THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

Of all industries, that of manufacturing the pelts of animals into articles for the use of mankind is the most ancient, and hardly a country exists in which, to some extent, the skins of different beasts are not so used at the present time. The manufacturing of skins into articles of apparel and luxury is an industry apart from all others, and one requiring great knowledge and experience, as the stability as well as the appearance of most furs depends much upon the mode of curing, drying, and making up. The Canadian provinces owe their first start on the road to prosperity to the fur trade. The French pioneers discovered that as the Native Indians were ignorant of the value of the furs which they accumulated, an enormous profit was possible to the successful trader in those articles. In the infancy of the industry there was absolutely no limit to the percentage of profit, as the Native Indians would exchange the most valuable of pelts for European trinkets that were worth nothing...

Oswego is located on Lake Ontario and at the mouth of the Oswego River in north-central New York . In 1826 the first mill was built in Oswego for the manufacturer of flour. The mill was built by Alvin Bronson and TS Morgan on the east side of the river. An adjoining mill was thereafter built by Henry Fitzhugh. From that first mill onward, the flour milling business blossomed in Oswego chiefly due to it the hydraulic power of Oswego Fall and the Oswego River . On July 5, 1853, fire destroyed most of the mills and elevators on the east side of the river. All of the lost mills were rebuilt. Eventually the Oswego mills lost ground to the Western mills, but the paper mills moved took their place. A list of the mills in 1853 included: Empire - run by Doolittle, Irwin & Wright Ontario – run by GLAB Grant Atlas – run by Geo. Seeley Magnolia - run by Chas. Smyth Lake Ontario – run by Fitzhugh & Littlejohn Washington – run by Penfield, Ly...

The flouring industry is the first manufacture recorded in American annals. The first wheat was brought to this country by Bartholomew Gosnold, and landed at an island in Buzzard's Bay in 1602. The first flour-mill mentioned in American history was the hand-mill, which consisted of two small millstones, one having a handle, rubbed upon the other. Perhaps the most celebrated flouring-mills in the period immediately after the Revolution were those of Delaware, on the Brandywine. Up to 1785 the different milling processes were separate and largely done by hand; but Evans, by the introduction of the elevator, conveyer, and other mechanisms, combined the different steps into a continuous system, dispensing with one half of the labor formerly required, and enabling the miller by machinery alone to take the grain through " from wagon to wagon again." As the country grew westward, so went the wheat and flour industries. Soon, one state stood out in the production of flour and tha...