198 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^VORLD 



[April i, 1901. 



universal esteem. Few men were more charitable. He was 

 senior ruling elder in the Second Presbyterian church, presi- 

 dent of the New Brunswick Humane Society, and president of 

 the Charity Organization Society. The funeral on March i, 

 was attended by the leading citizens and by many persons from 

 a distance. Mr. Langdon had been a widower since 1891. His 

 fortune is left to an unmarried daughter and a son — Samuel 

 P. Langdon, superintendent of the factory of the Gutta-Percha 

 and Rubber Manufacturing Co., of Toronto, Limited. 



The New Brunswick Rubber Co. were incorporated April 

 18, 1850, under the New Jersey laws, with $60,000 authorized. 

 They began business with $30,000. On May 13, 1881, it was in- 

 creased to $300,000. The incorporators were : Charles P. Day- 

 ton, Johnson Letson, Benjamin D. Stelle, James Hutchings, 

 Peter C. Onderdonk, Jonathan C. Ackerman, John Acken, 

 Martin A. Howell, William McDonald, Peter P. Runyon, Lewis 

 Stout, and James Bishop. 



BENJAMIN F. TAFT. 



Benjamin Franklin Taft, so long known to the rubber 

 trade throngh his connection with the Rubber Manufacturers' 

 Mutual Insurance Co., died March 22 at his home in Ayer, 

 Massachusetts, with which town he had been identified for 

 more than 50 years. He was born in Northbridge, Mass., on 

 August 17, 1823, the son of Benjamin and Syrena (Batcheller) 

 Taft. He was educated in the public schools of Northbridge 

 and the Usbridge and Berlin high schools, and at the age of 15 



went to work in a 



store at North- 



^^^^ bridge. At 19 



^1^^^^^^^ years he went to 



/ ^^^St^^^ S pencer, Mass., 



^^» and engaged in 



^5l jP the dry goods 



business; then to 

 Worcester, and, in 

 1849, to Sutton , 

 where he was mar- 

 ried, on July 3 of 

 that year, to Miss 

 Caroline E. Whit- 

 ing, who survives 

 him. In 1852 he 

 settled in Ayer 

 (then South Gro- 

 ton), where the 

 rest of his life was 

 spent. For many 

 years he was agent in that town and in Worcester for the Ames 

 Plow Co., and their predecessors in business, Oliver Ames Si 

 Sons, Oakes Ames, and H. A. Bean & Co. 



A brother of Mrs. Taft, the late William B. Whiting, had 

 become prominent in the management of factory mutual in- 

 surance companies, and in 1876 Mr. Taft became interested in 

 this business, as secretary of the Cotton and Woolen Manufact- 

 urers' InsuranceCo., then just organized, with offices in Boston, 

 of which he was, at the time of his death, vice president and 

 treasurer. At the offices of this company, on October 30, 1884, 

 was held a meeting of rubber men, out of which grew the 

 Rubber Manufacturers' Mutual Insurance Co., incorporated 

 November 4 in that year, and which commenced business Jan- 

 uary 15, 1885. The original meeting was attended by George 

 H. Hood (Boston Rubber Co.) ; I. P. T. Edmunds and James 

 Bennett Forsyth (Boston Belting Co.) ; E. S. Converse 

 (Boston Rubber Shoe Co.) ; H. C. Morse (Revere Rubber 

 Co.) : E. H. Clapp (E. H. Clapp Rubber Co.) ; R. D. Evans 



(American Rubber Co.) ; Wheeler Cable and Freeman 

 Wright (Cable Rubber Co.) ; Benjamin F. Taft, and his son, 

 Benjamin Taft. Mr. Taft was elected secretary and treas- 

 urer of the new company ; later he filled also the office of vice 

 president, Mr. Converse being the president. Mr. Taft was 

 also treasurer of the Whiting Mutual Insurance Co., and presi- 

 dent and treasurer of the Industrial Mutual Insurance Co., 

 organized in 1890. The four companies named are all large 

 and prosperous, having in their directorates the most promi- 

 nent business men in New England, and carrying risks amount- 

 ing to nearly $100,000,000. Their success has been due largely 

 to the capacity and energy of Mr. Taft. 



The funeral occurred on March 25, at Ayer, very quietly, be- 

 ing attended only by members of the family. Besides the 

 widow, all the children survive — one son and four daughters. 

 On July 3, 1899, was celebrated the golden wedding of Mr. and 

 Mrs. Taft, at which time a very large number of their friends, 

 inside and outside the rubber trade, attended or sent cordial 

 greetings. Personally Mr. Taft, who was a very large man, was 

 positive in manner, but kind, and he was long an acknowledged 

 expert in insurance matters. He was an unostentatious man, 

 never seeking publicity of any but his business affairs. For 

 example, the first time he ever consented to the publication of 

 his portrait was when it appeared in The India Rubber 

 World some six years ago. 



Mr. Taft was a member of Robert Burns Lodge, I. O. O. F., 

 of Ayer; a charter member and first Master of Caleb Butler 

 Lodge, A. F. and A. M., of Ayer; and of Thomas Royal Arch 

 Chapter, of Fitchburg. 



RUBBER GATHERING IN BOLIVIA. 



THE Chicago Bolivian Rubber Co. (Chicago) has been men- 

 tioned already in this paper as organized to collect rub- 

 ber on a large scale on concessions in Bolivia, the rubber 

 collected being shipped via Mollendo, on the Pacific coast, to 

 Europe. A letter from the company's offices to The India 

 Rubber World states : " Our president, Mr. J. Jackson Todd, 

 of this city, recently returned from a tour of inspection of our 

 property in Bilivia, which he reported better and larger than 

 had been represented. We have a large force of Indians in 

 the woods, and expect to get out a large quantity of rubber 

 during the current year. The rubber is of fine quality." 



The Belgian company, L'Abuna, formed to develop a rub- 

 ber property bought from Senor Ballivian, of Bolivia, report 

 that this property is one of the finest on the upper Madeira. 

 Some 2000 estradas of trees are embraced, which will afford 

 employment for 1000 workers, with a possibility of gathering 7 

 kilograms (=17^ pounds) each per day. The season for em- 

 ployment is estimated at seven months in the year. Besides 

 the rubber proper {Hevea), the lands contain a large number 

 of Caucho (Castilloa) trees, which it is proposed to work. It is 

 intended to send at least 150 collectors into the forest this sea- 

 son, besides such native labor as can be secured. During the 

 past season twenty men, without supervision, gathered 21,560 

 pounds of rubber, or 1078 pounds each. 



•¥ * * 



News reached London on February 12 of the complete paci- 

 fication of the Acre country, the rich rubber country some time 

 in dispute between Brazil and Bolivia, and more recently the 

 scene of an attempt to establish an independent " Republic of 

 Acre." The insurgents have been definitely subdued, and the 

 district remains in control of Bolivia, in accordance with a treaty 

 concluded a short time ago with Brazil, defining the boundary 

 between the two countries. 



