The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 24

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II > Part 24

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This industry has passed through great changes in the last twenty-five years, not only in Kings county and the state of New York, but throughout the whole country. In 1860, the first census in which it was reported, there were 26 establishments in the whole country, employing 1,294 hands, and $1,037,600 cap- ital, and producing goods valued at $2,148,800. These all consisted of what would now be called cheap papers.

In 1870, the number of establishments had fallen to 19, but these were employing 869 hands, and $1,415,- 500 capital, and produced goods to the value of $2,165,510. These were better goods, though not yet of the highest quality. In 1880 there were reported 25 establishments, employing a capital of $3,560,500 and 2,487 hands, and producing goods valued at $6,261,303. Among these were the finest patterns, equal if not superior to any of the European papers. Of these 25 paper hangings factories, 16 were in the state of New York (11 in New York city, 3 in Brook- lyn, 1 in Staten Island, and 1 in Buffalo), 6 in Phila- delphia, and 3 in New Jersey.

In 1870, one-fourth of all the paper hangings made in the state of New York were made in Kings county, and three-fourths in New York city. About two- thirds of all the manufactories, and more than one- half the wall paper produced in the United States were made in the two counties of New York and Kings. The statistics of the census of the business in Kings county in 1870 were: 5 establishments, 332 hands employed, $300,000 capital, $149,500 wages, $996,000 products.

In 1880, there had been another change, both in Kings and New York counties; the production in the former, as we have already seen, had increased, though the number of establishments had decreased from five to three; the quality of the goods had also greatly improved.

In New York city there were 11 establishments; $196,500 capital; 1,359 hands; $415,120 paid in wages; $2,054,104 value of raw material; $3,499,143 of an- nual products. At that time those two counties had three-fifths of all the manufactories, and produced

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four-fifths of all the paper hangings made in the United States.

Both cities (New York and Brooklyn), have made great progress in the manufacture of these goods in three years, 1880-'83, and their present relation to the entire production of the country is that of 83 to 100, or five-sixths of the whole. The number of establish- ments remains (with some local changes), three-fifths of the whole, but some of the establishments in the two cities are larger than any others in the United States (one, in Brooklyn, is said to be the largest in the world). Of the 83 per cent. of production, Brooklyn has about 31 per cent., and New York 52 per cent., and each year increases largely the aggregate produc- tion. The actual amount and value of the Brooklyn product for the year ending July 1, 1883, was, in round numbers, 13,632,000 rolls, value, $2,175,556; of this amount Messrs. William H. Mairs & Co. made 8,882,- 000 rolls, or their equivalent, valued at $1,125,376.

The great improvement in these papers dates back only to 1875. There are yet considerable quantities of the cheaper papers manufactured, for there is a de- mand for them; but even the cheapest have tasteful designs, and are superior to many of the best designs of fifteen years ago. A small quantity of the cheaper qualities is imported from Germany, where poor paper and cheap work are united, but the importation is de- creasing every year.

WILLIAM H. MAIRS, who is well known as the leading manufacturer of wall paper in the United States, was born in Utica, Oneida county, N. Y., June 29th, 1834. His father was John Mairs, who, for twenty-five years, was a merchant of Utica, and his mother was Rachel (Van Deusen) Mairs, a daughter of James Van Deusen, Esq., of Leeds, Greene county, N. Y.

Mr. Mairs' grandfather, Rev. James Mairs, was a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, who came to this country from the North of Ireland, about 1790, and settled at Galway, Sara- toga county, N. Y.

On his mother's side he is a descendant of the seventh gen- eration of Jan Franse Van Hussam, who came from Holland with his family and settled at Fort Orange and Beverwyck (now Albany), as early as 1645, where he made several pur- chases of land; among others, the Claverack lands, made Juns 5, 1662, lying along the Hudson river, above, and in- cluding the site on which the city of Hudson now stands, which he bought of the Indians for the sum of five hundred guilders in beavers, as recorded in a book of deeds in the Albany county clerk's office. Mr. Mairs, consequently, comes of old Knickerbocker stock.

In 1845, his father closed up his business in Utica, and re- moved with his family to New York, where William H. Mairs received his education at the Mechanics' Institute.

In 1850, he commenced his mercantile education in the fancy goods trade, in which his father and brother were then engaged, and in that line of business he remained seven years.

Ambitious to start in business for himself, when but 23 years of age, in 1857, he began the manufacture of wall pa- per in a comparatively small way. His business grew rapidly and steadily, and now ranks as the most extensive of its

kind in the United States. His immense factory, located at the corner of Sackett and Van Brunt streets, is five stories high, and covers twenty-three lots, extending through the block to Union street ; its length on Sackett street is 256 feet, and it extends 200 feet along Union street, and 100 feet on Van Brunt street. Here all the various processes of wall paper manufacture are carried on, affording employment to a large number of skilled workmen. In the pages of this work, devoted to the manufacturing history of Brooklyn, these premises are described, and further mention is made of Mr. Mairs' great enterprise.

On June 13th, 1866, Mr. Mairs was married to Miss Ellen A., daughter of Danforth K. Olney, Esq., of Catskill, N. Y., a prominent member of the Greene county bar, and has a fam- ily of four sons and a daughter named in the order of their birth. James H., born July 31st, 1867; William A., born January 6th, 1870; John D., born March 2d, 1872; Olney B., born January 31st, 1876, and Ella Louise, born October 20th, 1878. Mr. Mairs is, in the best sense, one of the most prom- inent of the representative business men of Brooklyn; a man of much enterprise, energy and originality, and a large employer of labor. Taking no active part in politics or other interests, which might have a tendency to divert his attention from his constantly increasing business, he has ap- plied himself unremittingly to the paper manufacture and trade, with all the various details of which he doubtless has a more thorough acquaintance than any other man in the country, until his name and reputation for fair and honorable dealing is known to the entire wall paper trade of the United States and Canada.

SUBSECTION I .- Paper-Making.

There is not, so far as we are aware, any paper mill in Kings County for the manufacture of fine writing or printing papers; perhaps none for white papers of any description; though on this latter point, we are not quite certain. These papers are generally made where there is ample water-power-good clear water being a necessity for making clear white papers-and cheap land, and extensive, low-priced buildings are also es- sential. The raw material is probably as cheap here as anywhere.

Straw paper and paper from wood pulp are also generally made in the country, and the former, espe- cially, in the west, where straw is a drug. But there are, certainly, two and perhaps three manufactories of paper in Kings county. One, the " Manila " paper, made of jute butts by Messrs. L. Waterbury & Co., we have already described; they manufacture 10 tons of it every 24 hours, equal to 3,000 tons per year. Messrs. Henry A. Philp & Co. (H. A. Philp and M. B. Carpenter), a house recently established, are manu- facturing, at Carroll, corner of Nevins street, both news and wall paper. This paper is made from old news- paper stock and similar material. The paper is made on Fourdrinier machines, and in large rolls. They produce 4 tons of the wall paper in 24 hours, equal to about twelve hundred tons per year. It is mostly sold here. The quantity of news made is not reported. Lowell L. Palmer manufactures "Manila " paper, amount not stated,

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

Another large paper mill, finely fitted up, is now idle.

SUBSECTION II .- The Manufacture of Fancy and Colored Papers.

The statistics for the census gathered by Mr. Froth- ingham, in 1880, enumerate paper hangings and fancy papers together-giving 6 establishments; $597,000 capital; 622 hands; $237,133 wages paid annually; and $1,752,412 of annual product. The Census Office de- cided to separate the two industries, and gave the statistics of the paper hangings manufacture as 3 es- tablishments; $285,000 capital; 427 hands; $175,233 wages paid, and $1,382,862 of annual production.

The number of these establishments in 1880 was correctly stated; one has been added since; but how far short of accuracy they fell in the other particulars is very clearly shown in a preceding section.

But, unfortunately for the accuracy of the census returns, they forgot to put in the fancy papers at all ! The statistics of this industry (fancy papers), as col- lected by Mr. Frothingham, would seem to have been: 3 establishments; $312,000 capital; 195 hands; $61,400 paid for wages, and $369,550 total annual product. The business directory for 1883 gives the number of manu- facturers of fancy papers as four. The other particulars will, we think, show that, though Mr. Frothingham used all diligence in collecting his statistics, he either failed to obtain them accurately, or there has been a very great increase of the business within the past three and a half years.

The leading house in this business is, undoubtedly,

MESSRS. DOTY & MCFARLAN, whose manufactory of fancy papers, the largest of its kind in the country, stands at the corner of Willoughby avenue and Walworth street. They are the successors of Doty & Bergen, who commenced manu- facturing in Brooklyn about 1845. This firm was then com- posed of Warren S. Doty and Peter G. Bergen, the latter of whom will be remembered by old citizens as a prominent member of the Board of Education, a brother of Hon. Teunis G. Bergen, and father of the present Justice Garret Bergen. Previous to 1845, Mr. Doty had for several years manufac- tured fancy papers in a small way in New York city, in con- nection with a more considerable business in engraving and printing; but, upon the formation of the firm of Doty & Ber- gen, the manufacturing department was removed to Brooklyn, and carried on in a frame building on Eighteenth street, in the rear of the Bergen homestead, which stood at the corner of Third avenue and Eighteenth street, while the engraving and printing was continued in New York, in a building known as the old Rigging House, famous as the first meeting house of the Methodists in this country.

The Brooklyn manufactory, under the personal supervision of Mr. Bergen, remained thus, until a brick building on the opposite side of Eighteenth street, was built and occupied about 1853.

Warren S. Doty died in November, 1855, but the firm name was continued by previous arrangement, and his son Ethan Allen Doty entered at first as a clerk, but soon succeeded to an interest in the profits. The firm weathered the panics of 1857 and 1861, but found it difficult to compete with im-

portation of foreign goods, and made but slow headway un- til 1862, when Mr. Bergen retired, and the present firm of Doty & McFarlan was constituted. In 1864, the manufactory was removed to Willoughby avenue and Walworth street, since which time the buildings have been repeatedly enlarged and re-built, until now they occupy a space 100 by 200 feet, with brick buildings, five stories high, and extensions.

The specialties of the business are the printing of papers for trunk linings and box coverings, and manufacturing of surface-colored or coated papers for the use of paper box makers, printers, &c., and for use as wrappers of various articles.

This keeps in constant employment about 150 hands, while the outlay for machinery has not been less than $50,000.

The firm now consists of Ethan Allen Doty, who entered in 1855, Edward McFarlan, who entered in 1862, James Scrim- geour, who entered as a clerk in 1862, and was admitted to the firm in 1870, and Albin Gustave Pape, who entered the manufactory in 1866, and was admitted to the firm in 1880. The warehouse is at No. 70 Duane street, New York city.

The firm has been uniformly prosperous for the past 25 years ; its management is conservative, and its goods rank highest in the market. Its machinery is of the latest and most approved patterns, while its buildings, stables and stock are always in first-class order. Its goods are distributed throughout the breadth of the land, and, wherever known, en- joy an enviable reputation.

It has always led in the introduction of novelties in styles and colors, as well as in adopting the latest inventions in machinery.

The house of Walther & Co., in Tiffany place, is a large house in this manufacture; though of less extent than that of Doty & McFarlan; they manufacture the same styles of papers, and by similar processes. There are also one or two smaller houses, which have recently engaged in the business.

The statistics of this industry, as nearly as can be ascertained, are : capital invested, about $400,000 ; number of hands employed about 250; amount of wages paid annually, about $90,000; annual product, not far from $500,000.

SUBSECTION III .- Fancy and Plain Paper Boxes. .

The manufacture of these boxes is closely allied to that of the manufacture of fancy papers. These boxes are of many kinds. The hatters use immense quanti- ties, some of them only of straw-board with labels, others of much more ambitious and ornamental char- acter. The cheap styles are used very largely also by the match manufacturers, the common envelope makers, the dealers in small articles of hardware, and many dry groceries. The book trade requires large numbers. The Yankee notions trade requires a vast number of a somewhat better character; while the fancy goods and candy and confectionery trades take the best quality. One manufacturer makes almost exclusively the boxes for charlotte russes, with perhaps a small number for cake and bakers' fancy goods. The fine stationery trade demands also many of the better class of boxes. There are now in Brooklyn and Kings county eleven manufacturers of these goods, one of whom combines

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THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

the manufacture of candies with that of boxes. Of these Mr. Beers Frost, of 125 Nostrand avenue, is pro- hably the largest. His specialty is hatters' boxes, and he supplies all the leading manufacturers. He employs an average force of 25 hands, pays about $10,000 of wages annually, and produces an average of $30,000 annually. After him, and producing nearly as large an amount are: Walter W. Wetmore; Wm. Herschle and Son; John B. Hauck & Son; White and Jacobson; and, perhaps, Thomas Lenn, the box and candy maker, his combined product being perhaps somewhat more than the others.

Andrew Wohlgemuth, John Roberts (whose specialty is the charlotte russe boxes), Mrs. Wilhelmina Woer- ner, Adolph Hoeffling and Ferdinand Berian, are also worthy of notice as manufacturers of boxes. The census, in 1880, reported 12 establishments, with $49,- 050 capital; 213 hands, paying $45,089 wages, and pro- ducing $158,826 annually. There have been some changes; one or two houses have failed, but the number of hands is now about 230, and the annual product somewhat more than $175,000.

SECTION XV. The Furniture Manufacture.

The furniture trade has many subdivisions. Among the wholesale dealers, there are those who manufacture only chairs, and these are divided into rattan, willow, bent wood, bent seats, usually, including also the per- forated veneer seats, wood chairs and rockers, and upholstered chairs.

There are other classes who confine themselves to bed-room sets, chiffoniers, tables, etc .; and even of these, there are those who cater to the cheap veneered goods turned out in the rough, in some of the densely wooded counties of New York or Pennsylvania, where woodland and water-power are cheap, and put together and finished here ; others, who bring their hard wood, pine and white wood lumber from the west, and import their ornamental woods, and make all their work under their own supervision, employing hand-work for the most part, but using machinery in those delicate and beautiful adjustments, which can be effected more perfectly by machinery than in any other way. These houses supply all the best and some of the cheaper houses with their best goods.

Another class manufacture only library, office and drawing-room furniture ; the finer office chairs being a specialty with some of these.

Still another olass produce only parlor and boudoir furniture of various styles. This involves the up- holsterers' art, and much of the best of it is done in the larger and finer retail establishments, which adapt their work to suit their customers. In these cases, however, the division of labor is carried so far that the easy chairs, couches, tete-a-tetes, sofas, lounges

and sofa beds, etc., are prepared in the wholesale up)- holstery factories, and only the covering is put on by the retailer.

The cheaper classes of upholstered goods, as cheap sofas, lounges, chairs, mattresses, etc., are all made in large upholstering establishments, and the quality dif- fers with the price. Upholstery is, in effect, an entirely distinct business from the other departments of the manufacture of furniture, and when it is regarded as including mattresses, couches and beds of all descrip- tions, as well as window hangings, portieres, and those articles more properly considered as upholstery, it assumes a great magnitude.

The increased demand, which our fast augmenting wealth and luxury have created for the best of every- thing in dwellings, business houses, churches, and all our appointments in social life, is nowhere more strik- ingly illustrated, than in luxurious furniture and house decoration. Sixty or seventy years ago, when all the settlements in Kings County could not boast more than 7,000 inhabitants, there were a few wealthy families, mostly Hollanders, and they had some massive furni- ture, mostly brought or imported from Holland, often richly carved, and either of oak or dark mahogany. While most of this furniture would be too cumbrous and bulky for present daily use, it was worthy of pre- servation for its elaborate carving, and the grotesque figures which were so skilfully wrought on its surfaces. These articles may not have been-they probably were not-the chef d'œuvres of Flemish or Dutch art, inas- much as the early settlers of Nieuw Amsterdam and Breuckelen were not generally of the most eminent Dutch families (these having remained at home), yet they were the sons or daughters of burghers who were well to do, and thus represented, in their homes in the New World, very fairly, the furniture and appliances of the prosperous burghers of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and La Hague. These old families were not, however, very numerous, and their descendants, in some cases, were too many to inherit any very large share of their ancestors' wealth. The large majority of the farming and laboring class, whether of Dutch, English, Irish or Huguenot descent, had much plainer and humbler fur- niture. The rude bunks or fixed bedsteads, covered, at first, with the skins of wild animals, and later, having heaped upon them the numerous feather beds, which every housewife possessed, formed a bed which was considered sufficiently luxurious for anybody. The other furniture was equally plain; the wooden, splint or rush-bottomed chairs; the settle; the plain, substantial table, often of oak, but without ornament, sometimes of pine, covered with the housewife's snowy linen; the benches and smaller table, which answered for a wash- stand; the rude shelves, containing a few books; the corner cupboard, with its supply of delft ware, pewter plates and wooden trenchers; and in the lean-to, the pounding-barrel, soap-barrel, tubs and tub-form or

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

bench, the paraphernalia of washing day; while still in the rear was the leach-house, where the lye for the soap was made, and the simple apparatus for making the tallow-dips, and very possibly, by their side, the quilt- ing-bars.

There were also two other indispensable articles of furniture, now little known; the big wheel for spinning wool, and the little or flax wheel, on which was spun the linen, fine and coarse, which Katrina, by infinite toil, prepared for her own future home. Of musical instruments there were at that time very few; occasion- ally a spinet was put in the parlor, as the greatest of earthly treasures, but its tones were weak, harsh and metallic. The Dutch did not greatly affect the guitar or the bandolin, so delightsome to the ear of the Span- ish maiden; and Hans was fain to pour forth his love in the notes of the ear-piercing fife, or the more tender- voiced flute.

The change to the furniture of the present time, in the families which, though not rich, are in comfortable circumstances, is most amazing. In the parlors we find the piano generally, and the cabinet organ, also, in many cases. The walls are hung with pictures of merit, even where they are not costly. The walls, so dingy and discolored with smoke in the olden time, are now either frescoed or hung with tasteful and elegant papers. Portieres adorn the doors and arches, and the mantels are draped with lambrequins. The furniture of black walnut, mahogany, cherry or rosewood, exquisitely carved and decorated, and finely upholstered with silk reps, brocade or plush, mirrors, and some articles of bric-a-brac; while the dining-room is supplied with its fine extension table, and with solid chairs, often ex- pensively trimmed with leather, and its substantial and often costly sideboard. The kitchen and laundry are supplied with all the conveniences for a most efficient service; the range of the latest pattern, the hot and cold water, the stationary tubs, the ironing table, the clothes-wringer, and the patent clothes-boiler, all con- tribute to make work easy. Ascending to the boudoir and sleeping rooms, we find a revolution so great that our grandmothers could not even have imagined it in their wildest dreams. Bedsteads which, in stately ele- gance, in perfection and beauty of carving and orna- mentation, and the richness of their woods (of black walnut, mahogany, rosewood and cherry) far surpass the couches of the wealthiest and most accomplished monarchs of two centuries ago; mirrors which would once have been worth a king's ransom, and bureaus, lounges, sofas, easy chairs, chiffonieres, and cabinets of the most graceful models and exquisite finish, adorn these rooms, and replace the maple bedsteads, with their constantly breaking cords, their turned posts, and their scant head and foot boards, the rush or cane-seat chairs, and the plain cheap bureau with a small mirror of blown glass, which were the outfit of a guest-cham- ber forty or fifty years ago.

There is nothing, not only of this fine furniture, but of that still more exquisite, inlaid and decorated with the finest paintings and sculptures, in wood or porce- lain or leather, which is not to-day produced, from the rough wood to the most complete finish, in Kings county.

We are not now speaking of the retail furniture houses, of which there are some hundreds, of all grades, and which may and do procure their wares wherever they can buy them to the best advantage, but of the manufacturers who sell only at wholesale.

As an example of these, take the large house of Martin Worn & Sons, whose immense warehouses and storage rooms, five stories high, cover eleven full city lots. They manufacture only the articles of bedroom, boudoir and hall furniture, and in this single branch of the furniture industry, embracing hall-stands, bed- steads, bureaus, wash-stands, canopy bedsteads, side- boards, wardrobes, armoires, chiffonieres, cribs, &c., &c. They employ about 225 hands, and produce goods to the value of $250,000 or more. In their lumber yards and sheds we find the purest and whitest pine; the still finer white wood (liriodendron tulipifera), dear to the hearts of all cabinet-makers; the California redwood; the Oregon cedar; black walnut (juglans cinerea), from the West; mahogany from Honduras and the West Indies; wild cherry; the beautiful wood of the cerasus Virginiana, and the costly veneers of the French wal- nut, French and Hungarian ash, mahogany, &c. All these are thoroughly seasoned under cover for two years or more, and when called into service are reduced to their prescribed form and shape with the utmost exactness by machinery, which seems almost capable of thinking, and by skilled hand-work. The thicker veneers are sawed here, and the boards to which they are to be attached having been planed to the smoothest possible surface, they are glued on and dried under very heavy pressure. When dry they are planed and polished till all their beauty is brought out. Every joint is fitted with the most mathematical accuracy. Those portions, as fronts of drawers, bedsteads, tops and fronts of chiffonieres, sideboards, hall-stands, etc., which are to be ornamented, have the straight lines cut by a machine, and the leaves, rosettes, flowers, etc., carved by hand; or, in a lower grade of work, these ornaments are struck out by dies, working under a pressure of many tons.

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 24

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co Number of Pages: 1345

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345