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Enterprise Hall of Fame
Businessperson for the 19th Century: Henry C. Rowe
Even if his motives were selfish, he still loved his shellfish
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Business New Haven
1/21/2002
By:
Priscilla Searles
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Henry C. Rowe was born in Fair Haven in 1851. His family was one of the earliest to settle in New Haven, having arrived in the nascent colony in 1644. Henry's grandfather and father were both in the oyster business, and when Henry's father died, Henry left school at age 17 to enter the business.
One of the first to figure out that importing seed oysters from the Chesapeake Bay and other areas was not practical, Rowe was a pioneer in propagating and cultivating oysters in the deep waters of Long Island Sound. Rowe was the first to own and employ steamers off New Haven. The use of steamers was so successful that Rowe's company once deposited 15 million embryo oysters in the bottom of the Sound - in a single day.
By the mid-19th century, in spite of the building of shoreline watchhouses by diligent oystermen, oyster-poaching had become a finely honed art-form. Private ownership of oyster beds was prohibited until, in 1855, the state legislature passed the so-called two-acre law, which stipulated that one person could own no more than two acres of oyster beds. The law proved ineffective. Oystermen persuaded family and friends to buy two acres and then claimed them for themselves. Rowe was by far the most successful at acquiring such lots, owning at one time approximately 8,000 acres, making his oyster company the largest in the state - and himself a lightning rod for considerable controversy.
Accused of having a monopoly in New Haven's oyster business, Rowe defended his actions, stating, “It is true I have bought up a large number of two-acre claims of other citizens, and it is also true that if I am successful in raising a crop of oysters it will result in furnishing employment to large numbers of laboring men.”
Rowe pointed out that it was he who was assuming all the financial risks of the enterprise and that he would have to wait at least six years to “realize one cent” from his investment. Rowe found himself in court on numerous occasions to have squatters removed from lots he had claimed.
In 1880, Rowe generated new controversy by insisting that he could dredge on his own grounds. Rowe owned the only steamer in New Haven, and rival oystermen feared that the dredging would destroy their beds. Rowe was successful in his efforts to dredge - so much so that the men who had opposed him ultimately used the same technique.
He worked to relocate the dumping grounds for government-dredged material, away from the oysters beds and then helped to enact legislation requiring all private excavators to dump in the same location. As the oyster industry grew in New Haven, Rowe continued to work to keep dredging material away from the oyster beds.
Never far from the front lines of political controversy, Rowe was on a committee to secure passage of an act to annex part of East Haven to New Haven and was one of the first to advocate complete annexation. In 1883 he helped to persuade the legislature to pass an act protecting infant children from abuse while in the care of someone other than the parents.
In 1872 Rowe circulated a petition to build the Red Rock (today Quinnipiac) Bridge. Thirteen years later he petitioned for replacement of the Tomlinson Bridge, characterizing the old structure as a hindrance and danger to river navigation.
Corporate Citizen: Alfred Carleton Gilbert
Alfred Carleton Gilbert was given a set of magic tricks at age 11. Failing in love with magic, he developed such skill that his magician fees paid his way through Yale and gave birth to some of the most popular toys in history.
Graduating from Yale in 1906, Gilbert began to manufacture boxed sets of magic tricks under the name Mysto Manufacturing Co. Gilbert himself designed, built, packaged and sold the products from a rented barn in Westville. Eager to expand the line, Gilbert hit the stores in time for Christmas 1912 with a new toy: the Erector Set. Children and parents alike were intrigued with this new toy, making it an instant success.
Toys were not the only products produced by Gilbert, however. In 1915 the Gilbert Polar Cub Fan hit the market, America's first $5 electric fan.
By 1916 annual sales exceeded $1 million. Gilbert changed the name of the firm to the A.C. Gilbert Co. and added chemistry sets to the line. That same year Gilbert founded and served as first president of the Toy Manufacturers of the U.S.A.
The growth of the company was nothing short of phenomenal. Tool chests, electric sets and additional scientific toys were added, and by 1917 a six-acre lot was purchased on Blatchley Avenue and Peck Street, with railroad siding facilities. Continuously improving and adding to its toy and electrical products line, Gilbert during World War I manufactured gas masks and machine gun parts for the war effort.
In the early 1920s a circus train car, demonstrating Erector sets and other Gilbert toys, toured the country entertaining thousands of children. The train received broadcasts from a transmitter in New Haven and was for a time the sixth licensed broadcasting station in the U.S. In 1928 Gilbert sponsored the first sports broadcasts ever heard on a national hookup, with Gilbert himself acting as master of ceremonies. The American Flyer toy train line was purchased by Gilbert in 1938, making the company the world's largest manufacturer of scientific toys. Modernization and plant additions were made, and by the outbreak of World War II the company was tooled up to manufacture precision ordnance.
When Alfred Carleton Gilbert died in 1961, the toy market was changing. Children were beginning to spend more time in front of the television and operating electronic toys. In 1967 company closed its doors for good. The Erector Set is still manufactured, albeit by another firm.
Minority Businessperson of the 19th Century: John Couzu Kebabian
Born in Turkey, John Couzu Kebabian came to the U.S. in 1882 to attend St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Academy. Always creative, he sold oriental rugs and textiles to pay his tuition. It was the beginning of a business that continues to be run today by his descendants - the oldest oriental rug dealership in the nation.
Always intuitive, as well as exceptionally bright, Kebabian's habit of constantly asking questions eventually led him to America. While attending Robert College in Istanbul, one of his professors, a Yale graduate, took an interest in him, encouraging Kebabian to attend Yale. The year at St. Johnsbury was spent acclimate himself to life in America and improve his English. A year later he arrived in New Haven.
Kebabian continued to sell rugs to help with his expenses at Yale. These were shipped to him from Turkey by his older brother, and thus a Yale dorm was the birthplace of the now 120-year-old business.
When Kebabian graduated from Yale, he moved his already successful business to 47 Orange Street near Crown, bringing his Yale clients and contacts with him. Later the business would be relocated to 59 Elm Street near Orange before moving to its present location 73 Elm Street in 1920.
The business attracted other Kebabian family members. When Kebabian's 16-year-old nephew Mihran Haig Kebabian arrived in New Haven to attend the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, he sold rugs for his uncle to supplement his income. Initially not wanting to make the rug business his life's work, Mihran left New Haven in 1906 after graduating from Yale with a degree in civil engineering. But apparently the rug business was too good to resist, because by 1917 he was back in New Haven and back in the family business. John C. sold the successful business to Mihran around 1920. He continued to run it until 1950, when his son, John P., purchased the store. John and his older brother continued to run the store until 1992 when John's son purchased the business.
Kebabian's began primarily as an importer of oriental rugs, selling wholesale and retail. Later it introduced in-shop washing and restoration services, and today also makes some 25 to 30 percent of all the rugs it sells. Today John P. Kebabian Jr., Mihran's grandson, owns the business, carrying on a family tradition that has been passed down from Kebabian to Kebabian for four generations.
Innovator: Clifford Whittingham Beers
Clifford W. Beers suffered from a mental disorder that would have dragged most people down indefinitely. But after spending three years in mental hospitals under the deplorable conditions of the time, Beers decided he wanted to prevent others from enduring similar suffering. So he devoted the remainder of his life to the study and advancement of mental hygiene. He is considered the founder of the mental health movement and the National Mental Health Association.
Born in New Haven in 1876, Beers was graduated from Yale and planned a career as a Wall Street financier. But in 1900 he suffered his first episode of bipolar disorder or manic depressive illness. The incident followed the death of his brother, who suffered from convulsions (later thought to be epilepsy).
Beers had cared for his brother for many years. In the early stages of his own illness Beers tried to take his life by jumping out a third-story window. He survived the jump but was badly injured and spent the next three years in public and private institutions.
Following his arduous recovery and outraged at the treatment of people with mental illness, Beers he penned an autobiography, A Mind That Found Itself. The book aroused a storm of protest and public concern about care of people with mental illnesses. Beers believed that many people with mental illness were treated badly because of stigma and ignorance, and sought to build a grass-roots organization through which myths could be dispelled and progressive public policies championed.
In 1908 Beers founded the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene and the following year the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, renamed in 1950 as the National Association for Mental Health in the USA. In 1931 he founded the International Foundation for Mental Health Hygiene. He was also active in a number of European nations, often financing mental health organizations to help them become firmly established.
Today the Clifford W. Beers Guidance Clinic continues to carry on the work that Beers envisioned decades ago. Founded in 1913, the New Haven based non-profit psychiatric, community-based mental health agency is committed to service, training and research to promote the psychological and physical well-being of children, adolescents and their families. It serves as a tribute to a man who changed mental health care forever.
Perhaps it is Beers himself who best summed up his fight for the rights of people suffering from mental illness: “A pen rather than a lance has been my weapon of offense and defense; for with its point I have felt sure that I should one day prick the civic conscience into a compassionate activity and thus bring into a neglected field earnest men and women who should act as champions for those afflicted thousands least able to fight for themselves.”
Founders Award: James Hillhouse
Born in Montville in 1754, James Hillhouse came in New Haven at age seven to live with his uncle, James Abraham Hillhouse. Attending Hopkins Grammar School, he was graduated from Yale College as a member of Nathan Hale's class of 1773. Enlisting in the American Revolutionary army, Hillhouse led the Foot Guards against the British when they invaded New Haven on July 5, 1779. The following year he entered state politics. In 1790 he was one of five representatives from Connecticut elected to the Second Congress of the United States.
In 1796 Hillhouse was appointed to complete the term of U.S. Sen. Oliver Ellsworth, who had resigned to become chief justice of the United States. Hillhouse was elected to the seat a year later. Serving until 1810, Hillhouse became known as an early critic of slavery. He served on a committee to investigate the abolition of the slave trade and proposed such amendments to the Constitution as random appointment of the president from the Senate and term limits on all federally elected officials, primarily to keep the slaveholding south from gaining too much power. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Hillhouse fought to bar the importation of slaves into the Louisiana Territory.
Hillhouse served as treasurer of Yale College for 50 years - the longest administrative tenure in Yale history. He worked with President Ezra Stiles, Roger Sherman and others to incorporate the city of New Haven. The Seal of the City is the work of Hillhouse and Ezra Stiles, who collaborated with Josiah Meigs.
Concerned about the unsightly burial ground located on the upper Green, Hillhouse was successful in stopping burials on the site. Instead he organized the Grove Street Cemetery, the world's first incorporated cemetery with family plots, which were laid out in landscaped streets like a model city. Hillhouse also drained and leveled the lower Green and enclosed the whole square with a fence.
Responsible for the enactment of the first municipal tree ordinance in the nation, Hillhouse lined New Haven's streets with elm trees, many from a farm he owned in Meriden, planting many of them himself. Although nearly all the elm trees are gone, New Haven is still known as the “Elm City.”
Sometimes called “the Sachem” because of his high cheekbones, Hillhouse died in 1832 and is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery. At his funeral his Yale colleagues, recognizing his contributions to the school, said that he had taken the college from “an obscure seminary to in many respect the first literary institution of a mighty nation, and not the least among the great luminaries of the world.”
Last September, Hillhouse's grave was dedicated as a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.
Corporate Citizen of the 19th Century: The New Haven Electric Co.
Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp in 1879 may have started the ball rolling, but it took many decades to light America.
In 1881 the state's General Assembly granted a charter to the New Haven Electric Lighting Co. and in April of that year 24 stockholders gathered to elect nine directors. The group agreed to make 200 shares available, selling them at $100 each. They also agreed to acquire the United States Lighting Company of New York, whose system consisted of a dynamo and both arc and incandescent lights.
But New Haven's first attempt at establishing a light company was not exactly successful. The Weston system used was not practical, the lights were unsatisfactory and expensive. The company was reorganized, eliminating the Weston apparatus and substituting the Thompson-Houston system.
The new company needed a location from which it could provide services. The C. Cowles & Co. agreed to assist the new company in its search for a location, permitting New Haven Electric to install its dynamo in the Cowles Coach & Saddlery hardware factory. Steam from the Cowles' boilers operated the dynamo when the factory wasn't in operation. For its services Cowles was paid $8 per night.
The first electric illumination of a building in New Haven was exhibited to the public on December 1, 1883. By 1887 the company had installed electric power in 225 locations, two-thirds of the customers being local businesses. By 1890 New Haven had some electric streetlights, but the interiors of most buildings continued to employ gas for illumination for another 15 to 20 years.
Indeed, 1890 was a critical year for the electric company, as Winchester Repeating Arms, one of New Haven's largest industrial employers, signed a contract for electricity service. Others soon followed, including the New Haven County Courthouse.
The first electric streetcar made its debut in New Haven in 1892, marking the beginning of the end of the horse-drawn railroad. A year later the stringing of an electric trolley wire allowed people to travel from Church and Chapel Street to Elm, State and out to James, Lamberton, Ferry and back to Chapel. The expansion of electricity followed the pattern established earlier by the gas and water companies. On July 12, 1893 the city signed an agreement with the New Haven Electric Co. in which the company agreed to furnish light for the city's' street-lamp system.
In 1899 the company merged with the Bridgeport Electric Co. The state subsequently approved their charter request, and the two companies became the United Illuminating Co.
Small Businessperson: Joseph Parker
Joseph Parker used his imagination and creativity to found a small company that ultimately provided a product that was used worldwide.
Born in Litchfield South Farms (now Morris) on July 19, 1810, Parker began his business career at age 14 when he left home to work in country stores in Bethlehem and Woodbury. At age 19 he moved to New Haven, remaining in the Elm City the first time for only a couple of years before moving on to seek his fortune elsewhere.
It was a business failure that brought Parker back to New Haven. He had gone to New York City in 1832 to enter the hardware business, but the failure of the United States Bank and the financial crisis that ensued brought his hardware career to an end. Not easily discouraged, Parker had an idea that would result in product that would benefit succeeding generations.
Before 1840, American cotton mills had no use for the sweepings, known as cotton waste. Parker believed that the waste might make a high-quality paper. Further, he knew that the process was already being done in England. He found himself a partner, J.K. Herrick, a wholesale stationer in New York City, and returned to New Haven to turn his idea into reality.
Parker hired a businessman from England, who claimed to understand the process, to supervise the manufacture of quality paper made from cotton waste. But the Englishman failed to master the technical aspects of the production and it fell to Parker ultimately to figure it out, manufacturing the first sheet of fine and superfine book paper manufactured the United States.
West Rock Paper Mill, as Parker's company was first known, was located on Whalley Avenue in New Haven. Producing a paper noted for purity and excellence, the company paid $20 per gross ton for cotton waste, transforming it into book papers at $125 per ton that matched the quality of those produced overseas.
A trip to a New York City stationer's in 1856 gave Parker the inspiration for his next product. Seeing the first case of blotting-board ever imported into this country, he happened to have some sample sheets of cardboard with him. He had a test conducted to see if this cardboard could be used as blotting-board. It not only worked, but proved superior to the equivalent product manufactured in Europe. Thus Parker's company became the first in the U.S. to produce blotting paper.
Over time the company that Parker founded underwent several name changes, incorporating in 1892 as the Joseph Parker & Son Co. Dropping the production of book paper, in later years the company concentrated on blotting paper, shipping the product all over the world. Joseph Parker & Son Co. continued producing blotting paper until its closing in 1970. The company Parker had founded had survived for 130 years.
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