[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2132-E2133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        TRIBUTE TO THE SHELDON FAMILY AND REID-SHELDON & COMPANY

                                 ______


                       HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, November 8, 1995

  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and pay tribute to 
those who have served us in so many ways: the Sheldon family and Reid-
Sheldon & Co. in New Hartford, NY.
  On November 7, 1995, Reid-Sheldon celebrated 150 years of successful 
business endeavors. By donating 10 percent of its sales on that day to 
charity, the Sheldon family maintains the store's fine tradition of 
sharing its fortune with the community since 1845. What started as a 
country harness shop has emerged as a successful luggage and leather 
goods store.
  I submit for my colleagues history of Reid-Sheldon, written in 1945 
by Artemas Barnard Sheldon whose grandfather, Ebenezer, was its 
founder. It is not simply a profile of one store in one locality, 
rather it is a welcome and unique perspective on hometown enterprises--
the backbone of American business--across our Nation:

                          The Sheldon Business

       In giving an outline of the Sheldon business I could start 
     with a certain Isaac Sheldon who our records show was living 
     in Massachusetts in 1629. However, I do not know what his 
     trade was so I will stick to the men of the family who I do 
     know were leather workers.
       My grandfather, Ebenezer Sheldon, was born in Bernardston, 
     Massachusetts, in 1796. He learned the trade of harness maker 
     and in 1825 migrated to the village of Burlington, New York, 
     where he operated a country harness shop.
       The city directory of 1840 shows that he had a harness shop 
     on Catharine Street. In 1845 he had as his partner his oldest 
     son, George, and the firm name because Ebenezer Sheldon & 
     Son. Their store and shop was located at that time at 45 
     Genesee Street and there it stayed with some enlargements for 
     eighty-five years.
       In the early fifties the firm became Moore & Sheldon, 
     Ebenezer having taken his son-in-law, LeGrand Moore, into 
     partnership.
       My own father, Artemas H. Sheldon, the youngest of eight 
     children, was born in 1836 shortly before my grandfather 
     moved his family to Utica. He learned the trade of harness 
     maker and assumed his fathers interest in the business in 
     1862.
       In 1880 the firm name was again changed to Moore, Sheldon & 
     Company when Mr. Moore's son-in-law, Robert H. Reid, was 
     admitted to the firm.
       My father died in 1899 when I was eighteen years old, and I 
     represented my mother's interest in the firm until her death 
     in 1917.
       At that time I became a partner, and the firm name was 
     changed to Reid-Sheldon & Company under which title we still 
     operate.
       I was married in 1901 just after I had passed my twenty-
     first birthday. My wife and I have been blessed with three 
     children, a daughter and two sons.
       My daughter, Rosemary, graduated from Cornell University in 
     1925, and my older son, Robert, was graduated from the 
     Syracuse University the same year.
       In 1928 Mr. Reid died very suddenly and my son, Robert, 
     took over his interest and became my partner in the business.
       It was in this year of 1928 that I was elected this 
     executive secretary of the National Luggage Dealers 
     Association, which position I still hold. My daughter who had 
     taken a secretarial course after leaving Cornell was my 
     secretary until her marriage in 1932.
       My younger son, Richard, on completing high school came 
     into the store as a salesman and is now serving in the Navy 
     as a second class petty officer. His place will be here when 
     he comes back.
       My son, Robert, was married in 1933 and has four children, 
     two girls and two boys. For a number of years they lived on a 
     farm located about ten miles from Utica in a large old house 
     built in 1797 and dating back to the days of George 
     Washington and DeWitt Clinton.
       During this year he purchased a comfortable home in Utica 
     about two miles from the store in order to give his children 
     easier accessibility to the public schools. He has, however, 
     kept the old farm as an ``ace in the hole'' should we ever go 
     through another period like, what I term as ``the terrible 
     thirties''.
       In 1930 about two years after the death of Mr. Reid we left 
     the old store at 43 and 45 Genesee Street, where we had been 
     for eighty-five years, and moved to our present location at 
     241 Genesee Street, a section given over to better class 
     specialty stores.
       Up to the time we moved uptown we had always maintained a 
     harness department.
       During my early days in the store this was the most 
     important part of our business. We specialized in fine coach 
     harness and track harness. These were always made to order, 
     and during the years that preceded the coming of the 
     automobile we employed a dozen or more mechanics.
       As the demand for harness decreased other lines of 
     merchandise were added. While we had always carried trunks 
     and hand luggage, it had been a minor part of our business.
       Now we were forced to expand our lines of luggage, and to 
     gradually feel our way into kindred lines such as Personal 
     Leather Goods, Ladies Hand Bags and Gifts.
       When we move to our present location we were obliged to 
     discontinue the harness shop, but as it was necessary to 
     maintain a repair 

[[Page E 2133]]
     department for luggage we took our oldest employee with us.
       The life story of this particular man is unique because it 
     is so different from that of the present day worker.
       Joe Fairbrother came to work for my father as an errand boy 
     when he was about twelve years old. Eventually he learned the 
     trade of harness maker. He never worked for anyone else but 
     my father and me for a period of over fifty three years.
       He raised a family of eight children, owned his own little 
     home in the west end, near where he was born. In later years 
     he had a comfortable camp in Oneida Lake and an automobile 
     which he never drove himself.
       His wages never exceeded thirty dollars per week. He often 
     told me ``This job has never been a good paying one, but it 
     has been d--n steady''. When he passed away some years ago 
     after a lingering illness, it was like losing a member of the 
     family.
       It may be of some interest that his granddaughter has been 
     my secretary for ten years, and it is the only position she 
     has ever held.
       Our present store is now managed by my son and partner, 
     Robert Sheldon, who has been with me for nineteen years. When 
     the war is over my younger son will again resume his place 
     with us.
       I often wonder when I look back over almost fifty years in 
     the harness and luggage business just why young men with fine 
     college training decide to engage in business that shows so 
     little opportunity for financial gain.
       What has happened in our own partnership is only one of 
     many such instances that I know of when young men with good 
     educations have elected to follow the retailing of Luggage 
     and Leather Goods as their life work.
       Surely there must be some spirit of romance in handling 
     fine leather goods for I see no other reason.
       Why this little history of our family's business should be 
     of interest to any one is hard for me to understand. There 
     are probably scores of other small businesses that have 
     equally long and honorable records.
       The only unusual thing about it may be that for over one 
     hundred years the name ``Sheldon'' has appeared first over a 
     harness shop which eventually became a Luggage and Leather 
     Goods Store and still continues.
       The fourth generation of Sheldons is now in charge of our 
     store. Possibly if one of my grandsons follow in his father's 
     steps, we may yet crow about a fifth generation in this one 
     business. Only time will tell us that.
       At any rate I am sure that my partners grandfather and 
     great-grandfather, though he had never seen either of them, 
     are as proud as I am of the present management, and the 
     manner in which it has maintained and added to the reputable 
     standing of our firm in this our home community.

                          ____________________