[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.
____________________