The next three posts I am going to talk about a recent purchase of mine off of ebay. I full picture of the billhead is above. A watched this piece like a hawk and have to say was shocked that I won it for $10. This is an awesome early billhead with an even more awesome graphic of an eagle (I will write about the significance of this eagle in tomorrow's post).
Part I: Who was Samuel P. Wetherill?
The founder of the manufacture of chemicals was Samuel Wetherill, Jr., who about 1789 started the first white-lead factory in the United States, and who, though giving his attention to other manufactures, yet established at Wetherills drugstore, No. 65 North Front Street, the oldest and most extensive manufacture of chemicals in the country.
There have been four generations of Wetherills druggists in Philadelphia. Samuel, the founder, was a Quaker preacher of such talents and virtues as to attract to his ministrations the most eminent people of his day. He wrote " An Apology for the Religious Society called Free Quakers," of which society he was among the prominent founders and active members. In 1775 he became one of the promoters and managers of the United Company of Philadelphia for the Establishment of American Manufactures, and embarked with his whole energies in the business. There being no dyers at that time in Philadelphia, he undertook that branch ; and from dyeing to chemicals the transition was natural. He died in 1816, and was succeeded in the drug business by his son, Samuel Wetherill, Jr., in the "Wetherill drug-store," an old landmark of earlier, if not of better days. John Price Wetherill, a grandson, succeeded his father, Samuel, the son of the founder, Samuel. He was born in 1794, was a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1817, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, and of the Geological Society in 1832, an honorary member of the Boston Society of Natural History, a member in 1844 of the Mineralogical Society of St. Petersburg, in 1848 a member of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, and of the New Jersey Society of Natural History. He inherited the fighting propensity of his ancestor, and was captain of the Second City Troop for several years, and known as " Col. John Price Wetherill." His scientific attainments won him these and other marks of merited distinction. He died in 1853.
Samuel Wetherill and his son, Samuel, Jr., being anxious to do more than to sell a purchased article, commenced the manufacture of white lead on the 19th of September, 1809, at the northwest corner of Chestnut and Broad Streets. It is said that efforts were made by an agent of the English manufacturers to discourage the Wetherills from commencing this business. This subsidized adviser failed in his efforts. The Wetherills commenced the manufacture of their white lead as they had determined, but they did not continue it at that place much longer than nine months. Their factory at Broad and Chestnut Streets was totally destroyed by fire June 13, 1810. They changed its location, and erected their new white-lead factory at the northeast corner of Twelfth and Cherry Streets, to which they subsequently added facilities for the manufacture of other chemicals and drugs. In October and November, 1811, Samuel Wetherill, Jr., obtained patents for a mode of washing white lead, for setting the beds or stocks in making white lead ; for screening and separating white lead, for separating oxidized from metallic lead in the process of making red lead, and using machines for that purpose.
History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, By John Thomas Scharf, Thompson Westcott
Published by L. H. Everts & co., 1884
Part II - The Eagle Graphic.
Comments