States.
This house was founded in January, 1833, by Charles M. Olcott and John MeKesson, at No. 45 Maiden Lane, which for many years was the centre of the drug business. In the fall of 1835 this firm bought the entire stock and business of William N. Clark & Co., taking into partnership Philip Schieffelin, the junior partner of that house, when the firm name became Olcott, Mckesson & Co. Mr. Schieffelin with- drew in January, 1841, when Daniel C. Robbins, who had graduated in pharmacy. had six years' experience as an apothecary, and had been with the house of Olcott & McKesson from its beginning, was admitted as a partner. The new firm established themselves at No. 127 Maiden Lane in 1842. Their warehouse with all its contents was burned in 1850, and was rebuilt, when the name of the firm became Olcott, Mckesson & Robbins. Mr. Olcott died in 1853, when Mckesson & Robbins became the title of the firm, and so remains. Four partners have since been admitted-George B. Gilbert, John McKesson, Jr., William HI. Wickham, and Charles A. Robbins.
The large warehouse of MeKesson & Robbins, occupying Nos. 91 and 93 Fulton Street and extending to Ann Street, was built in 1555. It is of brick, with an iron front on Fulton Street. It is five stories in height on Fulton Street and six on Ann Street, with basement and subeellar, and having a total of about fifty thousand square feet of floor room on the premises. The front half of the first floor on Fulton Street is occupied as an office for commercial purposes, the other half for boxing and shipping goods and the reception of goods for stock. The stories above are used for the accommodation of the vast stores of then one of the oldest and most respected merchants in the city of New York. having been engaged in the business of a grocer for nearly half a century on the block in Front Street between Beekman and Fulton streets. " He was one of the originators of the Market Bank.
Francis H. Leggett received an academic education. After leaving school, in the fall of 1856, he entered as a clerk a produce commission house, where he remained about five years, and in 1862, as we have observed, he formed a copartnership with his cider brother, which continued until 1870, when he founded the house of which he is still the senior member. His brother Theodore died July 29, 1883. Francis is a member of the Produce Exchange, the Chamber of Commerce, the Union League Club, the Merchant- (Inb, and Dr. John Hall's Presbyterian Church. Mr. Leggett married in 1so1. His wife died in 1533 ; and an infant son five years later.
Eberhard Fabery
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every article pertaining to the business of the apothecary and druggist, with separate apartments for the manufacture of quinine and other chemicals.
To accommodate their increasing business, Mckesson & Robbins in 1879 doubled the size of their premises by the erection of a building of equal dimensions adjoining their warehouse, which is used principally for manufacturing quinine and other chemicals. They are considerable exporters to Central and South America, Japan, and other foreign countries. Their various chemical and pharmaceutical preparations have the highest reputation for purity and certainty of perfect division according to the formulas. The house of Mckesson & Robbins has superior facilities in its manufacturing department, and holds a fore- most position among wholesale druggists in the United States .*
The great leather industry in the city of New York has a conspicu- ous representative in the house of J. B. Hoyt & Co., No. 28 Spruce
# John Mckesson was born in the city of New York, February 22, 1807. He is of Scotch lineage on his paternal side. His remote ancestor was John MeKesson of Argyle (who belonged to the clan McDonald), whose grandson, Alexander MeKesson, came to America at some time during the last century and became the progenitor of the Mckesson family in this country.
John Mckesson, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1772, and was well educated by his bachelor uncle, John McKesson, who was one of the most active patriots of the Revolution in civil life in New York, from the beginning to the end of the struggle. His nephew studied law with him, was admitted to the bar, and practised the legal profession through life, dying in 1829. For twenty-six years he was clerk of the Superior Court of New York. He married Sarah Hall. a daughter of General William Hull, a patriotic soldier of two wars-the war of the Revolution and the second war for independence in 1512-15. She became the mother of John Mckesson, the eminent druggist. The latter, after leaving school. entered the drug-store of his uncle by mar- riage, John M. Bradhurst, in 1822, who taught him the drug business.
With Charles MI. Olcott, as we have observed in the text, Mr. MeKesson founded the present house of MeKesson & Robbins, just fifty years ago. He married Maria Lefferts, of Brooklyn, and ten children blessed their union. Though venerable in years, Mr. MeKesson possesses remarkable physical and intellectual energy, the product of a strong constitution and a judicious exercise of all his powers during his whole life. His charac- ter is strongly marked by those traits which reward the possessor of them with business success and enduring honor among men-namely, a sound judgment, unswerving integ. rity, enterprise tempered with caution. kindness and geniality in social intercourse, frankness and generosity in all his dealings, and an open hand to the claims of the needy. Mr. MeKesson has ever wisely and resolutely refrained from indulging in specu- lative schemes. His trustworthiness is proverbial. He is venerated by the trade for his miany virtues, and in the realm of business disputes he constitutes a sort of court of arbitration. Mr. Mckesson has been favored for more than forty years with a business partner (Mr. Robbins) of rare qualifications and sterling worth. It has been well said that they constitute an unrivalled team, whose labors have been crowned with the highest success.
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Street, who are also extensive leather belting manufacturers. The firm consists of Joseph B. Hoyt, D. B. Fayerweather, and Harvey S. Ladew. They manufacture the "oak sole leather," have extensive tanneries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and are the largest manufacturers of that special kind of leather in the world. Ther have large manufactories of leather belting in the city of New York. Mr. Hoyt was the founder of this house more than forty years ago."
The manufacture of painters' colors is an important industry in the city of New York. In this industry the house of C. T. Reynolds & Co. Nos. 106 and 108 Fulton Street, is prominent. This house is the suc- cessor of that of William Post, established before the war of the Revo- lution, through his sons, W. and G. Post, and Francis Butler, who did business in a small wooden building in Fletcher Street. In 1854, when Mr. Raynolds was at the head of the firm, it was removed to its present location. and after several changes the firm name became C. T. Ravnolds & Co.
This house ranks among the most extensive manufacturers and dealers in colors, chemicals for colors, varnishes, whiting, and putty in the United States. Their factories at Bergen Point and Brooklyn are
* Joseph Blachley Hoyt was born at Stamford, Conn., his place of residence now (1883), on November 18. 1813. After receiving a good common-school education he was apprenticed to learn the trade of tanning and currying hides at Darien, Conn. Pru- dent, industrious, and thrifty, he had accumulated about $1000, saved from his wages, when he was nearly twenty-eight years of age, and with this capital he began the bu-i- ness of tanning and currying on his own account in 1841, at the corner of Cliff and Ferry streets, New York, with a partner named Weed. A year later Mr. Hoyt took in his brother William as a partner. In 1848, their business having been highly successful, Mr. Hoyt associated himself with Mr. Rees in the manufacture of leather belting. an industry which had been carried on quite extensively in New England for a few years. The firm name was Rees & Hoyt. At the end of six years this connection was dissolved. and the firm of Hoyt Brothers was organized. It was composed of Joseph B. Oliver and William Hoyt, who continued to tan and enrry and sell leather and manufacture leather belting on a continually extending scale in both kinds of business. In 1870 the pres. ent firm of J. B. Hoyt & Co. was organized, and the two kinds of business have been carried on with vigor and success until they have reached the vast proportions indicated in the text.
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