Early Philadelphia Sugar Refiners and Technologists' C. A. BROWNE Bureau of Agricultural a n d Industrial Chemistry, U . S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
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HE EARLY industrial development of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia followed a somewhat similar pattern. In all these cities the refining of sugar and molasses occupied a prominent place among other infant industries such as tanning, brewing, and distilling, and the manufacture of lime, bricks, pottery, linseed oil, and other colonial wares. On a map of New York of 1782 the writer (1) once indicated the location of six sugar houses, six distilleries, six breweries, five tanneries, three potteries, one linseed oil factory, one paper factory, and several other minor establishments. A map of PhiladelphiaZ of 1777 shows a building marked "Sugar House" in the Kensington district, a short distance from the Delaware River near Pool Bridge and the fork of the roads to York and Frankfort. Particulars concerning this early sugar house are lacking. A paper mill, oil mill, fulling mill, and snuff mill are also indicated in the Philadelphia suburban districts shown on this map. The sugar refining business of Philadelphia until the time of the Civil War was largely localized in a section a short distance from the Delaware River north of Market Street. Thus we find as early as 1783 that a sugar refinery was operated at 77 Vine Street by Col. Samuel Miles and Col. Jacob Morgan whose names were associated with the refining industry of Philadelphia for the next 20 years. Their refinery building passed through many changes of ownership for nearly a century. Another early refinery, contemporaneous with that of Miles and Morgan, was owned by Edward and Isaac Pennington a t 155 Race Street. The failure of these and other early Philadelphia refineries to be established directly upon the Delaware became such a serious handicap in later years that, the modern sugar refining industry moved after the Civil War to more favorable river-front locations. It was a condition similar to that which occurred in New York. The manufacture of refined loaf sugar from maple sugar was first performed in Philadelphia in 1790 by the previously named firm of Edward and Isaac Pennington. The making of white loaf sugar from maple sugar would be regarded now as a very unwise proceeding for the refining process completely removes the distinctive agreeable flavor for which maple sugar is prized and for which it brings a market price much higher than that of pure refined sugar. The refining of maple sugar was not the regular business of the -
Illustrnred lecture before the Philadelphia Section of thr Amencan Chwnrcal Society, Novemhcr 10, 1942. a Survcved bv N. Scull and G Hvar, 1
Pennington firm, and this particular operation was probably the result of some peculiar economic conditions. After 1800 the Pennington re6nery was conducted exclusively by Edward Pennington until 1829, when the name of this family, after an association of 40 years, ceased to be identified with the sugar refining business of Philadelphia. Just before Edward Pennington went out of business, Joseph S. Lovering, a grocer, took up sugar refining. His name was most prominent in this branch of industry in the United States for the next 40 years. He appears as a simple sugar refiner in the old refinery building of Miles and Morgan which he had purchased on Vine Street, and then later as steam sugar refiner in a new building which he erected a t 27 Church Alley. This new designation no doubt referred to certain advantages in the use of steam which Lovering introduced among other improvements in his rdning operations. With regard to some of these operations the following statement is made in Joseph Jackson's "Encyclopedia of Philadelphia'' (Vol. IV, p. 1122): "Mr. Lovering improved the methods of refining raw sugar and molasses and it is related that some sugar refiners in other parts of the United States took extraordinary means to learn the secret. It is even said that Mr. Lovering had an apartment at the rekinery, fitted up with a maze of pipes and valves, which looked very significant but which had no use whatever. These were shown to visitors who departed more convinced than ever that Mr. Lovering's process was a most intricate one."
In May, 1836, when the Beet Sugar Society (2) of Philadelphia was organized, the first association of its kind in the United States, Joseph Lovering took an active interest in the movement and his name appears on the board of managers. As another outstanding example of Lovering's progressive spirit i t should be mentioned that Joseph S. Lovering and Company were the first sugar refiners in America to make uSe of the polariscope in the control of their factory operations. The instrument which they used was an early model of the Biot polariscope made by Soleil in Paris. The loaf sugar made by Lovering was of such high purity that Professor R. S. McCulloh in his classic researches on sugar and hydrometers used it as a standard of comparison. This competent expert remarked in this connection : "In my own researches I have employed, as a standard. powdered loaf sugar relined by J. S. Lovering & Co., of Philadelphia, by the vacuum process, and without the use of blood, eggs, or any other objectionable substance; the purity of which I ascertained by the most delicate tests: and I could not
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MCCUllOhreceived valuable assistance in his investigations from the Philadelphia consulting firm of J. C. Booth* and M. BoyC, who were the first commercial analysts in the United States to make use of the polariscope in analyzing sugars and molasses. The instrument which they employed mas an early type of In the industrial use of the polariscope, so soon after Ventzke polariscope made by Maywald of Berlin (6). In 1846, while in the midst of his sugar investigaits invention by Biot, Lovering and Company kept abreast with the most progressive of European re- tions, McCulloh was appointed melter and refmer of fineries. In this connection McCulloh remarked again : the U. S. Mint in Philadelphia-an extra burden of
detect in it the slightest trace of foreign matter. The beauty of the sugar refined by this house exceeds that of any foreign sugar I have seen; and having been permitted to inspect their establishment, and carefully examine the process of refining there employed, through all its different stages. I feel assured that the sugar I adopted as a standard has been subjected to no action which could impair its perfect purity" (3).
"Already has this beautiful discovery of Biot found its way into refineries; and the house of MM: Say & Dumeril, of Paris. have employed it with accuracy and profit. The highly intelligent and enterprising proprietors of J. S. Lovering & Co., of Philadelphia, have also availed themselves of this process; and in their establishment may be seen practically illustrated, on a large scale, the advantages to be attained by the union of science and art" (4).
The extract just quoted is taken from the 6rst fundamental treatise on sugar analysis to he published in the United States. This was McCulloh's report of "Scientific investigations in relation to sugar and hydrometers" made a t the request of Secretary of the Treasury, J. C. Spencer, in March, 1844, to Professor A. D. Bache, a well-known Philadelphia scientist and great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, who a t the time mas U. S. Superintendent of Weights and Measures in Washington. The duties of Professor Bache in the latter position made it impossible for him to do anything more than to act as a general supervisor of the proposed investigations. The actual performance of the work he, therefore, entrusted to Richard S. McCulloh, a former professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and chemistry in Jefferson College (5). The first edition of McCnlloh's report was soon exhausted, and in 1848 a second revised edition was published by order of Congress as Executive Document No. 50 of the Senate, 30th Congress, 1st Session. This work of 653 pages and 9 plates of illustrations discusses in full scientific detail not only the basic principles of sugar analysis (including the construction and calibration of polariscopes, hydrometers, and other laboratory apparatus, and the description of the newly introduced Trommer copper reduction test for reducing sugars) but also the construction and operation of sugar house and refinery equipment (such as clarifiers, bag filters, evaporators, bone black tanks, vacuum pans, and driers) for the manufacture of sugar from the cane and beet. In conducting his investigation McCulloh made trips to Louisiana and Cuba to investigate processes of manufacture and to collect samples of plantation sugars and molasses which were analyzed in his Philadelphia laboratory along with samples of imported sugars and molasses collected a t the custom houses of different ports of the United States. The products comprised '7 samples of molasses, 30 of molasses sediments, 53 of white clayed and broken loaf sugars, 177 of muscovado sugars, and 11 of miscellaneous sugars, a total in all of 348 samples.
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duties that caused some delay in completing the new edition of his report on sugar. The delay, however, enabled him to bring his report more nearly up to date. His treatise was modem for its time and included descriptions of the newly patented leaf filter of Joseph Lovering of Philadelphia and the multiple effectevaporator of Norbert Rillieux of New Orleans, which is probably the greatest invention in the history of American chemical engineering. Philadelphia played an important role in the development of this epoch-making invention, for when Rillieux had worked out the preliminary experiments for his multiple-effect evaporator he entrusted the constmction of his first factory scale triple-effect apparatus to * For photograph of Jamw Curtis Booth, see J. CHIIM. EDUC.. 20,7 (1943).
the manufacturing 6rrn of Merrick and Towne of that city. The first evaporator was operated with great success in 1845 on the Myrtle Grove plantation of Theodore Packwood in Louisiana. The use of Rillieux's new evaporator spread rapidly because of its great economy in operation, and Merrick and T o m e did a good business for a number of years in supplying the demands for this equipment. J. S. Lovering and Company continued to refine sugar a t 27, afterward 225, Church Alley, until 1867 when the business of this historic firm was taken over by Davis, McKean, and Company, who continued to operate in the old Lovering refinery. Meanwhile other new progressive sugar refineries had been springing up in Philadelphia. Only a brief mention can be made of them. In 1857 the two brothers Edward P. and Joseph H. Eastwick, after completing their studies in chemistry under W6hler a t Gottingen University, established a steam sugar refinery a t 73, afterward 221, Vine Street, in the previously used refinery building of Miles and Morgan which was said to be the oldest in Philadelphia. While a t Gottingen the Eastwick brothers had as their laboratory instructor Dr. Charles Anthony Goessmann, Wohler's chief assistant, and on their return to Philadelphia they offered Goessmann the position of chemist and general superintendent in their new refinery. Goessman accepted the position, and on coming to Philadelphia in 1857 brought with him a considerable supply of laboratory apparatus which he had purchased for the Eastwicks. He attempted to introduce certain improvements in sugar refining but owing to the pending dissolution of the Eastwick partnership, could carry nothing to completion. He resigned his position in December, 1860, just before the Eastwicks abandoned their short attempt a t sugar refining, and made a brief visit to Cuba to study the sugar cane and tobacco industries of that island. There is not space in this paper to review Goessmann's later interests in the sorghum and sugar beet,
as sugar-producing plants, nor to consider his important work as Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Agricultural College and as Director of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, connections from which he retired in 1907 a t the age of 80. In the 50 years since his coming to Philadelphia with the Eastwick brothers in 1857, Goessmann exerted a many-sided influence upon chemistry in America along its industrial, agricultural, educational, and economic sides. He was president of the American Chemical Society in 1887, and in 1898 was a speaker a t a notable reunion of old Gottingen graduates of 1855-56 at the Metropolitan Club in New York, a t which he greeted among his old students two former presidents of the American Chemical Society, Charles F. Chandler and George C. Caldwell, and his Philadelphia employer of 40 years before, Joseph H. Eastwick. In 1857, the same year that the Eastwicks began operations, the name of Thomas A. Newhall, a commission merchant and importer at 64 South Front Street, appears in the list of Philadelphia's sugar refiners with that of his partner, George L. Harrison. The firm of Harrison and Newhall operated a sugar refinery on the corner of Race and Crown Streets.The appearance of this so-called "Pennsylvania Sugar Refinery" (not to be confused with the later Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company) is shown in an interesting contemporary lithograph. I t was a seven-story building fronting on Crown Street. Horses are shown hauling hogsheads of raw sugar and molasses on twowheeled drays up Race Street from the Delaware water front-a visible proof of the inconvenience and expense of the old practice of locating refineries a t a distance from the river. After being unloaded, the hogsheads were hoisted up the outside of the building to the top story, where their contents were dissolved in blowups. After clarifying and filtering, the solution descended by gravity through the various stages of manufacture, the clarified sirup being evaporated in a vacuum pan t o a massecuite which, after crystallization, was set aside in molds in the fill house (presumably the part of the refinery a t the left) for the adhering sirup to drain away. The Harrison and Newhall Refinery a t Race and Crown Streets was operated under the firm name of Thomas A. Newhall and Sons from 1860 to 1867 when the business was taken over by the new firm of Newhall, Borie, and Company. In 1859, B. H. Bartol and Alfred Kusenberg estahlished the so-called "Grocers' Steam Sugar Refinery" a t 1012 Passyunk Road. Kusenherg retired in 1864, the business then being conducted solely under Bartol's name. This is said to have been the first house in Philadelphia to make a washed high-grade sugar from molasses by the centrifugal process. Sugar houses, whose operations consisted solely in recovering sugar from molasses, were called rather derisively "smear C O " ' w of GIIllebcn houses," from the smeary character of the- products HnnnrsoN AND NEWHALL'SSUGAR REFINERY,CORNEROR which they worked' "Smear houses" Of RACEAND CROWNSTREBTS, PHILADELPHIA, AS IT APPEARED ABOUT 1858.-FROM A LITHOGRAPH BY W. H. REASE types were common establishments in the United
States and Canada3 60 and more years ago. In such houses the bone-black filtration and baking of the loaf sugar were usually omitted, the resultant soft brown sugar being sold either to groceries for direct consumption or t o refineries for conversion into white sugars. In addition to the cases of Joseph Lovering and Thomas Newhall, there were numerous other examples in Philadelphia where wholesale grocers, who were also importers and commission merchants, went into the business of refining sugar. Edward C. Knight (mentioned by S. N. Winslow in 1864 in his "Biographies of Successful Philadelphia Merchants") and his partner Charles A. Sparks are listed in the Philadelphia directories between 1860 and 1870 as wholesale grocers, commission merchants, and importers, also as agents for the sale of the products of the Southwark Sugar Refinery and Grocers' Sugar House. A development from the status of sugar brokers to that of sugar refiners seems t o have been not very difficult and so after 1870the firm of E. C. Knight and Company appears in the directories as importers and sugar refiners. This firm held a prominent position in the history of Philadelphia sugar refining until 1892, when its business was purchased a t a value of $800,000 by the American Sugar Refining Company. Another example, similar to that of E. C. Knight and Company, is that of the still existent Philadelphia firm of W. J. McCahan and Company, who in the directories before 1873 are listed as grocers, and after 1873 as sugar refiners. I n 1863 the old Eastwick Brothers refinery building on Vine Street was sold to Harrison, Newhall, and Welch whose interests in 1864 were merged into that of the new firm of Harrison, Havemeyer, and Company (Charles C. Harrison, Theodore A. Havemeyer, W. W. Frazier, Jr., Alfred C. Havemeyer), the name Havemeyer, so prominent in earlier and later New York sugar refining history, now appearing for the first time in that of Philadelphia. It would exceed the limits of the present paper to trace in detail the very involved history of sugar refining in Philadelphia during the Civil War and postCivil War periods, when this industry, the same as others, was in a state of depression and uncertainty. The sugar refining industry, being in a transition period, was in a particularly had situation. The margin between the price of raw and refined sugar was constantly dropping, and the old methods of manufacture were no longer profitable. The disgusting process of blood clarification and the antiquated fill house (with its countless molds and draining pots and its wasteful requirements of space, time, and labor) were then in
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a In 1937 during a visit to the State Archives of Nova Scotia in Halifax, the writer found numerous references to the early molasses refining industry of that city. In the "Proceedings of the House of Assembly" for March 22, 1825, is a recommendstion that a drawback of one penny per gallon he allowed on 20,681 gallons of molasses used in the manufacture of refined sugar since the previous Septunber by the Halifax Sugar Re. finery.
full sway. Chemical control for preventing refinery losses did not become general until after 1880. One by one the less efficient refineries went out of business. It soon became a mere question of the survival of the fittest. Attempts were made in the interest of selfpreservation to limit the meltings of sugar, but these efforts proved to be utterly futile. The final outcome, when the growing losses of business threatened a wide disaster, was a gradual consolidation, with a reduction in the number of refineries, and the introduction of new processes of greater economy and efficiency. This is shown in the following statistics of Philadelphia sugar and molasses refineries taken from the U. S. Census Reports for different years:
Cenrus
Number Row ~ u & r of Nirmbrr of Wngcr of and Yeor Refinrrirr ErnPloyrri EmPlwcas Molnrrcs
Volur of Ruined Rodurlr
It will he noted that between 1850 and 1870 there was a three-fold increase in the number of Philadelphia refineries, nearly a five-fold increase in the number of employees, and a twenty-three-fold increase in the value of products. As a result of thehancial depression in the decade 1870-80, the statistics showed a marked decline in every respect, although Lorin Blodget (7), writing in 1877, states that one or two establishments in this critical period were able to double their production and a t the same time shorten the time necessary to make fine sugar. The effect of the new improvements is indicated by the almost doubling of production in the decade 1880-90, with a one-third reduction in the number of refineries. In this period of readjustment, when old and new methods of manufacture were vying for supremacy, the sugar refining business of Philadelphia, as of other cities, was in a chaotic state. Firm names were constantly changing with the withdrawal of owners and the shifting of partners from one establishment to another. The firm of Newhall, Borie, and Company. for example, leaving the old refinery building of Harrison and Newhall a t Race and Crown Streets, joined forces with Thomas McKean of Davis, McKean, and Company, who had bought the old Lovering refinery a t 225 Church Alley. The new firm continued to operate in this building under the successive names of McKean, Newhall and Borie, and McKean, Borie, and Company until 1887, when the iirm dissolved and the historic iovering sugar house went out of existence. ~h~ trouble here was probably the one of trying to conduct an up-to-date business in an unfavorable location with an obsolete building and equipment. time for sugar chemists' Thus It was not a J. H. Tucker, whose well-known "Manual of Sugar
Analvsis." ~~~, . through its six editions between 1881 and 1905, held a leading place among hooks on the for McKean, Boric, and Company and was found himself without a position on the breaking up of their business. After a brief connection with the sugar industry of Cuba, he abandoned sugar technology as too uncertain and devoted the rest of his life to mining and smelting operations with headquarters in Salt Lake City. Harrison, ~ a v e m e ~ eand r , Company, who had acquired the old Miles and Morgan refinery building a t 221 Vine Street, realized the great disadvantage of working in an unfavorably located obsolete factory and in 1866 built a new refinery on the water front a t Delaware Avenue and Bainhridge Street which, hecause of the inanufacture there of the famous brand of Franklin Sugars, became known a decade later as the Franklin Sugar Refinery. This progressive firm in 1876 employed as their chemist and engineer Mr. Samuel Morris Lillie, who is widely known for his important inventions on the economy of heat in sugar relining and other industries. He was the inventor of the widely used Lillie multiple-effect film evaporator in which the sugar, or other solution to he concentrated, was sprayed as a fine shower in a vacuum over the heating coils. The great advantages of this system of evaporation were: (1) the higher efficiency, there being no tendency for the boiling point to he raised by the pressure of a column of liquid on the heating surfaces; (2) the greater prevention of destruction of sugar by caramelization, the quantity of juice in process of evaporation a t one time being small and hence but a short time under treatment; and (3) the more easy escape of vapor with prevention of the spurting and losses of sugar by entrainment in the condensation water. Mr. Lillie resigned his position with the Franklin Sugar Refinery in 1884 in order to devote his whole time to the manufacture and introduction of his numerous inventions. In 1889 he published his wellknown treatise on "Heat in Sugar Refineries." Mr. Lillie conducted his manufacturing business in Philadelphia up to the time of his death about nine years ago. Lillie's successor a t the Franklin Refinery was another eminent sugar chemist and technologist, the late Dr. Samuel Cox Hooker. In writing to me in April, 1935, shortly after the death of Mr. Lillie and only a few months before his own passing, Dr. Hooker has this to say about his connection with the Franklin Sugar Refinery: "I went as chemist to this Philadelphia Refinery in 1885. M y chemist predecessor was Mr. S. Morris Lillie, who subsequently devoted his life to inventing and constructing apparatus having to do with economizing heat. I believe practically all the multiple evaporators in the Refineries for the concentration of sweet water are still Lillie evaporators; some were also used for concentrating cane juice in raw sugar factories, hut they were not generally used in the beet sugar industry. They were also installed. I believe, on many of the United States' war vessels for making distilled water economically, and have been used in the salt and other industries. Mr. Lillie's death occurred recently after being struck by an automobile in Philadelphia.
"I happened to meet Dr. Tucker by chance a t a hoarding house where we both took our meals. We became good friends. He was then employed as chemist a1 the Newhall Refinery in Philadelphia. After the closing of the Newhall Refinery, Dr Tucker made a short business trip to Cuba, and this I think was his last connection with the sugar industry. He went West and with headquarters a t Salt Lake City became interested in mining andsmelting. For some years he corresponded with me. Then I heard no more from him, and later when I went to Salt Lakc city in the beet sugar industry and tried to get in touch with him. I heard he had died a number of years hefore. "I was chemist a t the Franklin Refinery from 1885 until thc time when it was acquired by the now American Sugar Refining Company. Shortly after that time, in the early SO'S,the Franklin Refinery was closed and my headquarters were transferred to the refinery huilt by Clans Spreckels a t Philadelphia which had also been bought by the American Sugar Refining Company. From that time on the Franklin sugars were made a t that Refinery. The brand is still a very popular one.''
In further elucidation of Dr. Hooker'sstatement Mr. Louis A. Wills of the American Sugar Refining Company, to whom I am greatly indebted for many points of information, writes me as follows: "In 1892 the Americau Sugar Refming Company acquired t h r Franklin refinery and a t the same time the Spreckels refiner? a t the foot of Reed Street, which had been built in 1888. 111 1897 the Franklin plant was closed and ever since that time Franklin sugars have been produced in Philadelphia, exclusively a t the Reed Street plant except for three periods during World War No. I, when i t was reopened to supply sugar to the Allies. A few years later this refinery was dismantled."
The purchase of the Franklin Refinery by the American Sugar Refining Company, referred to in these communications, was the turning point in Dr. Hooker's career. Mr. H. 0. Havemeyer, the president of the American Sugar Refining Company, in his visits to Philadelphia, was impressed with Hooker's ability and gave him assignments of increasing responsibility These duties necessitated at times his attendance as chemical adviser a t the directors' meetings of the corporation in New York and he noted a t these couferences that Mr. Havemeyer asked many questions about patents and processes to which immediate answers were not forthcoming. Hooker was quick to see his opportunity and, although the subject was not a part of his regular duties, he began a t once to spend all his leisure time in an exhaustive study of the voluminous technological and patent literature upon sugar manufacture and refining. Not long afterward when Mr. Havemeyer asked at his directors' meetings for an opinion about a particular patent or process, Hooker was ready with an answer as to its utility and value His promotion thereafter was rapid, and he soon became one of the leading consultants of his corporation on all matters pertaining to sugar manufacture and refining. This turning incident in Hooker's very successful career is one from which every young aspiring chemist might draw a lesson. Hooker's technological ability is best illustrated by his work for the American beet sugar industry which was conducted during the latter part of his residence
in Philadelphia. When the American Sugar Refining Company acquired a controlling financial interest in many Western beet sugar factories, Hooker was assigned the important task of organizing the technical work of these establishments upon a more efhcient basis. The American beet sugar industry a t that time was new and inexperienced. Great difficulties were encountered in operating the SteiTen lime saccharate process for recovering sugar from beet molasses. This was one of the principal problems to which Hooker gave attention. He solved the difficulty by requiring the factories to adopt a finer grinding of the lime. He sought the best mill for this purpose and then by his own improvements perfected it so that it gave the desired results. The elimination of bluing for enhancing the brilliancy of beet sugars was another reform which Hooker introduced. In his connection with the beet sugar industry Hooker manifested rare business ability in contributing to the organization of the Great Western Sugar Company, of which he was a director from 1909to 1913. He located several of the important plants of this company-locations which in each instance have proved sound and successful. He showed fine judgment also in the organizationof personnel andof his systemof management, which is still largely retained by the company today. Hooker is often mentioned as the one who saved the American beet sugar industry from its previous state of disorganization and placed it upou a high level of efficiency. In 1900 Hooker was appointed to the board of directors of the American Sugar Refining Company and in 1912 moved his residence from Philadelphia to Remsen Street. Brooklyn, where he went his remaininn days. To indicate ali that ~ o o k e ; accomplished in this new position of responsibility lies beyond the limits of the present paper. Reference will be made only to his remarkable organizing ability, which is shown by the fact that a t least seven of the men occupying the highest positions on the technical staff of the American Sugar Refining Company 20 years after his retirement in 1915 were either originally engaged by him or were selected by him from young men employed by the company. These included three of the superintendents and two of the plant engineers of the company's five refineries, and two of the five men that comprised the company's central operating staff in New York. Hooker once told me that he cared for sugar technology chiefly as a means of securing financial independence. He was an organic chemist of the highest order and in 1915, when he had acquired a sufficient competency for the rest of his days, he terminated his 30-year productive connection with the American sugar industry and devoted the remaining 20 years of his life to organic chemical research. His outstanding work in this field on lapachol and its derivatives was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society for 1936 in a remarkable series of 11 papers, edited by Professor L. F. Fieser of Harvard University xfter Dr. Hooker's death on October 12, 1935.
The developments, which preceded the founding of the present Pennsylvania Sugar Company of Philadelphia, are a good illustration of the hazards and uncertainties of sugar refining in the transition period after the Civil War. For information and illustrative material upon this subject I am greatly indebted to Mr. Daniel Gutleben, Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania Sugar Company. In 1868 Tohn M. Hilcert founded the Girard Sucar " Refinery a t 5th and Lawrence Streets. His sons Charles M., Peter, and Isodore Hilgert continued the business under the firm name of John Hilgert's Sons until 1881 when Charles M. Hilgert, succeeding to the chief ownership, erected a new refinery a t Wharf 46 on the east side of North Delaware Avenue. He had scarcely started operations, however, when, because of the overpurchase of Cuban molasses on a falling market, his business failed and the refinery was sold by the sheriff to the Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company. This new firm, with Josiah P. Fernald as superintendent, and a force of 40 employees, began operations in 1883 as a molasses refinery for extracting raw sugar from the rich Cuban molasses of that period. ~
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D m G,ilirbcn DELAWARE RIVER
co*r,rry o j
PENNSYLVANIA SUGAR REFINERY,PHILADELF'HIA, A S IT APPEAREDI N 1883 FROM
THE
ENDOF WHARF46
OX THE
plant into a true sugar refinery is afforded by the case of the Delaware Sugar House of Philadelphia which in the 1870's and 80's boiled Cuban molasses for the extraction of sugar under the direction of the late George R. Bunker. The raw sugar which he made was sold to refiners by the firm of B. H. Howell Son and Company, who had an interest in the business. The operations of the Delaware Sugar House were conducted in a building erected in 1869-'70 on the northeast comer of Reed and Swanson Streets. Because of the financial losses previously mentioned in refining molasses, Mr. Bunker converted his plant into a sugar refinery in the late 1880's. The bone-black filters of this plant were purchased from George M. Newhall, who, after retiring from sugar refining, had gone into the business of selling machinery and sugar house equipment. It has been supposed that these filters may have been used in the old Thomas A. Newhall and Sons refinery a t Race and Crown Streets. A sketch of the Delaware Sugar Refinery, taken from a fire insurance survey of February, 1890, by E. Hexamer and Son, shows it to have been of five- and six-story construction, with attached one-story storage sheds. This refinery, which had a capacity of about 400 barrels of sugar per day, was operated by Mr. Bunker until it was bought a t a value of $96,000 by the American Sugar Refining Company about the time of its purchase of t h e Franklin. Spreckels, and E. C. Kkght plants. C o w l ~ r yof Don Gullcbcn The following facts regarding the Delaware oP THE DELAWARE SUGAR REFINERY, PHILADELPHIA, FROM A SKETCH FIREINSURANCE SURVEY OF 1890 BY E. HGXAMEK AND SON Sugar House, communicated to me by Mr. A rear view of this refinery, showing the hogsheads of molasses on the wharf, the storage sheds, and the chimney with the old designation "Girard Sugar Refinery" is seen in the accompanying photograph taken in 1883. The Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company continued operations until 1896 when the decline in sugar content of imported molasses (owing to improyements in recovery by the tropical factories), increases in tariff, and other causes made molasses refining no longer profitable. The plant was closed, and it was not until 1912 that sugar refining by improved methods was inaugurated in the modernized building by the present Pennsylvania Sugar Company. Another instance of the conversion of a molasses
Ellsworth Bunker, son of Mr. George R. Bunker, have a particular interest in this connection: "The Delaware Sugar House was owned by B. H. Howell Son & Company, the Bartol family of Philadelphia, my father's uncle, John Wilson, and my father. My father, who was born in 1815, went there as a young man with his uncle, John Wilson, who had formerly been a partner with another uncle of my father, Edward Crabbe, in the firm of Crabbe and Wilson who operated a molasses house in Brooklyn. I remember my father saying t h a t the first five thousand dollars he saved, he invested with John Wilson in a sugar plantation in Louisiana. As the Delaware Sugar House was closed for considerable periods during winter, it was their custom to go t o Louisiana a t these periods. On one of these trips John Wilson contracted yellow fever and died there. When it was known t h a t he had yellow fever, all of the plantation personnel cleared out and left my father alone to take care of him. The plantation was unsuccessful, and I can remember my father telling me what a great misfortune he thought it was at the time to have had all his early savings wiped out, but that looking back on i t some years later he concluded that it was the best thing that could have happened to him. I think the plant was converted to a refinery during the 1WO's and must have been sold before 1893. "Another incident about the sale might interest you. When the American Sugar Refining Company was buying up the Philadelphia refineries, they made an offer to the owners of the Delaware refinery to purchase their stock a t $150 per share. M y father thought this price too low, but the other owners thought they ought to accept the offer because they would be unable to stand the competition of the American. As my father had had the sole responsibility for the business, they decided to leave the matter to his judgment. H e told me that he knew he would have some very stiff competition and looked everywhere to see where he could pick up cheap raw sugars. H e found that he could buy beet seconds in Germany, imported them, and ran most of the year on these sugars. At the end of the year they showed a profit of $5000, much to everyone's surprise, and were offered $550 a share for their stack. "My father expected to retire from business then and was traveling abroad when he received a cable from the Howell and Taoker interests asking whether he would join them in building a refinery a t Yonkers. He did so, and on his return drew the plans for the refinery which was the beginning of The National Sugar Refining Company. George M. Newhall and Company of Philadelphia were the engineers. The refinery a t Yonkers began operations in 1893."
Dr. W. D. Horne informs me that he served as consulting chemist for Mr. G. R. Bunker a t the Delaware Sugar Refinery of Philadelphia in the early 1890's and that the association then commenced led to its continuance when Mr. Bunker helped establish the National Sugar Refinery. This relationship lasted until 1925 when Dr. Horne terminated his long 32-year connection with the sugar refining industry of Yonkers. He thus deserves to be mentioned with the other eminent sugar technologists who were active 50 and more years ago in Philadelphia. It would be unpardonable in this sketch of early Philadelphia sugar technologists to pass over the name of the late Lewis Sharp Ware. He was born in Philadelphia on June 18, 1851, and after attending school in this city went abroad to complete his education in the technical colleges of Europe. He acquired special training in chemical technology a t the &ole Centrale des Arts, Agriculture, et Manufactures, where
under the influence of Professors Payen and Dumas, and other teachers his interest was aroused in the agriculture and technology of beet sugar production. During his residence of 14 years in France and Germany Ware visited the most important beet sugar establishments of Europe. With the information thus gained he returned to Philadelphia where he inaugurated a most vigorous campaign toward establishing the beet sugar industry in the United States. At his own expense he distributed countless pamphlets and many thousand pounds of imported sugar beet seed among the farmers of the United States. As additional means of promoting an American beet sugar industry Ware helped to establish in Philadelphia in 1880 the first journal in the United States to be devoted to the agriculture and technology of the beet sugar industry. This journal, called The Sugar Beet had a wide circulation and helped greatly toward placing our domestic beet sugar industry on a firm basis. It continued for 32 years under the able editorship of Ware, until its publication was discontinued a t the end of 1911. As a thud means of promoting the industry which he had so much a t heart, Ware began in 1880 to write and publish a series of important books upon various phases of the beet sugar industry and for the next
of Various Sources of Sugar" (1881); "Sugar Beet Seed" (1898); "Cattle Feeding with Sugar Beets, Sugar, Molasses, and Sugar Beet Residuums" (1902), a book dedicated to Dr. Harvey W. Wiley as his friend and coworker in introducing the beet sugar industry into the United States; and finally his highly important two-volume technical treatise on "Beet Sugar Manufacture and Refining" (1905-7). Mr. Ware spent his last years in Paris, wheke he died on December 20, 1918. I n the course of his very active career he collected an immense library of 12,000 works, the largest of the k i d ever assembled, on the historical, agricultural, industrial, and economic phases of the sugar industry, which be bequeathed to the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. This magnificent collection, separately catalogd according to language, is now consulted by sugar technologists from all parts of the world who are filled with awe not only a t its immensity but also a t the colossal energy of the man who did so much toward promoting one of our most important agricultural industries. LITERATURE CITED
(1) BROWNE, Ind.Eng. Chent., 27,506 (1935).
(2) BROWNE,"The Ccutcnary of the Beet Sugar Industry in the United States." 1937, p. 12. Published by Facts about
the Beet Sugar Industry in Europe" (1880); "Study
Philadel
