C. W. MOORE & CO.
MAY
4
1899
CHICAGO
Langlois scan
CBOT member #6564, Cary W. Moore, was a grain commision trader. Cary W. Moore was also New York Produce Exchange member #1823.
C. W. MOORE & CO.
JAN
30
1900
CHICAGO
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Chicago Board of Trade Members: Portus B. Weare of the Weare Commission Company
W. C. CO.
MAR 7 1899
David Thompson scan of a document fragment from a CBOT futures contract
W. C. CO.
AUG 11 1898
Langlois scan
The Weare firm included CBOT members:
#1684 Charles A. Weare
#1685 Portus B. Weare
The Iowa newspaper The Clinton Age from December 1, 1898, ran this ad:
George Haywood in Clinton was an agent for the Weare Commission Company.
New York Stock Brokers: Horace L. Hotchkiss
HORACE L. HOTCHKISS & CO.
David Thompson scan
Mr. Hotchkiss enjoyed golf.
*****
Mr. Hotchkiss' firm had a bit of a problem in 1893 and was "assigned". Mr. Hotchkiss rallied and was in business during the 1898 tax period.
The New York Times reported on August 9, 1893:
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Chicago Board of Trade Members: A. E. Seckel & Company
A. E. SECKEL & CO.
SEP 3 1898
CHICAGO.
Langlois scan
Albert Seckel, CBOT member #2763, was a commision trader for the firm A. E. Seckel & Company.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
On Beyond Holcombe: Hall & Lyon
Editor's Note: Malcolm Goldstein is a contributing blogger for 1898 Revenues. This post is part of a continuing column on the companies that used proprietary battleships.
Hall & Lyon Co. of Providence, Rhode Island, advertised its new flagship store, circa 1907, as the largest drug store space in the United States, and featured it on a postcard. The predecessor building itself had been a marvel. It had contained six floors, each 25 feet by 130 feet. The soda fountain and cigar stand were on the ground floor along with the retail shelves for prepared and proprietary medicines. A fully equipped photography department occupied the second floor, and the top floor, blessed with the best light, served as the photography studio. Staff druggists filled prescriptions on the third floor. On the fifth floor, the business offices split the space with a fully staffed manicure salon. The fourth floor, which extended over the roof of an adjoining building, was the stockroom. The basement housed a soda making plant and an electric generator which provided the power to run the whole building. The business employed 150 people in 1906, including a force of uniformed youths who manned bicycles between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. and could be dispatched to deliver medicine any place in the city at a moment’s notice. The company flourished as one of the earliest regional drug store chains, operating outlets in Rhode Island as well as Massachusetts, and utilized two wagons to transport goods among the branch stores. Its separate laboratory building manufactured 125 proprietary preparations, toiletries, ice cream and confectionary goods.
Hall & Lyon was known for its innovation and flair in advertising as well. In 1906, it gave away a Cadillac to the customer who submitted the most Auto Purchase Coupons. The various store branches gave away one such coupon for any purchase of ten cents or under, and another for each additional ten cents of the purchase price. Contestants were instructed to tie their coupons in bundles of 100 and submit them during a specified redemption period. The person who turned in the most coupons received the car. The sixty-five contestants who submitted the next highest amounts of tickets each received one dollar, and every 1000 coupons were valued at one dime. One wonders how many coupons it actually .took to win a Cadillac in 1906!
Henry C. Hall was the senior member of the partnership. He was born in Waltham, MA in 1842 and seems to have been a natural leader. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in Company H of the 16th Massachusetts Regiment as a private, saw action for three years, later was prominent in GAR affairs on behalf of his regiment, and was forever after referred to as Major Hall. Returning to Waltham, he opened a drug store in 1867. He resided in Waltham his entire life, kept expanding his business, held local office in Waltham, and served in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1891.
George Lyon was the junior member of the firm. Born in Lawrence, MA in 1855, he apprenticed into the pharmacy industry at an early age and joined with Hall in 1886. By 1898 - as the revenue cancels show - the company’s main office was in Providence, RI. Lyon took personal charge of the main store, and also seems to have been the much more adventurous businessman. While serving as treasurer and general manager of Hall & Lyon, he also found time to become President of the Calhoon-Lyon Drug Co of Buffalo, NY, treasurer of the National Cigar Stands Co. and treasurer of the United Drug Co, the predecessor of the Rexall Drug Co.
.jpg)
In 1907, Lyon engineered a takeover of New York City’s upscale drug chain, Caswell-Massey Co, (a company which also cancelled 1898 revenues, has already been mentioned in an another article in its earlier incarnation as the Caswell, Hazard Co., and whose entire story will ultimately unfold in the course of this study). Lyon intended to fold this venture, which one of the local trade papers denominated a “colossal undertaking,” into Hall & Lyon’s growing empire, but luck was not with him in this particular undertaking. He fell ill and had to withdraw from active involvement in the reorganization of Caswell-Massey. When the Panic of 1907 temporarily froze Hall & Lyon’s assets, depriving Lyon of the ability to financially nourish the new organization, the new project went into receivership and drifted away from him. At the same instant, Lyon’s health declined precipitously and he died of heart failure, apparently completely exhausted at age 53. Although slated to sit on the new corporation’s Board of Directors, Hall immediately announced that the Caswell-Massey venture was entirely Lyon’s idea, and that only Lyon, and not Hall & Lyon Co., per se, was involved.
Hall & Lyon survived Lyon’s demise, but Hall, by this time fairly elderly, apparently seems to have removed himself more and more from the active management. A year before, Lyon’s death, Hall had joined Lyon in investing in the United Drug Co. This company was the brainchild of Louis K Liggett, a brash young man whose name will hereafter crisscross these articles, and whose corporate endeavors represented an attempt to build an integrated vertical pharmaceutical industry monopoly after the initial horizontal drug industry trusts were defeated. Liggett will be treated in detail in the future, but it is enough here to say that Liggett gradually took control of Hall & Lyon and folded it into his empire, which ultimately emerged as Rexall Drug Co, another story saved for another day. Hall lived until 1918, finally passing away at age 76 in Waltham.
The company’s name figures in at least one legal case whose ruling has echoed down the years. In the course of the Caswell-Massey reorganization, Lyon, as treasurer of Hall & Lyon, issued a guarantee for a letter of credit that J. P. Morgan & Co issued to one Miss Emily Alpers, a female relation of Dr. William Alpers whose New York pharmacies were part of the that transaction, when she traveled abroad. When J. P. Morgan sued Hall & Lyon several years later, after Miss Alpers left her debts unpaid, Hall & Lyon defended on the principle the guarantee given by Lyon, now deceased, although given on Hall & Lyon’s letterhead was personal to Lyon and not binding on the corporation itself. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island had no trouble holding Hall & Lyon responsible for the action of its corporate treasurer, saying that since Lyon signed the note on the corporation’s paper with his corporate title and J. P. Morgan accepted it from him as a corporate document, Hall & Lyon was responsible for the debt even if it had not specifically authorized Lyon to make that particular guarantee on its behalf. Ever since, courts all over have deemed such corporate “apparent authority” to rest with a corporate officer who exercises it.
Hall & Lyon Co. of Providence, Rhode Island, advertised its new flagship store, circa 1907, as the largest drug store space in the United States, and featured it on a postcard. The predecessor building itself had been a marvel. It had contained six floors, each 25 feet by 130 feet. The soda fountain and cigar stand were on the ground floor along with the retail shelves for prepared and proprietary medicines. A fully equipped photography department occupied the second floor, and the top floor, blessed with the best light, served as the photography studio. Staff druggists filled prescriptions on the third floor. On the fifth floor, the business offices split the space with a fully staffed manicure salon. The fourth floor, which extended over the roof of an adjoining building, was the stockroom. The basement housed a soda making plant and an electric generator which provided the power to run the whole building. The business employed 150 people in 1906, including a force of uniformed youths who manned bicycles between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. and could be dispatched to deliver medicine any place in the city at a moment’s notice. The company flourished as one of the earliest regional drug store chains, operating outlets in Rhode Island as well as Massachusetts, and utilized two wagons to transport goods among the branch stores. Its separate laboratory building manufactured 125 proprietary preparations, toiletries, ice cream and confectionary goods.
Hall & Lyon was known for its innovation and flair in advertising as well. In 1906, it gave away a Cadillac to the customer who submitted the most Auto Purchase Coupons. The various store branches gave away one such coupon for any purchase of ten cents or under, and another for each additional ten cents of the purchase price. Contestants were instructed to tie their coupons in bundles of 100 and submit them during a specified redemption period. The person who turned in the most coupons received the car. The sixty-five contestants who submitted the next highest amounts of tickets each received one dollar, and every 1000 coupons were valued at one dime. One wonders how many coupons it actually .took to win a Cadillac in 1906!
Henry C. Hall was the senior member of the partnership. He was born in Waltham, MA in 1842 and seems to have been a natural leader. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in Company H of the 16th Massachusetts Regiment as a private, saw action for three years, later was prominent in GAR affairs on behalf of his regiment, and was forever after referred to as Major Hall. Returning to Waltham, he opened a drug store in 1867. He resided in Waltham his entire life, kept expanding his business, held local office in Waltham, and served in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1891.
George Lyon was the junior member of the firm. Born in Lawrence, MA in 1855, he apprenticed into the pharmacy industry at an early age and joined with Hall in 1886. By 1898 - as the revenue cancels show - the company’s main office was in Providence, RI. Lyon took personal charge of the main store, and also seems to have been the much more adventurous businessman. While serving as treasurer and general manager of Hall & Lyon, he also found time to become President of the Calhoon-Lyon Drug Co of Buffalo, NY, treasurer of the National Cigar Stands Co. and treasurer of the United Drug Co, the predecessor of the Rexall Drug Co.
.jpg)
In 1907, Lyon engineered a takeover of New York City’s upscale drug chain, Caswell-Massey Co, (a company which also cancelled 1898 revenues, has already been mentioned in an another article in its earlier incarnation as the Caswell, Hazard Co., and whose entire story will ultimately unfold in the course of this study). Lyon intended to fold this venture, which one of the local trade papers denominated a “colossal undertaking,” into Hall & Lyon’s growing empire, but luck was not with him in this particular undertaking. He fell ill and had to withdraw from active involvement in the reorganization of Caswell-Massey. When the Panic of 1907 temporarily froze Hall & Lyon’s assets, depriving Lyon of the ability to financially nourish the new organization, the new project went into receivership and drifted away from him. At the same instant, Lyon’s health declined precipitously and he died of heart failure, apparently completely exhausted at age 53. Although slated to sit on the new corporation’s Board of Directors, Hall immediately announced that the Caswell-Massey venture was entirely Lyon’s idea, and that only Lyon, and not Hall & Lyon Co., per se, was involved.
Hall & Lyon survived Lyon’s demise, but Hall, by this time fairly elderly, apparently seems to have removed himself more and more from the active management. A year before, Lyon’s death, Hall had joined Lyon in investing in the United Drug Co. This company was the brainchild of Louis K Liggett, a brash young man whose name will hereafter crisscross these articles, and whose corporate endeavors represented an attempt to build an integrated vertical pharmaceutical industry monopoly after the initial horizontal drug industry trusts were defeated. Liggett will be treated in detail in the future, but it is enough here to say that Liggett gradually took control of Hall & Lyon and folded it into his empire, which ultimately emerged as Rexall Drug Co, another story saved for another day. Hall lived until 1918, finally passing away at age 76 in Waltham.
The company’s name figures in at least one legal case whose ruling has echoed down the years. In the course of the Caswell-Massey reorganization, Lyon, as treasurer of Hall & Lyon, issued a guarantee for a letter of credit that J. P. Morgan & Co issued to one Miss Emily Alpers, a female relation of Dr. William Alpers whose New York pharmacies were part of the that transaction, when she traveled abroad. When J. P. Morgan sued Hall & Lyon several years later, after Miss Alpers left her debts unpaid, Hall & Lyon defended on the principle the guarantee given by Lyon, now deceased, although given on Hall & Lyon’s letterhead was personal to Lyon and not binding on the corporation itself. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island had no trouble holding Hall & Lyon responsible for the action of its corporate treasurer, saying that since Lyon signed the note on the corporation’s paper with his corporate title and J. P. Morgan accepted it from him as a corporate document, Hall & Lyon was responsible for the debt even if it had not specifically authorized Lyon to make that particular guarantee on its behalf. Ever since, courts all over have deemed such corporate “apparent authority” to rest with a corporate officer who exercises it.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
New York Stock Brokers: Taylor, Cutting & Company
TAYLOR, CUTTING & CO.
7 WALL STRET.
MAY 23 1901
Langlois scans
Taylor & Cutting memorandum of sale for 100 shares of Chicago, Milwauke & St. Paul Railway to the brokerage firm Sharp & Bryan for $16,000.
From The New York Tribune, January 1, 1900:
Walter Taylor went through at least three brokerage firms during the 1898 tax period. He began 1898 with the firm Taylor & Mayer, then left to create the self named Walter C. Taylor & Co., before establishing Taylor, Cutting & Company.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Chicago Board of Trade Members: E. D. Whyland
E. D. WHYLAND,
NOV 14 1900
CHICAGO.
David Thompson scan
Edgar D. Whyland was a Chicago-based banker and broker who was also member #6526 of The Chicago Board of Trade.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Chicago Board of Trade Members: Henry W. Rogers & Brother
H. W. R. & BRO.
NOV. 8 1899
stamps on partial piece cut from a futures contrract
Langlois scan
Henry Rogers was President of the CBOT in 1881.
Members of the CBOT in Mr. Roger's firm included:
#1347 Henry W. Rogers
and his brother:
#1348 James C. Rogers
From The History of The Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, 1917:
Henry W. Rogers. — There is special gratification in being able to accord representation in this publication to the veteran and honored member of the Board of Trade whose name initiates this paragraph and who, though venerable in years, retains splendid mental and physical vigor and still takes active and loyal interest in the activities and affairs of the great commercial organization of which he is now one of the oldest members and his identification with which covers a period of more than half a century.
It has been the privilege and satisfaction of Mr. Rogers to witness and assist in the development of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago from insignificant status and minor function to the vantage-ground as the greatest commercial body of its kind in the world, and its members of younger generations accord to him respect, veneration and nviolable esteem. His memory forms an indissoluble link between the early history of the board and the twentieth century of its gigantic activities and great influence, so that this publication may well pay to him a tribute of respect and take cognizance of his noble character and worthy achievement. He is to be designated as one of the veritable patriarchs in the business life of a city which has grown from small proportion to commanding metropolitan pre-eminence within the period of his residence within its gracious borders, and that he is in all things loyal to Chicago needs no further voucher than the mere statement itself.
Henry William Rogers, president of the Rogers Grain Company and senior member of the old and honored commission firm of H. W. Rogers & Brother, was born at Bath, Steuben county. New York, on the 27th of March, 1832, and is a son of Gustavus A. and Susan Ann (Campbell) Rogers, representative of families whose names became identified with America in the colonial era of our national history. To the common schools of the locality and period Mr. Rogers is indebted for his early educational advantages, and thus did he lay broad and deep the foundation upon which he reared in later years the fine superstructure of that seemly and symmetrical discipline that is to be gained only under the direction of that wisest of all head-masters, experience.
As a young man Mr. Rogers established himself in business as a ship chandler in the city of Buffalo, New York, where he continued operations in this line until 1860. For a brief period thereafter he held prestige as a pioneer merchant at Clinton, Iowa, but in 1862 he established his permanent home in Chicago, where he engaged in business as a commission merchant in grain and where he became one of the virtually pioneer members of the Board of Trade. In his long career as one of the representative figures in the grain commission trade in Chicago he has kept pace with the advances made and has contributed his quota to bringing the city to the world's foremost position in connection with this all important phase of commercial and industrial enterprise, so that in the gracious evening of a long and useful life he may rest well content with the achievement that has been his and view with satisfaction the marvelous progress in which he has played a part.
His valued coadjutor in the firm of H. W. Rogers & Brother is his younger brother, James C, of whom individual mention is made on other pages of this work, and their effective business alliance has continued without interruption since the year 1863. The firm has controlled for many years a large and representative commission business, and none identified with the Board of Trade at the present time has a longer or more honorable history. In addition to being senior member of this veteran firm Mr. Rogers is president of the Rogers Grain Company.
As a member of the Board of Trade for more than half a century, Mr. Rogers has been one of those steadfast and loyal men who have held firm grasp upon the rudder of its destiny and have so ruled its affairs as to make its traditions and ethics a source of pride and distinction to the city of Chicago. He has served with marked ability and characteristic loyalty as president of this great commercial body, and has been called upon also to serve in subordinate official capacities. With all propriety he may be classified among those who have been the builders of the Chicago of the present day, and in the history of the city his name merits a place of honor.
He served for a number of years as a member of the board of directors of the Chicago Public Library and he has otherwise been active and influential in civic affairs, though never imbued with any ambition for public office. His political allegiance has been given without deflection to the Democratic party, and he is a zealous member of the Congregational church. Mr. Rogers is a bachelor.
Monday, July 23, 2012
New York Stock Brokers: George S. Hendrickson
G. S. H.
MAY 20 1901
Langlois scan
From New York University: Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics, 1902:
George Skidmore Hendrickson:
Class of 1875. Born at Floral Park, New York, 1856 ; studied in public schools and Union Hall Academy, Jamaica, N. Y. ; graduated B.S. and C.E., New York University, 1875 ; stock broker.
Son of Peter and Sarah A. Hendrickson and a grandson of Skidmore Hendrickson, and was born at what is now Floral Park, Long Island, New York, on July 1, 1856. He studied in the district school, and in the Union Hall Academy at Jamaica, New York, and then entered New York University, where he was a Junior orator and a member of Zeta Psi. In 1875 he was graduated with the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Civil Engineer, and thereafter gave his attention to financial pursuits in Wall Street, From 1875 to 1878
he was a broker's clerk. Since May 31, 1878, he has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange and a broker at the head of a business of his own. He was married on October 17, 1878, to Elizabeth Frost, and has had two children: Clifford Valentine, who died in childhood, and Charles Le Roy
Hendrickson. His home is at No. 197 St. John's Place, Brooklyn, New York.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Chicago Board of Trade Members: Fyffe Brothers & Company
FYFFE BROS. & CO.
NOV 25 1899
document fragment from a CBOT futures contract
David Thompson scan
John Fyffe, CBOT #5792 and William Fyffe, CBOT #3622, were both commission merchants at the Chicago Board of Trade and specialized in grain. John was a director of the CBOT at the time of this cancel. He would die in 1901.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
On Beyond Holcombe: Maltine
Today's On Beyond Holcombe feature comes from a special appearance on our site by Mr. Jack Sullivan who publishes the blog Bottles, Booze, and Back Stories. On Beyond Holcombe is a continuing series by Malcolm A. Goldstein on the users of proprietary battleship stamps.
Prior to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 one of the decisions that companies manufacturing medicines had to face was whether they played to the public with claims to cure a wide range of ailments, or whether to be more restrained and cater to the medical fraternity. Some, to potential peril, tried to straddle the line. This was brought home to me recently with my purchase of a paperweight advertising a product called “Maltine.”
Maltine turns out to be an extract of malted barley, wheat and oats, highly fortified by alcohol. It was the brain child of John Carnrick (1837-1903), a pharmacologist who invented a whole shelf of elixirs with such imaginative names as Lacto-peptine, Peptenzyme, and Kumysgen, this last a concoction purportedly made from fermented mare’s milk. In general, these nostrums and Maltine were drinks to impart nutrition, improve digestion, and remedy undefined stomach ailments.
First merchandised through Carnrick’s drug manufacturing firm, Reed and Carnrick, the product subsequently was sold through a spin-off, the Maltine Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn, New York. Maltine was heavily promoted to doctors through ads in medical journals, trade cards depicting leading doctors and surgeons, and a range of practical giveaway items aimed at physicians. These included a “home call book” -- remember that doctors once made house calls -- and a sign for the door when the doctor was out. All contained plugs for Maltine.
To meet stiff competition for the malt drink market, however, Maltine’s management could not resist going directly to the public. It issued trade cards that showed cherubic youngsters, sometimes hefting a Maltine bottle, thus making the case that their product was safe for children. Widely distributed owl bookmarks claimed: “Its effects in anemia, childrosis [an entirely fictitious medical condition], and other forms of blood impoverishment are almost magical.” Childrosis? Magical? Maltine seemed to be crossing the line of propriety.
This kind of advertising predictably brought howls of protests from physicians. As early as 1894 the company officials in letters to medical journals across the country vigorously insisted that Maltine was not a “patent medicine” and that their intention was to reach patients only through physicians.
On the other hand, the company could not resist mixing additional trendy ingredients with Maltine, including cod liver oil, peptones, and a triple combination of iron phosphate -- used today to poison garden slugs -- quinine, and, believe it or not, strychnine. Its best seller, however, became Maltine with Coca Wine. Ads suggested drinking a full glass of this potion during or after every meal. Children were advised to take only half a glass. In a given year, 10,000 bottles of Maltine with Coca Wine were sold.
Meanwhile, authorities were increasingly concerned about the growing number of cocaine addicts in the country. The substance derived from the coca plant was becoming so popular that it had become a public health problem. Maltine’s management was faced with a dilemma: Dump Maltine with Coca Wine and lose thousands of dollars in sales, or keep selling it and risk angering the medical fraternity.
In 1907 a company lawyer provided the answer in a statement to the Federal Bureau of Chemistry, the forerunner of the FDA: “Simply because all these cocaine preparations are getting into such bad odor, the Maltine Company does not want anything to do with one. We thought it advisable to be on the safe side and give up the the preparation altogether rather than get mixed up in something unpleasant.” Ironically, chemists had been able to find only minute traces of cocaine in Maltine with Coca Wine -- not believed enough to lead to addiction.
Nonetheless, It was a wise decision. By 1914 Congress had rendered it illegal nationwide to put cocaine in consumer products. The Maltine Company re-established its reputation for being an ethical drug company. It subsequently was bought by Chilcott Laboratories, which in turn was acquired by Warmer Lambert, itself swallowed up by Pfizer, Inc., in 2000. Maltine disappeared with Prohibition.
Maltine paperweight
Prior to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 one of the decisions that companies manufacturing medicines had to face was whether they played to the public with claims to cure a wide range of ailments, or whether to be more restrained and cater to the medical fraternity. Some, to potential peril, tried to straddle the line. This was brought home to me recently with my purchase of a paperweight advertising a product called “Maltine.”
Maltine turns out to be an extract of malted barley, wheat and oats, highly fortified by alcohol. It was the brain child of John Carnrick (1837-1903), a pharmacologist who invented a whole shelf of elixirs with such imaginative names as Lacto-peptine, Peptenzyme, and Kumysgen, this last a concoction purportedly made from fermented mare’s milk. In general, these nostrums and Maltine were drinks to impart nutrition, improve digestion, and remedy undefined stomach ailments.
MALTINE
1898
MALTINE
1899
MALTINE
1900
MALTINE
1901
First merchandised through Carnrick’s drug manufacturing firm, Reed and Carnrick, the product subsequently was sold through a spin-off, the Maltine Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn, New York. Maltine was heavily promoted to doctors through ads in medical journals, trade cards depicting leading doctors and surgeons, and a range of practical giveaway items aimed at physicians. These included a “home call book” -- remember that doctors once made house calls -- and a sign for the door when the doctor was out. All contained plugs for Maltine.
To meet stiff competition for the malt drink market, however, Maltine’s management could not resist going directly to the public. It issued trade cards that showed cherubic youngsters, sometimes hefting a Maltine bottle, thus making the case that their product was safe for children. Widely distributed owl bookmarks claimed: “Its effects in anemia, childrosis [an entirely fictitious medical condition], and other forms of blood impoverishment are almost magical.” Childrosis? Magical? Maltine seemed to be crossing the line of propriety.
This kind of advertising predictably brought howls of protests from physicians. As early as 1894 the company officials in letters to medical journals across the country vigorously insisted that Maltine was not a “patent medicine” and that their intention was to reach patients only through physicians.
On the other hand, the company could not resist mixing additional trendy ingredients with Maltine, including cod liver oil, peptones, and a triple combination of iron phosphate -- used today to poison garden slugs -- quinine, and, believe it or not, strychnine. Its best seller, however, became Maltine with Coca Wine. Ads suggested drinking a full glass of this potion during or after every meal. Children were advised to take only half a glass. In a given year, 10,000 bottles of Maltine with Coca Wine were sold.
Meanwhile, authorities were increasingly concerned about the growing number of cocaine addicts in the country. The substance derived from the coca plant was becoming so popular that it had become a public health problem. Maltine’s management was faced with a dilemma: Dump Maltine with Coca Wine and lose thousands of dollars in sales, or keep selling it and risk angering the medical fraternity.
In 1907 a company lawyer provided the answer in a statement to the Federal Bureau of Chemistry, the forerunner of the FDA: “Simply because all these cocaine preparations are getting into such bad odor, the Maltine Company does not want anything to do with one. We thought it advisable to be on the safe side and give up the the preparation altogether rather than get mixed up in something unpleasant.” Ironically, chemists had been able to find only minute traces of cocaine in Maltine with Coca Wine -- not believed enough to lead to addiction.
Nonetheless, It was a wise decision. By 1914 Congress had rendered it illegal nationwide to put cocaine in consumer products. The Maltine Company re-established its reputation for being an ethical drug company. It subsequently was bought by Chilcott Laboratories, which in turn was acquired by Warmer Lambert, itself swallowed up by Pfizer, Inc., in 2000. Maltine disappeared with Prohibition.
MALTINE
1898
two "e"s
MALTINE
1898
MALTINE
1898
MALTINE
1898
block of 4, red cancel
imroulette or imperf horizontally
MALTINE
no date
pair, purple cancel
Maltine Co.
1898
pair, imperf horizontally
MALTINE
1898
MALTINE
1899
MALTINE
no date
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Augustus Heinze' United Copper Company and the Panic of 1907
UNITED COPPER CO.
MAY
2?
1902
NEW YORK.
Langlois scan
The United Copper Company was incorporated in late April, 1902. The above stamp from May 1902 was likely used on documents regarding the incorporation of this new firm. As you can see from the New York Times story fragment below, the incorporation of this new company was no small affair; the consolidation of the participating mining companies into United Copper required $80 million in 1902, over $2 billion in 2012 dollars.
New York Times, April 29, 1902
Augustus Heinze was a "copper king" in Butte, Montana, who arrived a bit late to the scene in 1889 but still managed to build a major mining enterprise and compete with the established "kings". After years of building his companies and mines, he left Butte for the east coast to dabble with the fortune and companies he had created.
Augustus Heinze in 1910
In 1907, Heinze moved to New York. United Copper was based at 42 Broadway, just around the corner from Wall Street. Heinze entered the banking business, forming a close alliance with Charles W. Morse. With Morse, he served on the boards of several national banks, state banks, trust companies and insurance companies.
Scene in front of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1907 during the financial panic.
Otto Heinze had miscalculated. He overestimated how much United Copper that Augustus and the family controlled. When he required short sellers to buy back stock, there was more than enough United Copper stock available in the open market for the "shorts" to cover their short sales. When the collective market realized that Otto's maneuver had failed, the price of United Copper stock collapsed. Then panic spread as people pulled money out of banks associated with Heinze, and then from trust companies associated with those banks. Augustus Heinze had supported his brother's cornering attemp. Augustus' deep commitments across the financial system led to great personal losses. He would be barred from further involvement in financial institutions.
The Panic of 1907 was one of the most significant financial crises in American history. Contributing factors included the costs of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, yet it was the actions of the Heinze brothers that had caused much of the panic. J. Pierpont Morgan, the premier financier of the day, was able to stabilize the financial markets through his own manipulation. However, the US Government was not to leave the markets open to the solutions of private capital much longer. The 1907 crash directly lead to the formation of the US Federal Reserve System in 1913.
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