216 



THE INUIA RUBBER WORLD 



[ April i, 1906. 



FIFTY YEARS IN THE RUBBER TRADE. 



/^N iMarch 20 Mr. Tlx^odore K. vStudley, secretary and 

 ^^ treasurer of the Vulcanized Rubber Co. (New York), 

 received the congratulations of many friends on his seventy- 

 fiftli birtliday, and was tendered a dinner at tlie Arkwright 

 Club, in New York. The month also embraced the fiftieth 

 anniversarj' of his connection with the India-rubber trade. 

 The issue of this Journal for March 10, i,Sg6 (page 178), con- 

 tained a reference to Mr. Studley 's fortieth anniversary as a 



rubber man, but 

 that was ten years 

 ago, and the record 

 may well be re- 

 leated with some 

 additions. 



.Ml . vSludley came 

 to New York in 

 .S56 to acce])t a 

 jiosilion as sales- 

 man with the New 

 Brunswick Kuliber 

 Cii,, wliicli. in 

 addition to manu- 

 facturing footwear 

 dealt in a gen- 

 eral line of rub- 

 ber goods, at No. 

 100 Liberty street^ 

 their selling department being in charge of Henry G. Nor- 

 ton. The immediate reason for Mr. Studley 's coming was 

 that his former employer u. a Worcester store, Olney Fen- 

 ner Thompson, had gone out of business for himself and be- 

 come a salesman for the New Brunswick company, and it 

 was through him that Mr. Studies' gained an introduction 

 to the house. Owing to the financial stringency of the 

 following year the New Brunswick companv decided to give 

 up its general business and ccuifine itself to manufacturing. 

 The general business was taken over by Mr. Norton In 

 185S jNIr. Studley became a partner in the house, the style 

 becoming II. G. Norton & Co., and in time this became the 

 most important distributing house in the country for rubber 

 goods. For instance, this house at one time were sole dis- 

 tributers of the products of the New York Rubber Co., and 

 a large percentage of the output of the India Rubber Comb 

 Co., the Novell}- Rubber Co., the Goodyear Glove company, 

 and several other factories. When the National Rubber Co. 

 (now the National India Rubber Co :) was formed, Noiton & 

 Co. became the general selling agents. 



The old rubber shoe manufacturing firm of Brown, Bourn 

 it Chaffee, of Providence, were interested in the National 

 company, and later Mr. Augustus O. Bourn (in time 

 governor of Rhode Island, and still engaged in the rubber 

 industry) became a partner in II. G. Norton & Co. Mr. 

 Henry C. Norton, now of the Pacific Coast Rubber Co. (San 

 Francisco), was a nephew of Henrj- G., and began his busi- 

 ness career in his uncle's house in New York. 



About 1873 Mr. Norton retired, on account of declining 

 health, and the general business of the firm was sold to the 

 Rubber Clothing Co., which took on the name Goodyear 

 Rubber Co., and which has since continued to be an import- 

 ant factor in the trade.' The druggists' sundries department 



of the Norton business was continued by Mr. Studley, with 

 a partner, until 1877, when Mr. Studley accepted a pioposi- 

 tion from the Goodyear Rubber Co. that he lake charge of 

 their New York downtown branch, a connection which lasted 

 for twenty years. That branch being discontinued then, INIr. 

 Studley became associated with the business which is now- 

 incorporated as the Vulcanized Rubber Co. 



Mr. vStudlej- for a number of years has been in the habit 

 of lunching on alternate days at the Hardware Club and at 

 the .-^rkwriglit Club, at each of which he is a mendjer of a 

 coterie of friends, who sit regularly at a "round table." 

 i'lie members of these two coteries are per.sonallj' acquainted, 

 and this year united in tendering a dinner to Mr. .Studley at 

 the .Arkwrighl Clul), at which 30 persons were present. The 

 afl'air was wholly informal, but all present made speeches 

 congratulating Mr. Studley and testifying to the esteem in 

 which he is held by all who know him. Nearly a hundred 

 letters and telegrams were received, the spirit of which is in- 

 dicated by the one which follows : 



r)K.\R Mr. Studley : T regret exceedingly th.it I w.is not in the 

 city on your seventy-fifth birthday. I feel that yon are seventy- 

 five years young instead of .seventy five years old. .\llow me to 

 eiii])hasizi' my good will and admiralion.^ 



I uaiil to li.ive ihf pleasure of handing you my felicitations on 

 your one luindredth birthday. 



.Sincerely your friend, 



Tlie surprise of the occasion was the presentation to Mr. 

 Studlej' of a "black jack " .set, of tray, pitcher, and half 

 dozen goblets of silver, mounted with leather, and made by 

 the Gorhani Manufacturing Co. 



Mr. Studley said to an iNDi.'i. Rubber World represen- 

 tative that he was unable to recall any member of the rubber 

 trade at the time he entered it — at least in New York — who 

 still survives, except Mr. Frederick M. Shepard, who had 

 come to New York in 1853 to become connected with the 

 Union India Rubber Co., and is still at the head of the Good 

 3'ear Rubber Co., which succeeded to their business. Mr. 

 Studley is to day in prime health, in constant attendance 

 upon business, and bears but few evidences of having sur- 

 vived so many of the early leaders of the trade. It may be 

 noted that an influential director of the New Brunswick 

 Rubber Co. at the time Mr. Studley entered its employ, was 

 l\Ir. John .\cken. It was largely upon his insistence that 

 the company, following the panic of 1857, decided to give 

 up its general rubber line. I\Ir. Acken, by the way, was the 

 father of the late William II. Acken, long president of the 

 New York Rubber Co., an obituary notice of whom appeared 

 in tlie issue of this Journal February i, 1906 (page 163). 



Mr. Studley, b\- the way, claims to be the only man in 

 the trade now who handled the "pure Para" rubber over- 

 shoes, which were at one time the only " rubbers " in the 

 market. When a boy under twelve, in order to get a little 

 pocket money, which he says he really needed, he used to 

 spend Saturday afternoons in a Worcester store, trimming, 

 cleaning, lasting and varnishing the dealer's stock of shoes 

 of this type. Hence he dates his first connection with the 

 rubber trade back to 1S42. 



IT.\LV. — The establishment Manifatture Martiny, at Turin, 

 is now making automobile tires, in addition to its standard 

 lines of surgical instruments, surgical India-rubber goods, 

 and water])roofs. 



