surfaceone
Posts: 7141
Joined: 12/9/2008
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quote:
I think it's a cigar 'jar' or humidor, or counter display? Anyone?
Hey Joe,
Your instincts and intuition seem to be firing on all cylinders. I really like that jar.
"Established in 1846 by William S. Kimball and James C. Hart, the original Kimball Tobacco Factory stood on St. Paul and Court Streets for more than 30 years before relocating to the well known and highly recognizable facility on Court Street along the Erie Canal in 1880. The major contributing factor to this highly successful industry was William Kimball’s very direct involvement in nearly all aspects of the manufacturing process. Hiring only the best cutters, inventing and patenting many devices to aid in the speedy and uniform production of cigarettes, as well as demanding the best packaging and advertising for his product, Kimball’s success afforded him the ability to build this new facility from the ground up, creating a new and dynamic addition to the Rochester skyline.
  
This new factory, designed by James G. Cutler, extended 218 feet on Court Street and almost 500 feet from Court Street to the aqueduct. It stood four stories tall, with a slate roof and timbered gables and dormers. The 150-foot smokestack was topped with the foghorn from the original factory.
The truly distinguishing feature of the Kimball Tobacco Factory, though, came a year after it opened. In 1881 William Kimball commissioned his brother-in-law, J. Guernsey Mitchell, to create a replica of Mercury, the symbol of commerce. Mercury was made of riveted bronze plates, assembled by the John Siddons’ Architectural Galvanized Iron Works, and stood 21 feet tall on top of the smokestack.
Mercury quickly became a characteristic and beloved feature of the downtown Rochester skyline and outlasted the lifetime of the building that it originally adorned.
The Kimball Tobacco Company remained in operation until 1905, a full ten years after the death of Mr. William Kimball. When the tobacco company shut down, Cluett Peabody and Company took over the building, manufacturing shirts and collars. In 1924, George Eastman acquired the property and leased to the City of Rochester to be used as the City Hall Annex. The building also served as a branch of the Rochester Public Library.
Unfortunately, the building was demolished in 1951 to make way for the Community War Memorial, currently known as the Blue Cross Blue Shield Arena.
Mercury, though, was spared. The statue was carefully removed from its perch and put into storage.
For the next twenty-three years Mercury remained in a warehouse in Charlotte before being reborn on top of the Lawyers Cooperative Extension building, where it still stands today." From.
 "This is an advertisement for (O)LD Gold Smoking Tobacco. It was manufactured by The American Tobacco Co., successor to Wm. S. Kimball & Co. of Rochester, N.Y." From.
 "WM. S. KIMBALL ROCHESTER N.Y. AMBER TOBACCO JAR FRUIT JAR RED BOOK #1412. This is an amber, ground lip, paneled quart tobacco jar. Has the correct metal screw lid. Absolutely sparkling mint condition. Not a detraction whatsoever..Has a large vertical diamond shape on the back. A beautiful golden honey amber colour. Red Book #9 lists this as a $100 to $125 jar. Jar is almost 7" tall and 4 1/2" in diameter. " From.
"WILLIAM S. KIMBALL: INVENTOR, MASTER MARKETER AND CIVIC LEADER
by Warren Kling
William Smith Kimball (3/30/1837 -- 3/26/1895) operated a company in Rochester, New York, which by 1880 ranked among the largest tobacco-manufacturing firms in the world. It eventually became part of the American Tobacco Company Trust, one of the world's wealthiest corporations at the time, due largely to Kimball's control of key patents and his ability as a master marketer. William S. Kimball & Co. produced over 750 million cigarettes of various brands every year, shipping them all over the world.
The story began in 1852 when young William, who was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, became a machinist's apprentice at Lawrence Locomotive Works in Massachusetts. His driving ambition to excel and his mechanical aptitude served him well during his studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated with honors in engineering.
After college, he landed a job in Concord, New Hampshire, rebuilding railroad locomotives. He moved to Rochester in 1858. Eventually, he enlisted in the Navy during the Civil War, where he was trained to repair machinery on transport ships and gunboats, earning the rank of master mechanic. During his naval experience, he commanded a group of over 100 mechanics and converted a number of whaling vessels into Civil War gunboats. Two of these were the former Nantucket whalers, the India and the Edward.
In June 1863, Kimball resigned his position in the navy and returned to Rochester, becoming a co-owner with Henry Suggett in an existing tobacco company originally founded in 1846 by Suggett. In 1867 when Henry Suggett retired, Kimball changed the company name from Suggett & Kimball to William S. Kimball & Co., Peerless Tobacco Works.
Kimball recognized one key to success was being able to find a way to reduce the costs of packaging plug tobacco and making cigarettes. His mechanical training served him well in evaluating various new tobacco-packaging inventions, securing the patent rights to those having the most merit. One of these was a cigarette-making machine developed by a navy veteran named Oscar Allison. Kimball and Allison formed the Allison Machine and Tool Company to refine and build these machines, which were capable of producing over 7,000 cigarettes per minute. These machines enabled Kimball to be the lowest-cost packager in the industry. He held a controlling interest in AM&TC and patented a number of other inventions himself, including a tobacco-compacting machine.
During its heyday in the 1880s, Kimball's tobacco company was a major Rochester employer with over 1200 workers, most of whom were young women known as "cigarette girls." The company achieved annual gross revenues of $2.5 million and paid tobacco taxes to the federal government of $300,000 annually.
Although Kimball was generally thought of as a fair employer, one incident tarnished that image. The event occurred in late spring of 1883 when 500 "cigarette girls" sought a significant wage increase of 20 percent. Kimball realized that this additional expense would result in at least a 25 percent increase at the retail level, reducing his company's market share of tobacco sales. He developed a strategy to deal with the crisis, flatly refused the wage increase, and anticipating a strike, locked out the 500 female employees. He then immediately began hiring hundreds of new female employees and was back in limited production in one week and up to full production within three weeks.
Historical Rochester Locations
As the company grew and prospered, it built seven locations around the city. The first was at the southwest corner of East Main and South Water Street, on the east bank of the river near the present Riverside Convention Center. This location was directly across the river from the earliest historical site of Rochester, where the Indian Allan grist and saw mills were built in 1789. By 1880, the company needed to expand and built a very spacious, two-and-one-half-acre, manufacturing site on Court Street, just south of the old Erie Canal aqueduct (now under the Broad Street bridge), and in close proximity to the city founders' (Rochester, Carroll & Fitzhugh) original millrace.
Famous local architect James Gould Cutler designed the new facility with over 109,000 square feet. The William S. Kimball Company prospered in the new factory for fifteen years, becoming part of American Tobacco Company in 1890. The foghorn atop the factory bellowed throughout the city four times every weekday. Many people set their watches to the noontime blast.
The factory closed in 1903, eight years after Kimball's death, and was purchased by a clothing manufacturer, Cluet-Peabody & Company. They manufactured shirt collars in that location until 1924 when they sold the building to one of Rochester's most famous entrepreneurs, George Eastman, who thought this would be a prime location for a civic center, rather than an alternative location that the city was considering on Broad Street.
When Eastman died, the building was left in his will to the University of Rochester for "municipal purposes." The university gave the building to the city, which used it as a city hall annex and public library until it was demolished in 1951 to build the War Memorial, now remodeled and renamed Blue Cross Arena.
Beloved Skyline Symbol
Kimball's wife did not like the dirty 182-foot smokestack on top of the Kimball factory, viewing it as an eyesore, which reinforced the idea that smoking was a dirty habit. She strongly suggested that something be done to change this image.
William Kimball put his marketing skills to the task and hired a young local sculptor, J. Guernsey Mitchell, who was also his brother-in-law, to design a figure of the Roman god of commerce, Mercury, son of Jupiter, as a symbol for a healthy, prosperous economy.
Mitchell made a plaster model of Mercury in a studio at Park Avenue and Rowley Street. Fabrication was done by John Siddons. The Siddons Company, founded in 1852 and still in existence today, was then located on East Main Street. They specialized in iron roofing and galvanized-iron architectural work, having earlier fabricated a Rochester City Hall copper time capsule in 1873, which was opened recently.
Mercury was 21 feet tall, formed of sheet copper, and weighed over 700 lbs. In order to produce the giant statue, John Siddons had to cut an opening in the upper floor of his building. On January 29, 1881, Mercury was placed on top of the smokestack and fastened at its base to a copper rod with a sculptured face of Boreas, the fierce god of the north wind.
Many Rochesterians participated in a ceremony with the 54th Regiment Band playing "Hail Columbia," as Mercury ascended, adding a touch of class to Kimball's tobacco factory and eventually becoming a much-beloved symbol on the Rochester skyline. Mercury graced the city skyline for 70 years until it was taken down when the Kimball factory was demolished. The public was very upset at the time, since there was no plan for the future of Mercury. One thing was certain, however, Mercury should be preserved. The city decided to store Mercury in a warehouse located at Charlotte where the sculpture remained for 23 years.
Finally in 1974, an opportunity presented itself, and the city decided to lease the statue to the Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing Company, located in the Aqueduct building. A "welcome home" lunchtime ceremony was planned, and amid a large crowd that gathered and cheered, the Roman god of commerce made his triumphal ascent to the Rochester skyline once again, across the street from where he once stood. Mercury is still atop the Aqueduct building, now owned by the West Group, at Broad and Exchange streets.
Master Marketer
The tobacco business was not well thought of, even back at the turn of the last century. Cigarettes were regarded, even then, as unhealthy, as well as immoral in some circles, and often referred to as "coffin nails." Doctors of the day, however, had vastly different opinions as to whether smoking was hazardous to anyone's health. Kimball turned this to his advantage by promoting certain brands as beneficial to your health. One of Kimball's brands, New Catarrh Cigarettes, was touted as "a mild remedy for catarrh, asthma, and hay fever -- unlike any in the market."
Competition in the tobacco industry was fierce, and Kimball was recognized as a master marketer whose products not only had a world-class reputation for quality and taste, but also originality in packaging and label designs. He conducted his own market studies, cleverly placing giveaway coupons for pipes in various products. One would mail in the coupon in order to redeem it. This then provided key information on where to focus new marketing efforts. The company had many brands of pipe tobacco -- such as Post Boy, Regatta, Black Dragon, and Vanity Fair -- to name a few. Kimball's products won 17 first-class medals at various world fairs.
Civic Pursuits & Hobbies
Kimball was very involved in civic affairs, being one of the founders of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce along with H. H. Warner, and serving as its second president. William Kimball was also president of Post Express Printing, a trustee of Rochester Savings Bank, president of Union Bank, president of the City Hospital, vice-president of Security Trust, vice-president of American Tobacco Company, vice-president of Lyceum Theater, a director of Rochester Railway Company, and a director of the Toronto, Buffalo, Hamilton Railroad.
His avocations consisted of raising orchids, and collecting pepperboxes, books, and fine art. He had a very large and valuable collection of orchids, an extensive library, and the world's finest collection of pepperboxes. Kimball also had a fine-art collection in a specially built gallery in his home, with numerous works from many world-famous artists.
Personal Information
William Kimball married Marion Elizabeth Keeler (3/15/1836-7/9/1879), daughter of Rufus Keeler, who was mayor of Rochester in 1857. William and Marion were married on October 7, 1858. They had two children, Harold Chandler (3/5/1861-1/31/1911) and Margaret (3/25/1864-8/25/1864). William Kimball remarried on August 11, 1880 to Laura Page Mitchell of Rochester. They also had two children, Cecelia born 10/2/1882 and Earnest (3/5/1884-6/16/1898). Kimball died while on vacation at Virginia Beach, Virginia. He had been a longtime sufferer of vertigo and contracted a mastoid infection, which spread to his brain. He was just a few days shy of his 58th birthday. He ranked among the top ten wealthiest men in Rochester when he died in 1895. His personal estate, worth over $2.5 million, was left to his second wife, Laura and his children: Harold Chandler Kimball, Celia Kimball Gordon, and Ernest Kimball.
William Kimball lived at 145 Troup Street, where he owned one of the most elegant houses in the city, nicknamed "Kimball Castle." It was torn down, unfortunately, to build I-490. The mansion was staffed with Japanese servants, and the stables held thoroughbred horses. There was a pipe organ in a specially constructed music gallery with walls covered in red velvet and thick oriental rugs on the floor. Later, he moved to a beautiful mansion at 19 East Boulevard.
The funeral of William Smith Kimball was a spectacular event in Rochester. St. Peter's Presbyterian Church on Grove Street was beautifully decorated with hundreds of orchids, palms, a broken column of white roses six feet high with a base of pink roses, wreaths of violets, and many other baskets of flowers from friends. Every seat in the church was occupied. Hundreds of other people, unable to gain admission, stood outside. Directors of American Tobacco Company were present, along with many local business executives. Pallbearers included James Gould Cutler, his brother Joseph Warren Cutler, Samuel Wilder, and John Harry Stedman.
A small obelisk just north of Nathaniel Rochester's plot still marks the original spot of William Kimball's burial in Section R, Lot 6, which was owned by his father-in-law Rufus Keeler. In 1923, Kimball, his first wife Marion, and his baby daughter Margaret were relocated to Section MM, Lot 263, purchased by his daughter from his second marriage, Cecelia Kimball Gordon. She did this so that her mother Laura could also be buried with her father. William Kimball now rests between his two wives with children from both marriages alongside, just to the west of the Gannett monument in Mount Hope Cemetery." From.
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Went to the antique mall today... - 
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