Troy has been a well-known
seat of the manufacture of stoves nearly three-quarters
of a century. The casting of stove plates for inventors
and dealers was begun in 1821 by Starbucks & Gurley
(Charles and Nathaniel Starbuck and Ephraim Gurley), succeeding
that year Hanks, Gurley & Co., (Alpheus and Truman
Hanks and Ephraim Gurley, - the builders of the first
foundry in the city, - the Troy Air Furnace, in 1818,
on the south-east corner of Fifth and Grand Division streets),
and, in 1828 by L. Stratton & Son, successors of Nazro
& Curtis, who erected, in 1823, the Eagle Furnace,
afterward known as the Rensselaer, No. 42 Fifth Street.
The value of the
stoves cast in the two foundries in 1828 was estimated
at $120,000; of those in the seven in the city in 1855,
at $1,000,000; and those in the five in 1888, at $2,000,000.
Troy stoves have been
sent to distant parts of the world. Llamas have carried
them across the Andes to the farther coast of South America,
camels to the shores of the Black Sea, and ships to Northern
Europe, Turkey, China, Japan, and Australia. In recent
years this industry has lost much of its far-western patronage
in the United States by advantages of cheap labor and
material and low rates of transportation enjoyed by less
distant competitors.
The Fuller and Warren
Company has the distinction of perpetuating the business
of manufacturing stoves in Troy begun by the firm of L.
Stratton & Son, in 1828, at the Rensselaer Furnace,
No. 42 Fifth Street. The intermediate predecessors were
the firms of Johnson & Geer (Elias Johnson and Gilbert
Geer), 1834, No. 42 Fifth Street; Johnson, Geer, &
Cox, 1840 (foundry, west side of Mechanic Street, two
lots north of Fulton Street); Johnson & Cox, 1846
(builders, that year, of the Clinton Foundry, west side
of Troy and Greenbush Railroad, between Madison and Monroe
streets);
Johnson, Cox, & Fuller, 1850; Cox, Warren, Morrison,
& Co., 1854; Fuller, Warren, & Morrison, 1855;
and Fuller, Warren, & Co., 1859.
The Fuller & Warren
Company was incorporated on December 31st, 1881, with
a capital of $600,000, having as trustees Joseph W. Fuller,
John Hobart Warren, Charles W. Tillinghast, Walter A.
Wood, a and Walter P. Warren. The company's
extensive establishment, known as the Clinton Stove Works,
comprises a number of contiguous brick buildings, from
four to six stories high, occupying a plat of six acres,
bounded by Madison, River, and Monroe streets, and the
Hudson River. In the different departments more than a
thousand workmen are employed. The stoves made by the
company are of many patterns, varying in design and ornamentation
to meet the demands of the trade.
The furnaces and heaters
are wonders of inventive genius. At the Centennial Exhibition
in 1876 , at Philadelphia, the attractive display of stoves,
ranges, and furnaces made at the works was the admiration
of not only American but also of foreign visitors. The
beautiful parlor stove: the Splendid," fully merited
the special award given its manufacturers. The celebrated
Philo P. Stewart stoves, - the patents of which are now
owned by the Fuller & Warren company, have been made
at the Clinton Stove Works since 1859. The company has
large salesrooms in New York City, Boston, Cleveland,
and Chicago, and has recently erected extensive works
at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to supply its western customers
with cooking and heating apparatus. The present officers
of the company are Walter P. Warren, president, G. G.
Wolfe, vice-president, and H. A. Viets, secretary and
treasurer.
The second oldest stove
foundry in the city is that known as the Empire Stove Works,
on the north and south-west corners of Second and Ida streets;
the original buildings having been erected in 1846. The
present proprietors of the large establishment, George W.
Swett & Co., continue the business begun in 1841 by
Anson Atwood, whose successors were Atwood & Cole, 1844;
Atwood, Cole, & Crane, 1846; Pease, Keeney, & Co.,
1848; Clark, Keeney, & Co., 1850; Felton, Keeney, &
Co., 1851; Swett, Quimby, & Co., 1852; Swett,Quimby,
& Perry, 1867; Swett, Quimby, & Co., 1883; and George
W. Swett & Co. (Frederick W. Swett), January 1st 1886.
The parlor and cook stoves, ranges, fire-place heaters,
and oil stoves made at the Empire Stove Works have a wide
reputation for excellence of construction and attractive
mountings.
The conspicuous plant of
the Bussey & McLeod Stove Company covers a plat of four
acres on the east side of Oakwood Avenue, north of Hoosick
Street. The buildings, mostly four-story brick structures,
command a wide view of the city and the Upper Hudson valley.
The first were erected in 1863 by the firm of Bussey, McLeod,
& Co., - Esek Bussey, Charles A. McLeod, and John O.
Merriam, - formed that year. The Bussey & McLeod Stove
Company, of which Esek Bussey is president, Charles A. McLeod,
vice-president, Esek Bussey, jr., treasurer, and Sayre McLeod,
secretary, succeeded it on December 30th, 1882. The thousands
of stoves and ranges made at the works have many attractive
features of construction and ornamentation which widely
popularize the productions of the company in the eastern
and western states.
The firm of Burdett,
Smith, & Co., formed in 1871 and continued since 1883
by Edward Burdett and W. Stone Smith, traces the line of
its predecessors to L. Potter & Co. in 1853. The foundry
of the firm is on the south side of Ingalls Avenue, east
of Sixth Avenue. Andrew B. Fales,
whose stove works are on the west side of Sixth Avenue,
between Rensselaer and North streets, succeeded, in 1872,
to the business continued by the successors of A. M. Stratton,
proprietor, in 1835, of a foundry at No. 64 Sixth Street.
J. C. Henderson & Co., on the south-west corner of Sixth
Avenue and North Street, are manufacturers of tubular cone
and dome furnaces for heating buildings with steam, hot
water, or hot air. J. C. Henderson, previously a member
of the firms of Shavor & Henderson, stove manufacturers,
1869; Sheldon Greene, & Co., 1870; Shavor & Henderson,
1872; in 1876, individually engaged in the manufacture of
his popular furnaces. In April, 1885, he and his son, James
A., became associated in the business under the name of
J. C. Henderson & Co. Herbert
R. Mann, successor to Burtis & Mann, stove and range
manufacturers, continues the business established in 1883,
and has his salesrooms at No. 195 River Street.