All About Coffee by William H. Ukers (best new books to read .TXT) 📕

Growth of the Coffee-Roasting Trade

The wholesale coffee roasting business in the United States seems to have started in the closing years of the eighteenth century. In February, 1790, a "new coffee manufactory" began business at 4 Great Dock Street, New York, and the proprietor announced that he had provided himself at considerable expense with the proper utensils "to burn, grind and classify coffee on the European plan." He sold the freshly roasted product "in pots of various sizes from one to twenty weight, well packed down, either for sea or family use so as to keep good for twelve months."

A second roasting plant started up at 232 Queen Street, New York, nearly opposite the governor's house, toward the close of 1790. This second coffee roasting plant was known in 1794 as the City Coffee Works. James Thompson operated a "coffee manufactory" at 25 Thames Street in 1795. In this year there was also the "Old Ground Coffee Works" in Pearl Street, formerly Hanover Square, "three doors below the bank at number 110," operating "two mills, one pair French burr stones" but no orders were accepted here for less than six pounds, at "two pence advanced from the roasting loss."

Other coffee manufactories followed in the large towns of the new states; and, always, the coffee was treated "on the European plan." This meant that it was "burnt over a slow coal fire, making every grain a copper color and ridding it all of dust and chaff." There was usually a difference in price of three to four pence a pound between the green and roasted product. Packages of roasted coffee under the half-dozen weight were sold in New York in 1791 for two shillings and three pence per pound, allowance being made for grocers at a distance. In those days, the favorite container was a narrow-mouthed pot or jar of any size. This was the first crude coffee package. In retailing the product, cornucopias made of newspapers, or any other convenient wrapping, were first employed; but, with the introduction of paper bags in the early sixties, the housekeeper soon became educated to this more sanitary form of carry package, and its permanence was quickly assured.

The following were listed in Longworth's Almanack as coffee roasters in New York in 1805: John Applegate; Cornelius Cooper; Benjamin Cutler, 104 Division Street; George Defendorf, 83 Chapel Street; William Green; Cornelius Hassey, 14 Augustus Street; Joseph M'Ginley, 28 Moore Street; John W. Shaw, 43 Oliver Street; John Sweeney, Mulberry Street; Patience Thompson, 23 Thames Street.

Elijah Withington came from Boston to New York in 1814. He set up a coffee roaster in an alley behind the City Hall and engaged a big, raw-boned Irishman to run it. This was the beginning of a coffee roasting business that has continued until the present day. Withington dealt in Padang interiors, Jamaica, and West Indian coffees, and numbered many society folk among his customers. Withington's business removed to 7 Dutch Street in 1829: and the firm became Withington & Pine in 1830.

The roasted coffee business in New York had grown to such proportions in 1833 and gave such promise, that James Wild considered it a good investment to bring over from England for his new coffee manufactory in New York a complete power machinery equipment for roasting and grinding coffee. There was also an engine to run it. It was set up in Wooster Street opposite the present Washington Square.

Samuel Wilde, son of Joseph Wilde, of Dorchester, Mass., came to New York about 1840 to make his fortune. He was a young man with vision; and first applied himself with diligence to the hardware and looking-glass business. When he found that most of his customers were theaters and saloons, his religious scruples bade him abandon it, which he did.

Meanwhile, in 1844, Withington's pioneer roasting enterprise had admitted Norman Francis and Amos S. Welch as general partners, and Samuel and Charles C. Colgate as special partners, under the style of Withington, Francis & Welch. It so continued until 1848, when Samuel Wilde—who had selected the coffee business as more honorable than the one in which he started—was admitted, and the firm became Withington & Wilde.

Mr. Withington retired in 1851, and Samuel Wilde associated with him in the business his sons Joseph and Samuel, Jr., the title becoming Samuel Wilde & Sons. Samuel Wilde, Sr., died in 1862. The title then became Samuel Wilde's Sons. Joseph Wilde died in 1878, and Samuel Wilde, Jr. in 1890, the business being left to and continuing with a younger brother, John, from 1878 to 1894, when John's son, Herbert W. Wilde, became a member of the firm, which continues the old title at 466 Greenwich Street, as Samuel Wilde's Sons Company, having been incorporated in 1902. John Wilde died in 1914.

Another grandson of Samuel Wilde is William B. Harris, who engaged in the coffee roasting business in Front Street from 1904 to 1917. From 1908 to 1918 he acted as coffee expert for the United States Department of Agriculture. William B. Harris is a son of Samuel L. Harris, who married a daughter of Samuel Wilde, and who for a number of years was connected with Samuel Wilde's Sons.