USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume III > Part 58
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In Rochester, on October 24, 1889, Dr. Hermance was united in marriage to Miss Mary Margaret MacCallum, who survives him. Theirs was a very happy and con- genial union, characterized by mutual understanding and helpfulness. The Doctor was an earnest, faithful member of St. James Episcopal church of Rochester and at one time sang in its choir. He had a high conception of the duties of citizenship and was a strong advocate of educational advancement, serving for several terms on the school board. He was identified with the Chamber of Commerce and along fraternal lines was connected with the Independent Order of Foresters and the Masons, belong- ing to Yonondio Lodge, Hamilton Chapter, Monroe Commandery and Damascus Tem- ple in the last named organization. He never lost the attitude of a student toward his profession and kept in close touch with the achievements of research in the medical and surgical world through his membership in the Hahnemann Society and the city, state and national medical associations. Dr. Hermance was also the possessor of liter- ary talent and wrote extensively on a variety of subjects for leading magazines. He prepared many papers for the Theosophical Society, of which he was a prominent member, and was likewise gifted as a public speaker, delivering many interesting lec- tures on that subject, on which he was exceptionally well informed. He had an in- satiable thirst for knowledge and his mind was a storehouse of wisdom. He was always considerate of others in speech and action and his life was a strong and serv- iceable one, crowned by noteworthy achievement.
EDWIN K. BURNHAM.
On the pages of Newark's history the name of Edwin K. Burnham is indelibly in- scribed and close investigation into his record serves but to heighten his fame and im- press one with the value of his service. The spirit of enterprise animated his every action and he was foremost in all worthy projects. He was a resident of the village for fifty years and his death, which occurred on the 19th of March, 1915, at the age of seventy-five, was the occasion of deep and widespread regret, for his was a con -. spicuously useful life.
Edwin K. Burnham was born September 8, 1839, in Randolph, Vermont, and at- tended the Orange county (Vermont) grammar school, the high school at Randolph and Royalton Academy. In 1862, when a young man of twenty-three, he enlisted for service in the Civil war, joining Company C, Fifteenth Vermont Infantry, with which he fought in the battle of Gettysburg. He was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant in 1863 and in the spring of 1864 was graduated from the Albany Law School. In June of the latter year he was admitted to the bar and began the prac- tice of law in Newark, New York, as a partner of James E. Briggs, also a native of the Green Mountain state. In September, 1864, Mr. Burnham reenlisted and on Octo- ber 10, 1864, was commissioned captain of Company D, One Hundred and Eleventh Regiment of New York Infantry, with which he participated in the engagements in and around Petersburg until taken prisoner on the 2d of April, 1865. He was returned to his regiment April 9, the day of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, and re- ceived his discharge June 4, 1865. Returning to Newark, he resumed the practice of his profession, and in 1872 entered the field of journalism, founding the Newark Union. He was one of the promoters of the fruit canning industry of western New York and owned a half interest in the Wayne County Preserving Company of Newark, which is now known as the Edgett-Burnham Company and has two thousand acres devoted to the growing of fruit and vegetables. It was incorporated in 1908, at which time Mr. Burnham became president, remaining at the head of the undertaking until his death, and in its management he displayed keen sagacity and executive ability of a high order.
The business was founded in 1863 and in 1921 his son, George A. Burnham, as- sumed the duties of president. He has proven a worthy successor to his father and under his able administration the scope of the industry has been greatly increased.
1
EDWIN K. BURNHAM
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The company now ranks with the largest canners of fruits and vegetables in Wayne county and the business has been in existence for sixty-one years, being one of the oldest of the kind in the state. The firm exercises the greatest care in the selection and preparation of its output, which finds a ready sale, owing to its superior quality and flavor, while the business methods of the house have always balanced up with the principles of truth and honor.
The activities of Edwin K. Burnham were not confined to business affairs and he was ever inspired by an unselfish spirit of devotion to the general good, directing his activities into those channels through which flows the greatest and most permanent good to the largest number. In the fall of 1884 he was elected to the state legislature and during his term of service was largely instrumental in securing the passage of the bill establishing the Custodial Asylum for Feeble-Minded Women, now the Newark State School, which is numbered among the important institutions of the state. It is located in Newark and for a number of years Mr. Burnham served as secretary and also as a member of the board of trustees. In June, 1889, he was appointed state superintendent of public buildings, which position he filled with credit and honor. One of his first innovations was the establishment of the rule that the nation's flag should float from the staff of the state capitol every week-day throughout the year, and this was the origin of the movement to display the flag on public school buildings. He was also called to the office of justice of the peace, which he filled for eight years, and for four terms acted as supervisor.
On August 31, 1865, Mr. Burnham was united in marriage to Miss Nancy A. Dill- ingham, a niece of Governor Dillingham. Of the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Burn- ham, the only surviving member is George A. Burnham of Newark. Edwin K. Burn- ham was a leading member of Vosburgh Post, No. 99, G. A. R., of which he was com- mander for four terms, and also belonged to the Grange. He was identified with Newark Lodge, No. 83, of the Masonic order and was likewise a member of Lodge No. 250 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He left a name fragrant with good deeds and his labors will continue to bear fruit for many years to come. The ties of home and friendship were sacred to him and in his treatment of those with whom he was associated he was ever courteous and considerate,
CHARLES MARVIN EVEREST.
Charles Marvin Everest, president of the Vacuum Oil Company, was regarded as the foremost refiner and manufacturer of heavy petroleum oils in the industry and unexcelled as a refinery constructor. He was in the sixty-fifth year of his age when he passed away at Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the 22d of July, 1917, his birth having occurred in Portage, Wisconsin, October 25, 1852. His parents were Hiram Bond and Mercy Eleanor Everest, the former of whom founded the Vacuum Oil Company on the 4th of October, 1866. Hiram B. Everest was born in that part of Allegany county, New York, which is now in Wyoming county, April 11, 1830. He had what was then a preparatory course at Middlebury Academy, and when nineteen years of age went to Wisconsin, where he started in the nursery business near Port- age. He had desired to go to California in 1849, but his mother raised too serious objection and a compromise was made on Wisconsin. He lived in Wisconsin seven or eight years, establishing an apple tree nursery. When the trees, raised from the seed, were ready for market they were nearly all ruined by an exceptionally severe winter. He tried another lot of trees grown from the seed and budded by himself from stock that stood the previous severe winter. These reached a size ready for sale when a still more severe winter killed the major portion of this stock. He sold the balance for sufficient to enable him to move to Ohio, where he bought land near Cleveland, now within the city limits, starting a vineyard and small fruit farm. Here again early frosts prevented the fruit from ripening. While at this place, the Mecca (Ohio) oil excitement broke out and Mr. Everest went to investigate conditions in that field. He made no investments, but soon after bought a tract of woodland near Cleveland and erected a sawmill. After two or three years he moved to Rochester, New York, his father also coming to this city at the same time from Wyoming, New York. This was in the spring of 1865. Having no, business, he started a grocery store and during the first winter he met Matthew Ewing, who had a patent for distilling crude oil in vacuum, the claim being that by such distillation all of the crude oil would be converted into illuminating (kerosene) oil. Mr. Everest furnished the money and joined with Mr. Ewing in erecting a small experimental still in the
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latter's back yard. As a result of these experiments Mr. Everest discovered there was a residual product that could not be distilled off. The experiment to convert crude oil entirely into illuminating oil having proved a failure, Mr. Everest set about to see what could be done with the residual product. Among other things it occurred to him that it might be useful for leather. He therefore arranged with Alling Brothers, the best known curriers of that day, to make some experiments with it. These resulted so satisfactorily, and they were so anxious for supplies, that Mr. Everest erected his first still, having a crude oil capacity of forty barrels. This is kept at the Rochester works and proves interesting in comparison with the present stills at Olean and Paulsboro, New Jersey, having a capacity of from four hundred to one thousand barrels. The oil made in this first still was sold to curriers princi- pally in and about Boston. There had been previous experiments made with petro- leum distillate oils, a patent having been issued for the use of petroleum on leather, but these had been unsuccessful. Vacuum oil, however, first known as "Ewing's Patent Vacuum Oil", met with such immediate success that the owner of the patent referred to threatened to enjoin the users of the oil. This practically destroyed the curriers' business and Mr. Everest's next step was to sell the oil in small cans to farmers and others. The oil was at first put up in square cans which had previously been used for canned oysters, and from this small beginning a very considerable trade was built up in Vacuum Harness Oil, still known to many of the older people of the country as a widely advertised article. Mr. Everest's next thought in connection with the use of this residual product was the lubrication of steam cylinders, and from this be- ginning there has developed the present organization of the Vacuum Oil Company. Desirous of obtaining a crude oil supply of his own and remembering the outcroppings of oily shale on the farm lands formerly owned by his father. Mr. Everest secured in 1878 oil leases on the farm and the surrounding farm lands. He drilled a test well, hoping to find oil, but instead of petroleum he discovered a stratum of rock salt seventy feet thick at a depth of about thirteen hundred feet. This deposit of salt has since been found to extend over a large area, and the salt industry of Wyoming and Genesee counties has grown to immense proportions. The first sixty- five barrels of salt manufactured in this region were made under Mr. Everest's directions. In 1879 Mr. Everest retired from business, although he retained the presidency of the Vacuum Oil Company until about the year 1900. He died March 5, 1913. The following is an excerpt from an article which appeared in the Gargoyle World: "It sometimes happens that a father originates a business and a son estab- lishes it, but it seldom happens that an enterprise of such magnitude and of such world-wide scope as the Vacuum Oil Company owes it creation and development primarily to two men holding such a relation to each other. It is clear evidence of family talent. The elder Everest was a man of inquisitive mind and restless energy. As a young man he tried various enterprises, including specialized agriculture, without success before he at last found his opportunity in the petroleum industry. A less able man would have been discouraged from loss of time and capital in unsuccessful ventures, but he believed success was somewhere at hand and he never ceased its pursuit until it was overtaken. He was attracted to the oil business in the days of its first real development and approached it from an entirely original viewpoint. At that time refining processes were crude and designed to skim off from the oil the burning product only, all else being regarded as troublesome waste. It seemed to the elder Everest that this so called waste could be turned into products of great value and with this in mind he persuaded a few friends reluctantly to join with him in furnishing a meager capital in order that his ideas might be tried out in a practical way. It is needless to recount the vicissitudes of those early efforts, with their usual periods of discouragement and difficulty, it is sufficient to state that in a comparatively few years the elder Everest, in a small way, was making and selling petroleum oils of a character absolutely unique and filling a need that insured a large development. This fact attracted the astute founders of the Standard Oil Company, and they wisely concluded that the elder Everest possessed knowledge their great enterprise required. They finally induced him and his associates to sell a ma- jority stock interest, for which a substantial price was paid. The elder Everest soon thereafter wearied of the details of the oil business and went west to try new enter- prises, particularly agriculture, of which he was fond. Eventually he became a very successful grower of oranges in southern California."
Charles M. Everest, whose name introduces this review, came to Rochester with his parents when a child. In the acquirement of an education he attended the city schools and also spent a year as a university student. After putting aside his textbooks he became a clerk in the offices of the Vacuum Oil Company. He gave
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careful study to this business until he had mastered its many details. He was promoted until he was made vice president and general manager and finally presi- dent in 1906, on the final retirement of his father from business. The original plant was in Rochester and at first was composed of a few small vacuum stills of forty barrels charging capacity. In 1890 an oil plant was purchased in Olean and that became the place for running the company's crude oil. The company's growth in fifty-eight years has been of such proportions that the facts seem like fiction. One important part of its development has been the manufacture and marketing of oils for lubricating automobiles, motorcycles, tractors and marine motors. When the automobile was added to the world's machinery the company at once began to
learn its requirements for lubrication. When Charles M. Everest began his duties with the company, its offices were in the Powers building. His father, one clerk and himself were the only occupants. The younger man took charge of the com- pany's affairs for three months during his father's absence in 1870. In 1877 he left the company's employ and became a wholesale dealer in refined oil. In 1879 he sold out his business and returned to the Vacuum Oil Company to be its vice president and treasurer. The following interesting account of his business career was published in the Gargoyle World: "When only a lad he permanently joined his father in the oil enterprise. By the time it was fairly on its feet he was well grounded in all its details, and when his father retired, the entire burden of executive management fell upon his shoulders. From that date the real growth and development of the company began. Although his father for many years, for sentimental reasons, retained the title of president, the son performed all the duties of the position. The executives of the Standard Oil Company wisely, and with only minor restrictions, gave him a free hand and provided necessary capital and in the end were amazed at the de- velopments that followed. Charles Marvin Everest had all those characteristics which make the truly great business man. He possessed conviction, thoroughness, keen imagination, untiring energy, undaunted courage and a faith that surmounted all obstacles. No part of the work was too great for him to master or too small to attract his attention. He worked long hours and with unremitting attention. He was recognized at the time of his death as the foremost refiner and manufacturer of heavy petroleum oils in the whole industry, and unexcelled as a refinery constructor. During his management the company constructed a number of entirely new plants from his plans and under his direction which produced products unlike those turned out at any other. He constantly devised new processes and methods by which new products could be made or old products improved. He was never satisfied that a good thing could not be made better, and his single purpose was to make vacuum products ever distinguished for excellence and economy of service. Notwithstanding his rare gift as a manufacturer, he was a true accountant and the various systems of high efficiency now in use by the company, covering the manifold details of ac- counting routine and control, were originated by him. Above all, he had the rare gift of salesmanship in its broadest sense. He realized that the intrinsic value of a product is of no avail unless it is backed by exceptional marketing skill, for the user must be brought in touch with the thing to be used. It was due to his funda- mental grasp of marketing problems, and his far-reaching imagination as to selling possibilities, that Vacuum products ultimately covered literally the whole world. When he succeeded to the control of the company's business at the retirement of his father, he first satisfied himself that the manufacture of heavy oils for lubricat- ing and other purposes was the special line of policy to continue in the future, as in the past, and thereafter he never wavered in his determination. He set out first to produce oils, absolutely the best for the purpose designed. He established what was probably the first fully equipped laboratory in the oil industry and, not satisfied with its unaided efforts, sought the counsel of leading chemists and engineers in working out definite results. He established the first technical department in connection with the use and application of lubricants and products for leather making, being determined not only to supply products of the highest efficiency, but to keep full step with every new development. Every new form of machinery was carefully studied and experimented with until just the right product was evolved for its need. These initial efforts were subsequently expanded into what now comprise the great technical and laboratory forces that give intelligence and certainty of purpose to all the company's efforts. It was due to the work of such departments that the company was first to meet the requirements of the electrical industry, the creation of which is the marvel of the present age, and also the automobile, which has revolutionized transportation. Vacuum products have held first place ever since, not only in these but in all new developments of applied energy. Mr. Everest, when
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he had satisfied himself that the products of the company were the best possible that then could be manufactured and were ready for a wide market, turned his thought to the question of their sale. At the time of the beginnings of the petroleum oil industry all oils were sold through jobbers and dealers, to whom the consumer applied, as it was practically impossible for the scattered producers of fish and animal oils to market their production direct. The oil refiners naturally followed the same plan and sold to and through the dealer. Mr. Everest decided that to secure the market that Vacuum products deserved and should have, he must go direct to the consumer and to adopt fixed prices the same to like buyers and subject to no abatement or modification. This plan sounds commonplace enough now, but was absolutely revo- lutionary then. The dealer's general method was to get the best price he could, and the manufacturer was satisfied with the best price he in turn could secure from the dealer who controlled the distribution. Mr. Everest was determined to make and control his own market. For a time the company's marketing operations were confined to a comparatively narrow local field, but plans were undertaken to cover the whole United States. Unremitting effort and free expenditure of capital resulted in a rapid spread of marketing organizations from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, each employing a large salaried force of salesmen who sought the attention and interest of the consumer direct. This general plan has never since been deviated from in principle, although modified in the sale of Mobiloils, since the dealer is the sole medium employed in their distribution, but the whole design of the company's efforts as relates to this particular class of products is to reach the ultimate consumer by general advertising and other methods, so that he will demand from the dealer oils of the company's manufacture, and be satis- fied to accept no other.
"Success rapidly followed on Mr. Everest's methods, which were rigidly adhered to, and the demand quickly outran the capacity of the Rochester plant. The first Olean plant was purchased and remodeled, which was the beginning of many suc- cessive steps since taken to expand the company's output, there never having been a time in its history, however, when sales did not tread upon the heels of production. As soon as the United States was well covered and success assured, Mr. Everest turned his thoughts to the foreign markets, which were virgin fields for such direct methods. The first tryout was made in England. Several carloads of the leading brands were shipped to Liverpool, among them 600 W. Cylinder Oil, which still holds the same preeminence as a cylinder lubricant that it held when first introduced, and a well trained representative was sent over to introduce the oils to the consuming trade by the same direct method employed at home. Success was immediate. The shipment was quickly sold and more called for and still more. The English buyer not only found the goods acceptable but liked the direct one-priced plan of sale. Mr. Everest quickly grasped the opportunities of the situation and personally went to England and spent a number of months in directly organizing a complete and self-contained selling center. From that time progress was uninterrupted in that country, and later on the business became so large and of so many ramifications that an English company was incorporated which in time secured manufacturing facilities of its own to supplement its operations. As soon as the business in England was fairly well established, trained men were sent to the Continent and ultimately, step by step, to Scandinavia, South Africa, Egypt, India, Australia, China and Japan, Russia, etc., until there did not remain a spot in the world where machinery was operated where Vacuum products were not well known and readily obtainable. It is today no idle claim that Vacuum oils are the standards of value and efficiency around the entire globe. Locally incorporated companies, with their own facilities, became necessary and were organized in country after country as time went on, until today Vacuum companies exist and operate under the laws of all important foreign countries. With the dissolution decree of the United States supreme court of 1911, the Vacuum Oil Company was totally severed from its affiliated relation with the Standard Oil Company, and being everywhere entrenched entered upon a new era of development, being guided through this period of readjustment by Mr. Everest with rare skill and judgment. Such is the record of Mr. Everest's achieve- ment through nearly forty-five years of unremitting toil. It is a pathetic coincidence that death overtook him just as he had nearly completed his plans to retire from the active management and enjoy a well earned leisure. He was a just employer, ex- pecting the same zeal and devotion he himself gave, but was quick to recognize and reward the same. He was exceptionally conscientious and was naturally modest and shy, intensely disliking notoriety and always avoiding prominence. His business principles were of the highest character, and he would never permit the company's
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