B.B. Fowler — Spokesman for merchants

Downtown Glens Falls retailer B.B. Fowler was selected to respond to a toast to merchants at the annual Lapham Hose Company ball Dec. 8, 1884 at the Rockwell House Hotel.

The women members of the present ownership group of his historic building demonstrate a change since the late 19th century in perception of women primarily as shoppers, but the need to support local merchants is the same.

“Ladies and gentlemen — pardon me for addressing the ladies, but, you know, it enters a great deal into a merchant’s business — the dressing of ladies,” he quipped. “We stand before you tonight, gentlemen, to plead our cause.”

He was interrupted by applause, according a Dec. 10, 1884 report in The Morning Star of Glens Falls.

“We need your sympathy and your support; we need your money. We are powerless to act or do unless you come to our rescue,” he continued. “But I am digressing. I propose to leave this speech to call upon one or more of our worthy brothers in the profession and let them see if they can do better.”

Shoppers of Glens Falls and the surrounding region did support the business, and in 1886 B.B. Fowler was prepared for an expansion.

“B.B. Fowler, the well known merchant of Glens Falls, has leased the apartments at the rear of his store and is fitting them up for an annex to his already large mercantile establishment, making one of the most commodious in that city,” The Granville Sentinel reported on April 9, 1886.

Click here to read my most recent previous B.B. Fowler post.