48 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November i, 1904. 



SIXTY YEARS IN THE RUBBER BUSINESS. 



* 



JOHN DAVIS VERMEULE, rubber manufacturer, banker, 

 and merchant, at the age of 82 years, is still in active 

 business, strong and alert, and with a health flush on his cheek 

 that a man thirty years younger might well be proud cf. Mr. 

 Vermeule was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, September 21, 

 1822. He is a descend- 

 ant of Jan Cornelissen 

 Vermeule, who was a 

 prominent citizen of 

 Flushing ( Vlissengen )■ 



Zeeland, in the Nether- ^^Kf '^ 



lands, and a member of ^HH Jgf 



an old Holland family. 

 It was his son Adrian 

 who came to New York 



in 1699 to visit friends _^^^^ ^ 



in Harlem. He liked 

 the country and re- 

 mained, and was town . . ''ff., 

 clerk and lecturer of the '■-■ 

 Dutch ReformedChurch 

 for eight years, after 

 which he removed to 

 Bergen, New Jersey. His 

 son in turn became a 



large land holder and a ■'oh^ d. vermeule. 



member of the Provincial congress of New Jersey. Both he 

 and his four sons were soldiers in the war of the Revolution 

 One of these sons, a grandfather of the subject of this sketchy 

 was judge of the court of common pleas of Somerset county. 



It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Vermeule comes from the 

 best Dutch and Revolutionary stoc^•. In his boyhood he at- 

 tended Morton's School at Middlebrook, New Jersey, until 

 he was 18 years old, when he became clerk in a dry goods 

 store in New Brunswick. Four years later, in 1844, there came 

 the organization of Goodyear's India Rubber Glove Manufactur- 

 ing Co., with which corporation he became connected. From the 

 beginning he sustained an important relation to the company, 

 and in time became the largest stockholder. In 1877 he was 

 elected treasurer, and in 1882 president, which latter office he 

 still holds. Under his management the business grew wonder- 

 fully; the little red mill at Naugatuck, Connecticut, was sur- 

 rounded by great factory plants, and the fine goods that the 

 company manufactured not only were firmly established on the 

 market but found constantly increasing outlets. In the course 

 of his experiences as a rubber manufacturer Mr. Vermeule 

 gathered around him some of the best executive and manu- 

 facturing ability in the trade, and it is only necessary to cite 

 the names of Van Viiet and Schafler in this connection to re- 

 ceive a very general assent to this statement. 



Mr. Vermeule has many interests outside of the rubber busi- 

 ness. For example, he is president of the Holland Trust Co.^ 

 vice president of the American Savings and Loan Association, 

 and a director in sevpral national banks. His pet project is, 

 perhaps, the York ClifTs Improvement Co., at York Cliffs, 

 Maine, where he has a magnificent summer home. This com- 

 pany own 400 acres of shore land, giving them two miles of 

 ocean frontage which, through Mr. Vermeule's energy and 

 foresight, has been laid out into parks, fine building sites, and 

 in every way improved. He also built personally the Passa- 

 conaway Inn, a beautiful shore resort at the Cliffs. His own 

 villa, by the way, is named " Klipanzee," which means in ancient 

 Dutch, " Land and sea. " Mr. Vermeule married, in 1846, Mary 



C. Kelley, a daughter of a prominent Philadelphia merchant 

 He is an enthusiastic member of the Holland Society, in New 

 York; a patron oi the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, and al- 

 though not essentially a clubman, he is a member of the Re- 

 form, Manhattan, Riding, Commonwealth, and Merchants' 

 Clubs. He spends his summers usually at York Cliffs, Maine, 

 and his winters at his home on Forty- sixth street, near Fifth 

 avenue. New York, where, as a lover of books and works of art, 

 he has a most valuable library and many fine paintings. 



In 1896 Mr. Vermeule entered he directory of the United 

 States Rubber Co., the India Rubber Glove company having 

 become merged in that corporation, and he has since continued 

 a member of the board. 



JAPANESE WATERPROOF GOODS. 



SPURRED to economy by the mother of all invention, the 

 Japanese have learned to utilize every strip of bark, 

 wood, bud, and leaf of their trees and shrubs, and he would be 

 considered a poor workman indeed who failed to realize the 

 value of each tiny strip of forest product. The inventive or 

 adaptive genius of the Japanese compares in some particular 

 fields pretty favorably with our typical New England Yankee. 

 Who other than a Japanese could have conceived such start- 

 ling ideas in interior house construction .' The walls are 

 papered not such as we paper ours, with dazzling splashes of 

 lithographed colors and flowers, but with oiled paper that 

 sheds the rain and moisture, preserves a uniform dryness in- 

 side, and graduates the light from without so that it is never 

 dark and gloomy inside, nor too bright for the tired eyes. 

 They light their homes without the aid of glass windows, and 

 in such a way that the eyes can find rest and ease without arti- 

 ficial shading or extra light. 



A Japanese makes his oiled paper out of the bark of trees 

 and shrubs. The wood itself is too precious for this work, but 

 the bark is stripped off and converted into marvelous weaves 

 of paper cloth. The fiber of the bamboo, reed grass, and other 

 plants is also utilized in this way, paper cloth being made by 

 hand which for many purposes is superior to our own rubber 

 goods. Rubber is a scarce commodity in Japan, and rubber 

 overcoats, shoes, and similar articles are almost unknown. 



How the Japanase workmen succeed in producing such 

 light, gossamer-like paper cloth that will serve all the func- 

 tions of our heavy rubber goods is a mystery, and, furthermore, 

 it is impossible for the uninitiated to comprehend how they do 

 this out of the material at hand, and at a cost which places it 

 within the hands of all. Oiled paper cloth is astonishingly 

 cheap — cheaper than most grades of our cotton goods. Every 

 one purchases it for one or more of a score of different pur- 

 poses. It is sold everywhere, and used everywhere. An aston- 

 ishing amount of bark must be used for manufacturing it. 



A raincoat or cloak that can be thrown over the head to pro- 

 tect it thoroughly from a drenching storm can be purchased 

 for less than twenty cents, and this can be used repeatedly lor 

 upward of six months or a year. It is so soft and pliable that 

 it can be folded carefully and put away for future use. When 

 again needed it will shake out without crease or wrinkle. 



The Japanese truckmen and " rickshaw " coolies carry oiled 

 paper blankets in their vehicles for emergency use. If a sud- 

 den storm should come up when perishable goods are being 

 carried, they instantly bring forth their oiled paper cloth and 

 spread it over the top. The rain is shed as though the goods 

 were protected by rubber blankets. It is impossible to wet 

 goods once covered or wrapped with the best quality of oiled 

 paper cloth. — T/ie Event/itf Post, New York. 



