1869
IT HAPPENED IN…1869
Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated as the 18th
U.S. President.
Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia
ratified suffrage and were readmitted as states.
Wyoming Territory passed a woman’s suffrage law,
one of the first successes in the women’s suffrage movement.
The first U.S. transcontinental railroad was
completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory.
Major John Wesley Powell conducted the first
scientific exploration of the Colorado River.
The first professional baseball team was the
Cincinnati Red Stockings.
Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 in the first
intercollegiate football game.
N. W. Ayer and Sons advertising agency was
founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The
People’s Literary Companion marked the beginning of mail-order
periodicals.
Rowell’s American
Newspaper Directory
was founded to
provide circulation information and help standardize advertising
space values.
John W. Hyatt, a New York City printer, invented
and patented celluloid, the first synthetic plastic with broad
commercial applications.
Bottled lemon soda and sarsaparilla were popular.
387 U.S. soft drink bottling plants were in
operation. Per capita
consumption was 6.4 bottles.
Continuing the October, 1913
American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record article, Charles E.
Hires stated:
When embarking in business at Sixth and Spruce, I had less than $400 and
did a great deal of work in assisting the carpenter in fitting the place
up, and it was through the good offices of my wholesale drug friends
that I got started. Mr.
Crenshaw, of Bullock & Crenshaw, Valentine H. Smith, Clayton French and
Robert Shoemaker – these good friends gave me all the credit I asked,
and to them I owe a great deal of my success.
Perhaps an incident of my first conspicuous success would be
interesting. This occurred
about a year after embarking in business at Sixth and Spruce. It came
about in this way:
I have always been active and energetic, and the time spent behind a
prescription counter, especially in the dull part of the day, often
became irksome and I longed for greater things to do.
One day when walking out Spruce street, I noticed a cellar being
dug and from this excavation I noticed a lead colored clay like
substance which attracted my attention, as it seemed almost of the
consistence of putty. I
picked up some of it and took it back to the store and after drying it
and examining it I found it was fullers' earth or potter's clay.
I returned to the place the next day and saw the contractor and
asked him if I could have some of this clay.
I only wanted the clay from this certain strata.
As they had some distance to cart the dirt from this excavation,
he very gladly, when he learned where to deliver it, assented to my
having all I wanted of it, and was glad to give it to me.
I had him bring it to my place, and after boarding up a passage
way along the side of my cellar, I filled the entire balance of the
cellar, up to the ceiling, with this clay.
It occurred to me that I might put up potter’s clay in convenient sized
cakes that would be handy to retail and more convenient for people to
use, as at that time potter's clay was sold in a loose way in broken
clumps and powder which caused a great deal of dirt and dust in
handling.
At this time I was boarding next door, or taking my meals there, as I
slept over my store, and I recalled having seen the women folks using an
iron ring on which to stand their irons on ironing day.
It occurred to me that this would be the proper instrument to cut
out or mold these cakes of clay, so I borrowed from my landlady a couple
of these rings, after being charged very particularly to take care of
them and return them in good order.
I then wet the clay, working, it into a paste, from which I moulded a
dozen or two round cakes about one inch thick and about three inches in
diameter, and put them on a board out in the yard in the sun to dry.
These after a day or two became thoroughly dried, and I found
them to be a very fine texture of fuller's earth or potter's clay, and
was very much elated over my project and the possibility of selling
quantities of it.
I
then went down on Third street to a stencil and letter place and bought
some lead letters, and after cutting out a round block, I glued these
letters on to the block, spelling out the words "Hire's Refined Potter's
Clay" in a circle. My
thought was that these cakes could be sold for five cents.
While the cakes were soft, I pressed these letters in, which made a
very distinct impression.
After doing a few, however, I found that the moisture soon melted the
glue and the letters would fall off.
Then I had to have a cast iron one made with which I could work
much more rapidly and which made a very neat impression.
Together with a boy and my assistant in the store at leisure times
we worked up several gross of these cakes.
In fact I first made up enough to fill a barrel and I found that
a barrel would hold about ten gross.
Having everything ready and with two or three nice samples done
up in tissue paper, I started out to visit the wholesale drug trade.
I remember I called on Mr. Crenshaw first and told him of my
project and showed him my sample.
He thought it was a most excellent idea and would take because it
saved a great deal of weighing out and dirty work that the old method of
dispensing Fuller's earth necessitated.
At that time Fuller's earth was used quite extensively for taking
out grease spots and cleaning woolens and flannels and had quite a large
sale. I concluded to put the
price of $3.50 a gross on the cakes to the wholesale trade and they
could sell them for 35 or 40 cents a dozen.
Mr. Crenshaw took hold of it at once and said "You may send me
ten barrels." I then visited
Valentine H. Smith, who also took ten barrels.
Robert Shoemaker, John C. Hurst & Co., McKeon, Bowen & Ellis,
Mahlon K. Smith & Co., afterwards Smith, Kline & Co., and I believe
every wholesale druggist took three to five barrels.
Clayton French took twenty-five barrels.
I sold this mostly with the understanding that the amount was to be
taken out in drugs or sundries as I should want.
In this way I suppose it was much easier to sell the quantity I
did. From these sales I was
enabled to better stock my store, and after selling this supply of clay,
I renewed it several times from, cellar excavations, because I found
that nearly all Philadelphia is under laid with a strata of three or
four feet of potter's clay.
After supplying Philadelphia, I went to New York and sold quite a
lot in exchange for goods.
In this way I had quite a revenue from my drug business, having to pay
but little out for merchandise.
But in the course of a year or two I soon had competitors; others
finding out about commenced to put it up in a large way and it was very
soon sold at prices that hardly made enough profit for the labor.
I have often thought when I have heard of the difficulties of a
young man in getting along, that surely the reason for their not getting
along is because of their lack of initiative or the lack of making or
seizing opportunities when they come, because I think a business life is
continually full of opportunities if one can grasp and utilize them.
Charles E. Hires
provided additional details in this account of the Fuller’s Earth
episode when interviewed for “The Story of Hires,” an article published
in the April, 1921 issue of
Printers’ Ink Monthly, and the May 1921 issue of
The American Bottler:
The story of Hires’ Root Beer…begins with a spade full of earth
thrown out of an excavation at the corner of Ninth and Spruce Streets,
Philadelphia. Three blocks
away, at the corner of Sixth Street, a small drug store had recently
been opened, and the youthful proprietor, Mr. Charles E. Hires, happened
to be passing the spot where the excavation was in progress.
That was in 1869. Mr.
Hires…laughs with the zest of youth over the remembrance of that
shovelful of common Philadelphia dirt.
“It just goes to show,” he told me, “how opportunity is sometimes
cast at your feet, and all you need is the ability, or the good fortune,
to recognize it. I was just
starting in the retail drug business with a total capital of $400, which
had to stretch far enough to cover both fixtures and stock.
The latter, as you may imagine, was not very extensive, but I
knew fullers’ earth when I saw it – even when it was thrown out of a
hole in the ground. Fullers’
earth was widely used in those days to take the oil out of wool, among
other things, and every wholesale and retail druggist handled it.
A good deal of a nuisance it was, too, having to be stored in a
drawer and weighed out five cents’ worth at a time, as a rule.
But when a shovelful of it was thrown at my feet I began to see
the glimmer of an opportunity.
“I hunted up the contractor, who told me that the dirt was being
hauled a mile or so away to be dumped, and he readily consented to
separate the gray fullers’ earth from the rest and dump it only three
blocks away. I hired an
Ethiopian roustabout with a wheelbarrow, and in a week’s time I had a
ton or so of practically pure fullers’ earth piled up in the yard behind
my store ready for use.
“At that time I was rooming in a house kept by a maiden lady, and I
had noticed a number of iron rings which used to rest her hot flatirons
upon. After considerable
persuasion she loaned me one of them.
I took it to the store, filled it with fullers’ earth, pressed it
down solid, smoothed it off, and made a convenient disk of the material
which would take up less space than the loose fullers’ earth, and do
away with the muss which always accompanied its handling.
I went to a friend of mine who ran a metal-working shop, and got
some die-cut letters which would stamp the words ‘HIRES’ REFINED
FULLERS’ EARTH’ on the surface of my disks.
I procured an empty barrel, and figured out that it would hold
ten gross of the disks, suitably packed to prevent breakage.
Then I called on the biggest wholesale drug house in town, showed
my goods, and told them that I would be glad to accept payment in trade.
You will remember than my stock was pretty slender, and I was
glad to pay for more in this way.
“I sold ten barrels to my first customer, and another concern took
twenty to get a slight discount.
Within a few days I had three colored men at work in the yard,
and the maiden lady’s ironing rings were all in requisition.
I kept on taking my pay in trade, and before other people got
onto the game I had my store pretty well stocked.
Of course it wasn’t very long before contractors stopped giving
away fullers’ earth to every Tom, Dick or Harry who came along, but not
until it had served my purpose very nicely.
It was my first experience with a side line, and I have found
side lines more or less interesting ever since.
Charles E. Hires included the following comments in “Some
Advertising Reminiscences 1869-1913,” an article he authored for the
July 24, 1913 issue of Printers’
Ink:
Looking back over my business history – which covers 44 years
now…In 1869 I opened a retail drug store at Sixth and Spruce streets,
Philadelphia, and in connection with my soda fountain – in those days by
no means the elaborate contrivance it is today – I often experimented in
getting up new flavors for soft drinks.
Thus I learned a good deal about public taste, what sort of
flavors would please patrons from the start, and the kind of flavors
which would remain in public favor.