OCTOBKR I. 1913. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



23 



The Obituary Record. 



w 



for his 

 cause o 



CAPTAIN FELIX H. HUNICKE. 



iRl) was received in New York on September 13 of the 

 death by drowning at Colon, Panama, of Captain Felix 

 H. Hunickc, well known to the American rubber trade 

 researches in various rubber lands, and particularly be- 



f the fact that be, more than any other American, was 



Captain Felix H. Hunicke. 



entitled to the distinction of having discovered the available 

 ruliber properties of the guayule shrub in Mexico. 



Captain Hunicke was bom in St. Louis in 1860 and after at- 

 tending the public schools until the age of eleven, was sent by 

 his father for a two years' course in the German schools. Re- 

 turning, he graduated from the St. Louis high school and then 

 received an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, 

 from which he graduated with honors in 1881. After two years' 

 service as a midshipman he resigned from the navy and becatne 

 associated with his father's business, remaining in this work 

 until the outbreak of the Spanish war in 1898, when he sold his 

 business and volunteered his services to the government. He was 

 made a lieutenant and placed second in command of the United 

 States gunboat "Hist," where he remained during the war. It 

 might be said, in passing, that this gunboat was in more engage- 

 ments than any of the other boats patrolling the Cuban coast, 

 .^t the close of the war Captain (then Lieutenant) Hunicke was 

 appointed chief of the revenue cutter service for Cuba, a posi- 

 tion which he occupied with exceptional ability for three years. 

 The Federal Government sought still further to retain his serv- 

 ices, but he resigned to resume commercial enterprises and very 

 soon directed his attention to the rubber fields. 



In 1904 he was sent to Mexico, to make a careful investigation 

 of the possibilities of the guayule shrub, then beginning to at- 

 tract attention. It was known that guayule contained a con- 

 siderable percentage of rubber, but it had not been extracted 

 commercially. This was the work that Captain Hunicke with the 

 Lawrences undertook, and it was eminently successful. The first 

 experiments were with crude machinery of his ow'n construction 

 until he was convinced which method was correct. As a result of 

 these experiments, the Continental-Mexican Rubber Co. erected 

 its mill at Torreon and guayule began to come into the American 

 market in commercial quantities — quantities that grew with 

 enormous rapidity up to the time when the revolutionary dis- 



turbances in Mexico paralyzed all industries in that republic, 

 including the extraction and shipment of guayule. 



The last few years of Captain Hunicke's life have been spent 

 •largely in explorations in Central and South America and 

 -•Kfrica in behalf of various large rubber interests. He left his 

 home in Roselle, New Jersey, on the 13th of last June for a 

 tour of inspection of certain rubber enterprises of South .\mer- 

 ica. He had with him on this expedition five companions who 

 had served under him on the gunboat "Hist" during the Spanish 

 war. 



He is survived liy liis wife and two sons. 



HENRY P. MOORHOUSE. 



The younger men in the .American rubber trade will probably 

 have but an indistinct impression of Mr. H. P. Moorhouse, 

 for the greater part of his life was passed in Europe, his visits 



Hexrv p. MooRiioi'SE. 



to America being comparatively infrequent during the last two 

 decades; but among the older rubber men he was not only well 

 known but held in very high esteem, and the news of his death — 

 which occurred recently in Paris— will cause them most sincere 

 regret. 



Mr. Moorhouse first went to Paris in 1872, to look after the 

 interests of the .American heirs of Hiram Hutchinson. Mrs. 

 Moorhouse being one of the heirs. Hiram Hutchinson was a 

 very prominent character in the rubber trade of the earlier days. 

 He was associated with the old New Brunswick Rubber Co. and 

 built the plant of the Newark Rubber Co. In 1853 he went to 

 Paris and started a rubber manufacturing plant within a .short 

 distance of that city. He died in 1869. and three years later 

 Mr. Moorhouse went to Paris and became identified with the 

 Hutchinson company, remaining with it until 1883. From that 

 time on he acted as the general continental representative 

 of a number of American manufacturers, among them L. Candee 

 & Co. of New Haven, for whose rubber footwear he became 

 European agent. Later, when that company was merged with 

 the United States Rubber Co., he became the Paris representativ > 

 of the larger corporation, and continued in that capacity until 

 about ten years ago. He acted as Paris representative of the 

 Philadelphia Rubber Works Co. up to the time of his death. 



Mr. Moorhouse was a man of very genial personality and 



