History Threads 1895 — Garment factory owner’s philanthropy

William H. Rowe of Troy, owner of the Glens Falls Shirt Company, a summer resident of Hartford, paid for interior renovations of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Hartford in memory of his daughter Lucy, who had recently died, The Granville Sentinel reported on May 31, 1895.

“A choir loft has been arranged in an alcove behind the pulpit, cathedral glass has been put in the windows, there will be a new carpet on the floor and some new furniture added. The walls and ceilings are to be papered, and the colors will be in harmony with the other decorations in the edifice.”

In other 1895 garment industry news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

• “The Joseph Fowler Shirt and Collar Company, always progressive and wide awake, is about to add a 125-horse-power boiler to its steam plant,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on July 27. “This will supply additional power and also furnish steam for heating the entire factory plant, the Times building, B.B. Fowler’s and Ames & Baldwin’s stores.”
• “The shirt, collar and waist manufacturing of Weil, Haskell & Co., already an important industry, is soon to be materially enlarged,” The Morning Star reported on May 29, 1895. “At present about 700 persons are employed by the firm, and the proposed expansion will add 400 to that number.”

The company planned to construct a new four-story wing which would house 200 additional sewing machines, a box factory and a laundry.

Construction was expected to begin around July 1.

“The avenue and factory grounds are being beautified by setting out shade trees, and the company cottages are being connected with a drain, which discharges into a brook near Dix Avenue.”

In the fiscal year from July. 1, 1894 to July 1, 1895, the Weil, Haskell & Co. shirt and collar factory at Glens Falls paid out $152,060.71 in wages, the equivalent of $5.68 million in 2024 dollars, The Morning Star reported on July 10.

”Such an industry as this is worth having, and ought to be encouraged.”

• “The Saratoga shirt factory has shut down and the machinery is being shipped to Schenectady,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on March 22. “Inability to procure competent help at the Spa is the reason assigned for the change of location.”
• “The firm of VanWagner & Norris, shirt manufacturers, was dissolved yesterday,” The Morning Star reported on June 13.
• “The shirt factory at this place employs fifty persons in the factory and forty outside. C. N. Davis, the manager, says that business is picking up,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star on July 26.

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