August i, 1901.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



317 



SOME SUCCESSFUL MEN IN THE RUBBER TRADE. 



II. — THE LATE JOHN H. CHEEVER. 



JOHN HAVEN CHEEVER, president of the New York 

 Belting and Packing Co., Limited, and of the Mechanical 

 Rubber Co., died July 9, at his home at "Wave Crest," 

 Far Rockaway, Long Island, in his seventy-seventh year, 

 after having been continuously connected with the rubber in- 

 dustry, in an important way, longer than any one else in this 

 country. Mr. Cheever was born at Portsmouth, New Hamp- 

 shire, August I, 1824. The Cheever family had lived in America 

 for several generations, his father and his grandfather having 

 been Harvard graduates and men of influence in the community 

 in which they lived. The subject of this sketch seems early to 

 have set his mind upon a business 

 career. He likewise was of a self- 

 reliant disposition, as indicated 

 by his having invested his patri- 

 mony of S18 000 or $20,000 in the 

 rubber business at a time when 

 its prospects were not particu- 

 larly bright, and against the ad- 

 vice of all his friends. But he 

 had met Charles Goodyear, and 

 ha 1 become a firm believer in 

 the possibilities of rubber. 



Mr. Cheever's first interest in 

 the rubber industry was in con- 

 nection with the works at Rox- 

 bury, Massachusetts, which may 

 properly be described as the first 

 rubber factory in the United 

 States. Connected with this fac- 

 tory, at one time or another, were 

 most of those early experiment- 

 ers who gave a definite impress 

 to the establishment of the rub- 

 ber manufacture on a practical 

 basis, and such was its preemi- 

 nence that it was charged that 

 many rubber goods sold at one 

 time as •' Roxbury " goods were 



not so in fact, but counterfeits. When the Roxbury company 

 got into straits, at an early date, the managers laid their trou- 

 bles to the ill repute into which their name had been brought 

 by the wide sale of these inferior goods, for which they were 

 responsible. But that was before Goodyear's discovery, and 

 the Roxbury company proved its merit by being the only one 

 of the numerous early rubber concerns that survived. In due 

 time it had a license from Goodyear, and was reincorporated 

 as the Goodyear Manufacturing Co , which name was changed, 

 by act of the Legislature, March 17, 1847, 10 'he Boston Belt- 

 ing Co. They made rubber belting under a license from Good- 

 year to Henry Edwards, and by him assigned to the company. 

 It is the impression of Mr. Cheever's family that his 

 connection with the business dated from his eighteenth year — 

 1842. The name of John H. Cheever first appears in the mass 

 of documentary history of those days as one of the purchasers, 

 from Charles Goodyear, for $2000 cash, of a license to make 

 elastic bands, under date of April 17, 1846. This license was 

 granted to Henry Edwards, John H. Cheever, Charles 

 McBurney, and John Haskins. Haskins had been one of the 



JOHN HAVEN CHEEVER 



incorporators of the original Roxbury India Rubber Co., and 

 still retained an interest there. McBurney continued in an 

 important relation with the company for twenty years or more, 

 alter which he assisted in founding what has since become an 

 important mechanical rubber company. About the time the 

 Boston Belting Co. came into existence under its present 

 name, a selling agency was established in Boston under the 

 firm name of Tappan, McBurney & Cheever, the senior mem- 

 ber being John G. Tappan, who will be mentioned again further 

 on. In time the firm were the principal proprietors of the fac- 

 tory. The firm style was changed after the retirement of Mr. 



Cheever, to Tappan, McBurney 

 & Co., and long continued. 



In April, 1856, Mr. Cheever left 

 Roxbury to become treasurer of a 

 new corporation, the New York 

 Belting and Packing Co., formed 

 under Connecticut laws June 14, 

 1856, by William Judson, John 

 H. Cheever, and Alexander W. 

 Thompson. The capital stock 

 was $200,000, stated in the 

 charter to be "actually paid in," 

 though a portion of this undoubt- 

 edly was in the shape of patent 

 rights. The first president of 

 the new company was William 

 Judson, so long identified with 

 Charles Goodyear as patent at- 

 torney and otherwise. While in 

 Boston it had been part of Mr 

 Cheever's business to look after 

 the patent litigation, from which 

 no important rubber company in 

 those days was exempt, and he 

 thus became acquainted with, 

 and secured the services of, 

 Henry F. Durant, who became in 

 time the most distinguished law- 

 yer in Boston. Mr. Durant was seldom on the losing side 

 01 any case, and his successes won the admiration of Mr. 

 Cheever, while the merits of the rubber business appealed to 

 the lawyer. Hence, he soon became interested in the Sandy 

 Hook business, Judson owning one half and Cheever and Du- 

 rant sharing the other half. Soon afterward the Judson in- 

 terest was bought by the other two, in equal shares, Mr. Durant 

 becoming president of the company. The first factory was 

 one formerly used by the Goodyears at Sandy Hook (New- 

 town), Connecticut. The office and store in New York were 

 at No. 6 Dey street. The factory superintendent was Dennis 

 C. Gately, who had been employed previously at Roxbury. 



William Judson, prior to the organization of the new com- 

 pany, had been interested in the Goodyear Packing Co., with 

 offices at No. 98 Broadway, New York, the business of which 

 was merged into the New York Belting and Packing Co. In 

 1857 the Sandy Hook factory was burned, and while it was 

 being rebuilt part of the plant of the New England Car Spring 

 Co., in New York, was used. The Dey street office was soon 

 given up for larger quarters at Nos. 37-38 Park row, which 



