Order Inquiry: Cook Pottery Company

Every so often a box of ephemera will turn up a card which leads to, and becomes a part of, an interesting story. This is the “story” of one such card.

This postal card, postmarked May 11, 1909, was mailed from the purchasing department of the Brooklyn, N.Y., plant of the H.W. Johns-Manville Company to inquire as to the status of their order to the Cook Pottery Company, and is stamped “Ans. / May 13, 1909 / W. E. Green” to note that a reply had been made to that inquiry.

Order Inquiry from H.W. Johns-Manville Company to Cook Pottery Company.
Author’s collection.

Shipping Receipt: John A. Roebling’s Sons Company

Mention the name “Roebling” and just about everyone is reminded of the many suspension bridges constructed across the nation by this family of accomplished civil engineers.

John A. Roebling (1806-1869), founder of the firm bearing his name, died from lockjaw (tetanus) contracted in an accident while surveying for the Brooklyn Bridge. His son Charles G. Roebling (1849-1918), a recent graduate of Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, soon became president and made the company an economic powerhouse.

One of its customers was the Dent Hardware Company, incorporated in 1894 by Henry H. Dent (1861-1940) as its president, and George H. Brightbill, Charles C. Kaiser, Henry P. Newhard, and C.W. Wackernagel. Based in Newark, N.J., the company shortly thereafter relocated to Fullerton, Pa., a suburb of Allentown, where they employed 30 workers in the manufacture of specialty hardware primarily used in refrigerators and cold storage units.

Star of Bethlehem, or Ornithogalum umbellatum

There is a showing of Star of Bethlehem at their peak in a naturalized setting near the Lalor Street gate in Section M and the beauty of these delicately small flowers deserve mention as does their history.

Naturalized Ornithogalum umbellatum in Section M

First described by Carl Linnaeus in Species Plantarum, the pioneering work published in 1753, the plant was one of but 12 species known at the time. Over the years other botanists including Michel Adanson, John Gilbert Baker, George Bentham, Adolf Engler, and Joseph Dalton Hooker came to identify and describe some 300 species within what is today the genus Ornithogalum.