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 41
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For more than forty years Mr. Hoyt has been engaged in business on his own account. and is yet an active participant in the daily labors of the house. At one time he was chosen a representative of his district in the Connecticut Legislature for two terms. Religious, charitable, benevolent, and educational institutions have always found in him a generous and ardent friend. He has long been an earnest working member of the Baptist Church, contributing liberally in personal labor and in pecuniary means for the promotion of the welfare and prosperity of the special vineyard wherein he has chosen to labor. As a merchant his integrity and honor are proverbial, as a citizen his character is unsullied.
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FOURTII DECADE, 1860-1870.
of great extent, turning out annually pulp and dry colors to the amount of about sixteen million pounds. They are also large importers of such commodities, handling in the course of a year about forty million pounds. In addition to this business they are extensive dealers in artists' materials of every kind, and they have, under the same firm name, an extensive branch house in Chicago.
The manufacture of carriages and wagons is carried on quite exten- sively in the city. In 1880 there were 140 establishments engaged in the business, employing over $1,333,000 capital, and producing annually wares to the value of over $2,700,000. Among these the establishment of James B. Brewster appears the most conspicuous, as being the oldest in the city, extensive in its business operations, and for the excellence of its work. Mr. Brewster's father was engaged in the same business before him, and had established a high reputation. This son was taken into partnership in the business in 1838, or forty- five years ago, and has pursued it ever since. He is the inventor of several important improvements in the manufacture of carriages and wagons. The " Brewster wagon, " which is the standard wagon, com- mands a higher price than any other because of its superior excellence. His larger carriages also excel in beauty and structure. The factory of J. B. Brewster & Co. is in Twenty-fifth Street, and their warerooms are at the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. In 1870 Mr. Brewster conceived the advantage of giving his clerks and work- men an interest in the business, and he formed a stock company, which was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, and the members of this corporation constitute the firm of J. B. Brewster & Co .*
* James B. Brewster is the eighth in descent from Elder Brewster, of the Mayflower company. His father was James Brewster, of New Haven, Connecticut. The subject of this sketch was born in that city on June 8, 1817. In childhood he was ill most of the time. At the age of ten years he was sent to school at Amherst, Mass., where gymnastic exercise formed a part of the curriculum of the seminary. There he remained two years, gained good health, and has enjoyed that blessing through life in a most remarkable degree. He has practised gymnastic exercises daily for more than fifty years.
Young Brewster served an apprenticeship at carriage-making with his father, and in 1838 became his business partner. It was a time of great uncertainty, doubt, and con- fusion among business men who had escaped ruin in the crash of 1837. A year or so afterward his father retired, leaving the son to proseente the business alone. Inexperi- ence and the condition of trade and finances compelled him to seek the benefit of the Bankrupt act in 1842. He had as much money due him as he owed, but it seemed as if "everybody had failed." He was discharged from debt, and he wrote on the back of the document which gave him that relief, " Discharged legally, but not morally." In the space of seven years afterward he was enabled to write upon it. " Discharged morally,' for he had paid every ereditor, principal and interest. From that time until now he has been successful in business, and has built up the great house of which he is the head.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
A notice of the manufacture of carriage varnish, which is a com- paratively new and important industry in the city of New York, may be properly introduced here, as represented by the extensive establish- ment of Valentine & Co. The house was established in Boston in 1832, and was practically a continuation of a manufactory established by Houghton & McClure in Cambridge, Mass.#
Until about 1835 all American-made carriages were polished as piano-cases are now polished. John R. Lawrence, a carriage-maker of New York, had observed that imported English carriages (of which there were many) remained uniformly bright, while the American polished carriages became spotted with discolorations. Ile became satisfied that it was the superiority of the English varnish that made the difference, and in 1835 he made the first importation of English `coach varnish. After unsuccessful attempts to polish this varnish, Mr. Lawrence observed on English coaches traces of brush marks. It was evident that they were not polished at all. After that he used the English varnish as the English coach-makers evidently did, with great success, and the firm of Lawrence & Collis kept their method a secret for several years, privately importing varnish at $15 and $1S a gallon. About 1852 an agency for the sale of English varnish was opened in New York. Such, in brief, is the history of the introduction into this country of the English flowing varnish that superseded the American polishing varnish.
Until about 1870 the English varnish was unrivalled. Up to that time American manufacturers had signally failed in attempts to equa! it. In that year the house of Valentine & Co., varnish-makers, of Boston, with their factory near Cambridge, becoming assured that they had obtained a long-desired result, made the announcement (October 15th) : " We claim that our varnishes are fully equal to the best imported." In the following year they removed their main ware- house to New York and their factory to Brooklyn, where they yet remain. They have branch houses in Boston, Chicago, London, and Paris. The present company retained the old firm name, and was in- corporated in January, 182. with Lawson Valentine + as president, and Henry C. Valentine vice-president.
* The manufacture of varnish as a distinct industry in our country was first begun by Houghton & MedInre, in a part of the blacksmith shop at Cambridge immortalized by Longfellow in "The Village Blacksmith," and which stood until 1865. Their establish- ment grew into quite large proportions in time, and at the end of seven years they both: left the business with a competence.
+ Lawson Valentine was born in Cambridge, Mass., April 13, 1828. He received # good common-school education, and entered very early into business. After engaging in
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
In 1870 Valentine & Co. became the agents and manufacturers of a material for permanently filling the pores of wood before painting, and which has completely revolutionized the methods of painting practised by carriage and car builders.
Within the space of a generation a special kind of business has grown to enormous proportions in the city of New York. It is difficult to classify it. It may with propriety be called " variety," " fancy," or " general furnishing" business. The most conspicuous representative of this business is the house of R. H. Macy & Co., at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue, which was founded in 1858 by Rowland H. Macy.# At first it was located at a store on Sixth
the manufacture of varnish in the vicinity of Boston and obtaining the important results mentioned in the text, he came to New York City with his business in 1870. He has interested himself since then in practical agriculture and in literature, at the same time continuing to prosecute successfully his original business. He is a partner in the publishing house of Houghton, MitHlin & Co., and a member of the Orange Judd Co., publishers of the American Agriculturist ; he founded The Hut, a journal devoted to the carriage interests, and is one of the principal owners of the Christian Union.
He has also actively engaged in plans for the improvement of New York City property. Shortly after coming to New York he devised the plan of founding an experimental farm, which should render to agriculturists in the United States a service analogous to that rendered by the famous farm of Laws & Gilbert in England. He purchased for this purpose a property of a thousand acres in Orange County, abont tifty miles from New York City. It is situated in a narrow valley, between rocky, wooded hills, in the high- lands of the Hudson, seven miles west of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a little farther south of Newburgh, on a branch of the Erie Railway.
To this he has given the family name of his wife, calling it Houghton Farm. It is under the management of Major Henry E. Alvord, formerly connected with the Massa- chusetts Agricultural College at Amherst. It has, besides the ordinary farm equipment, a botanist, a chemist, and a scientifically educated gardener. A portion of it is devoted to agricultural experiments, the results of which are annually published to the world in pamphlet reports.
It is also made a school of instruction in practical agriculture, a feature which is to be enlarged, and a number of young men have already graduated, including three Indians and one Japanese.
The farm is conducted on business principles, not on those of " fancy farming," and its experimental department is distinct from the farm proper. The aim of the proprietor is to reach practical results, and so to teach how they may be attained by others. Houghton Farm is visited every summer by great numbers, who come to study the best appliances and best methods. The horses, including some magnificent specimens of the famous Norman stock, specially imported, are bred and trained for draught or the road, not for the race-course. The cows, of Jersey stock, are selected and fed with reference to producing the highest possible butter-making qualities ; and the large flock of South- down sheep is under the care of an experienced English shepherd, who has shown what seemingly sterile hills can do in producing wool and mutton.
* Rowland HI. Maey, son of John and Eliza Macy, members of the Society of Friends or Quakers, was born at Nantucket. Mass., August 29, 1822. He received an ordinary
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Avenue, next door to the corner of Fourteenth Street. The stock consisted principally of fancy goods., The business prospered, and in 1863 Mr. Macy rented No. 62 West Fourteenth Street, which was joined to the original store, making it L-shaped. At that time a department of hats and millinery goods was added. Two years later another new department was added, that of jewelry, Vienna goods, and toilet articles. In 1868 the corner store was added, and a depart- ment of gentlemen's furnishing goods was opened in Fourteenth Street. The following year a second store was added in Fourteenth Street, and from that time until now (1883) there have been added, year after year, the remaining buildings on Sixth Avenue, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, until the establishment occupies the whole ground fronting on that avenue and 150 feet on Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets respectively.
In 1869 toys were added to the general stock, and subsequently house-furnishing goods, confectionery, soda-water, books and station- ery, boys' clothing, ladies' underwear manufactured on the premises,
common-school education, and at the age of fifteen he followed the example of many Nantucket boys and went on a whaling voyage in a ship from New Bedford. Tiring of the sea in three or four years, he started out, a bright and energetic young man, to " make his fortune." He went to Boston, tried different kinds of employment for two or three years, and then entered a printing office to learn the art, but in six months he got tired of it and gave it up. At about that time he became acquainted with George W. Houghton, an importer, married his sister, and was by him started in a small thread-and- needle store in Boston, which was continued about five years with moderate success.
When the California gold fever broke out, early in 1849, he went to the Pacific coast and became a prominent grocer at Marysville. In 1851 he returned with between $3000 and $4000, and opened a dry-goods store in Haverhill, Mass. He failed in business there in 1855, and went to Superior City, at the head of Lake Superior, where he speculated in real estate. The panic of 1857, which prostrated all kinds of business, ended his career as a speculator, and he came to New York City with a very small capital, where he opened a fancy store on Sixth Avenue, near Fourteenth Street, with the result mentioned in the text. He was now thirty-five years of age, and possessed of good health and indomitable energy. He entered upon his new undertaking with a determination to sue- ceed. and with untiring industry, wise forethought, and upright dealing he did succeed. In 1862 he originated the peculiarity of odd prices, such as 49. 29, and 99 cents, which is still kept up. This idea proved to be singularly successful, and has probably attracted more attention than any other innovation known to the trade.
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Mr. Macy continued actively engaged in the business alone. maintaining a vigilant supervision of every part of it, until 1872, when he took into partnership A. T. La Forge. and in the year 1874 Robert M. Valentine was admitted, when the firm of R. H. Macy & Co. was organized. In the early part of 1877 Mr. Macy's health began to fail, and he was ordered by his physician to try the efficacy of the German baths. When he arrived in Paris he was too ill to proceed further. His strength rapidly declined, and he died in the latter part of March, 1877.
4
FOURTH DECADE, 1800-1870.
crockery, glassware and silverware, dressmaking, dress goods, uphol- stery goods, and lastly a ladies' restaurant. The business of the house of R. H. Macy & Co. is the most extensive of its kind in the United States, perhaps in the world. They employ about fifteen hundred per- sons, and during the holidays from two to three thousand.
The retail dry-goods trade is conspicuously represented by the house of Edward Ridley * & Sons. in Grand Street. It was founded in 1849, starting as a little fancy store in a room twelve and a half by thirty feet in size, at No. 3113 Grand Street. In 1851 Mr. Ridley had three assist- ants in the little store. Ten years later No. 311 Grand Street and No. 63 Allen Street were added to the premises, and from time to time other buildings were taken as the business rapidly grew in extent. The last acquisition was in March, 1883, when the premises were so extended that they now occupy the space bounded by Grand, Orchard, and Allen streets, and comprising four acres and a half of floor-room. There are seventeen hundred persons employed in the establishment. Among these are some who have been with Mr. Ridley over twenty years. Mr. Ridley's sons, Edward A. and Arthur J. Ridley, were associated with him in business. The chief business of the concern is the sale of millinery and straw goods, fancy goods, substantial dry goods, and in fact everything that can possibly be wanted for the household ornamentation, dress or toilet.
* Edward Ridley was born at Newark, Nottinghamshire, England, in 1816. He served an apprenticeship in a store in England, and at thirty years of age came to America. He first opened a small store at Albany, where he prospered. In 1849 he went to New York and opened a small fancy store in Grand Street, as has been observed in the text, where he built up a very extensive business in the space of time of a generation. He was always active in his business, personally superintending generally its vast operations, and was so engaged the day previous to his decease. He had a beautiful villa at Gravesend, Long Island, which he had made his summer residence for thirteen years. His fortune was very large, and was rapidly increasing. Mr. Ridley was an earnest member of the Methodist Church, often occupying the pulpit of the said church, which was near his country home. Such was the case on the Sunday before His death, which occurred, from apoplexy, on Tuesday morning, July 31, 1853.
In that place of worship, known as the Parkville Methodist Church, he was a pillar of strength, sustaining it largely by his munificence. his personal labors in its Sabbath- school, of which he was the superintendent, and as its steward, trustee, and a faithful class-leader. On the Sunday before his death he became so earnestly engaged in preach- ing that his discourse occupied sixty-five minutes. when he intended to occupy only twenty minutes. He addressed the Sabbath-school in the afternoon, and was in the congregation in the evening. On Monday night he retired before eleven o'clock in . apparent good health, and at half past one o'clock in the morning his spirit took its departure. Mr. Ridley left a wife, one daughter by his surviving widow, and two sons und two daughters by his first wife. Six hundred of the employees of E. Ridley & Sons
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The house of Bliss, Fabyan & Co., of No. 32 Thomas Street and No. 117 Duane Street, is a conspicuous representative of the dry-goods commission business. It is one of the most extensive establishments engaged in that line of trade in the city of New York. It is acting as selling agent for New England manufacturers, like the Pepperell Manu- facturing Company, the Otis Company, the Androscoggin Company, the Bates Mill American Printing Company, and others. The members of the firm are noted for business skill and wisdom, and high personal and mercantile character. The senior of the firm is not only an ener- getic and judicious business man, but an earnest helper in religious and charitable work in the city of his adoption, where a large portion of his life has been spent .*
New York City is the chief centre of the transportation business of the country, and which is one of the most important and extensive of our national industries. Of the numerous managers of this industry no one is more conspicuous than John HI. Starin, of New York City. He first engaged in it just before the breaking out of the Civil War. He had conceived the project of the establishment of a general agency in this city to solicit and influence freight for the great railroad trunk lines centring there. He satisfied a leading railroad officer of the feasibility and utility of his plan, and secured a contract with a promi- nent road. Very soon afterward the Civil War was begun, during which Mr. Starin's capacity for the organization of means of transpor- tation on a large scale was proved to be equal to the pressing demands of the National Government. His services in this line were of immense value to the government during the entire war. At its close several of the great railroad lines having their centres in New York made exten- sive freight transportation contracts with him. The business in his hands soon expanded to enormous proportions, including all the prin- cipal roads connected with the metropolis.
attended the funeral at the Parkville Church, and 200 Sunday-school children filled the front seats. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.
* Cornelius N. Bliss is a native of Fall River. Mass. He was educated at public schools and a private academy in that town, and in a high school in New Orleans, where he spent two years before he entered the wholesale dry-goods house of J. M. Beebe & Co., of Boston. in ISIS, as clerk. In 1864 he became a partner in the house, and two years later he was admitted. as a partner with the firm of J. S. & E. Wright & Co., in the wholesale domestic dry-goods commission business, in Boston. He soon afterward came to New York and established a branch of the Boston house, and it became the well- known wholesale domestic dry-goods commission house of Wright, Bliss & Fabyan, of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, acting as selling agents for New England manufact- urers, as we have observed. The firm is now Bliss, Fabyan & Co., engaged in the same MINILOSS,
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
Mr. Starin is now (1883) the proprietor of an immense establishment for the removal of freight from point to point in the harbor and city of New York, with every facility for the speedy fulfilment of every order. He employs vast machinery in this enterprise-vessels of almost every description, and for the carriage of freight through the city he employs between twenty-five and thirty trucks and over fifty horses. He has a dry dock for shipbuilding. He has also organized an admirable system of transportation of passengers and summer excursions in the neighbor- hood of New York. The latter business has already assumed vast proportions. Altogether this is the most extensive and successful organization for transportation in the world .*
There are many men like Mr. Valentine and Mr. Starin engaged in successful business enterprises in the city of New York who have tastes
* John Henry Starin is a native of the beautiful Mohawk Valley, in the State of New York. He was born at Sammonsville, Fulton County, Angust 27, 1825, and is the fifth of the eight children of Myndert Starin, who laid the foundation of the manufacturing interest at Sammonsville, and was the chief founder of Fultonville in Montgomery County. John Henry displayed in early youth the characteristics which have marked his life career-enterprise and indomitable energy. He received a careful academic educa- tion, and studied medicine in Albany. His nature demanded a more active and wider employment. In 1856 he engaged in the manufacture and sale of medicines and toilet articles in the city of New York. This business he abandoned when he undertook the great transportation enterprise mentioned in the text.
Mr. Starin entered upon public official life in 1848, when he was appointed postmaster at Fultonville, which position he held four years. In the fall of 1876 he was elected to a seat in Congress as representative of the Twentieth District, comprising five counties -- Fulton, Hamilton, Montgomery, Saratoga, and Schenectady. He was re-elected in 1878 by a large majority. A nomination for a third term was tendered him, but it was declined. Since that time he has devoted himself to his private affairs. In the prosecution of his undertaking in the business of transportation of passengers, and excursions, Mr. Starin has expended vast sums of money lavishly but wisely in a business point of view. He bought Locust Island, fifty aeres in extent, together with five smaller islands in Long Island Sound, near New Rochelle, and has made it a paradise of beauty, known as Starin's Glen Island. Sinnons paths and roads, amply shaded with stately trees, and here and there a statue, heighten the beauty and picturesqueness of the scene. In the centre of the island is an elegant mansion, and around it are bowers, conservatories, fish ponds, and a zoological garden. There are billiard rooms, bowling alleys, dancing pavilions, restaurants, and a fine club-house overlooking the Sound. - Mr. Starin is also the owner of several pretty little parks on the Hudson and East rivers, to which large pienie parties are sent. These and Glen Island have become the summer resorts of vast numbers of New York pleasure-seekers, who employ many of Mr. Starin's vessels in their transpor- tation. He bas a fine mansion at Fultonville, surrounded by 1400 acres of land under excellent cultivation.
Mr. Starin attributes his success in life chiefly to his almost intaitive knowledge of men and his ceaseless activity. He says : " Persisteney and tact, hour by hour. day by .
day, month by month, year by year, eternal, never-failing, ultimately are sure to suc- ceed." .
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
for rural life and agricultural pursuits, who own landed estates in the country and delight in cultivating them. There is a larger number who have limited domains in the country, who spend much of their leisure time in the warmer months in the agrecable employment of horticulture, either for pleasure or for profit, or both.
There is in the city of New York a flourishing Horticultural Society. comprising about two hundred and fifty members. It was incorpo- rated in 1822. Early in this century, as we have observed, Dr. David Hosack established a botanic garden (the Elgin) at the centre of Man- hattan Island. The curator of the garden was Mr. Dennison, who had a florist's establishment on the site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. A contemporary of his was William Wilson, who, with Dr. Hosack, were the originators of the New York Horticultural Society, in 1818. He was the author of a book on " Kitchen Gardening." Another promi- nent horticulturist of that day was Thomas Bridgman, author of " The Gardener's Assistant."
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