Back
in the year 1884, a couple of enterprising fellows got up an advertising pamphlet
for a few of the leading business houses of Hamilton, and to make it spicy and
readable, they devoted a number of pages to historical sketches of men who had
done things in Hamilton, and whose enterprise should be handed down to future
generations. Unfortunately, these paper-covered histories find their way to the
wastepaper basket and are lost forever, except the parties interested may file
them away never to be seen again till house-cleaning time, when the good wife
bundles them off to the ragman. This old Muser feels that he is doing some good
to the future historians in preserving the sketches of these ancient Hamiltonians by
reproducing them in this Great Family Journal. Senator Sanford, the founder of
the great establishment that bears his
name, spent his early boyhood in Hamilton, and was fortunate that he had as a
foster father a man of Edward Jackson’s large and generous heart, for he had
not only the advantages of a good public school education, but when he was
ready to begin the active duties of life, he had the large bank account of Mr. Jackson to back him up. That he proved
himself worthy was evidenced by his successful business career. Beginning in a
small way, he was no loiterer by the way, for when his journey in life was ended,
he left a handsome fortune and a business that keeps on making fortunes for his
successors. As a recreation from business cares, he took an interest in the
politics of his country and in the benevolent and local enterprise of his home
city, and that he gave with a free hand to the church and benevolences was
well-known. The sketch is worthy of being read even though it was written and
published more than thirty years ago.
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This house was established in June,
1851 by W. E. Sanford and Alexander McInnes, under the firm name of Sanford,
McInnes and company, with a capital of $20,000, and the senior member of the
firm by his indomitable push and perseverance showing the samples of the
manufactures of the house in every nook and corner of the provinces, built up a
manufacturing trade, Mr. McInnes, taking charge of the office and
warehouse. At the date of the
establishment of this house, no industry was at such a low standard as the
readymade clothing business. The question of style and finish was not even
thought of, price only was considered. Overcoats at from $2.25 to $5, any price
beyond this excluded the goods from the market. Suits made up cheaply as
possible were alone saleable, style and finish being altogether out of the
question, goods were made up without reference to shape or form. Mr. Sanford,
by his travels, having thoroughly felt the public pulse throughout the country,
the firm realized that the day had come for a sweeping revolution in this
department of trade. The firm set about in good earnest to fill the bill; they
engaged the services of a number of skillful artisans from the neighboring
republic, and from that day forward, Mr. Sanford’s chief study was to keep
thoroughly up with the American standard of readymade clothing, and the
standard of this house was universally accepted as being second to none in the
world.
The warehouse in which
the firm commenced business was the center of the three buildings now occupied
by W. E. Sanford and Co.; it had a frontage of 25 feet, three stories high, and
running back half the length of the lot, with a small extension in the rear.
This small store has given way to a building of the first rank, with a frontage
of 75 feet and 140 feet deep, four stories high, provides a commodious basement
under the entire building. The partnership expired by limitation to 1871, and
Mr. McInnes retired and joined his brother in the wholesale dry goods trade.
Mr. Sanford then
invested two of his employees with a small interest in the business, which was
carried on under the name Sanford, Vail & Riddley. The same indomitable
pluck and perseverance which had in so marked a degree been displayed in the
past continued, the business rapidly growing the next five years when Mr.
Riddley retired in 1875. The business was then carried on for some years as
Sanford, Vail & Co. Thus far we have given but a brief sketch of the
business career of one of the most successful enterprises in the Dominion.
Whenin lies the
secret of success? We shall see. As a good captain who is thoroughly skilled in
navigation steers his shape safely past the shoals and rocks into port, so we
shall find upon investigating the inner works going into the cabin as it were –
that the man in command had mastered all difficulties and earned success as
much as Wellington did in the field of Waterloo: read the rest of the story as
see if the humble editors are correct. The chief of this great establishment,
Mr. W. E. Sanford, being one of the men who, with a handful of others, have
made Hamilton the thriving center of trade it is, the story of his life,
briefly told, will be interesting. His birthplace was New York City; his father
was an American and his mother English. But as both died during his childhood,
the greater part of his early life was spent with his adopted father, the late
Edward Jackson, who is mentioned in the historical sketch of Hamilton as one of
the first men who opened business here.
As 16 years of age, young
Sanford found employment in a wholesale publishing and stationery house in New
York City, and now we shall shortly see the man in the boy as the old proverb
has it. He continued in this house until his 21st year, and was to
have an interest in the firm. Owing to the death of the senior member of the
firm, and the consequent readjustment of the business, Mr. Sanford was thrown
out. True worth finds its level, and the young Sanford’s abilities and talent
as a commercial traveler were recognized by a rival house, and he was urged to
make an engagement with them at a salary of $3,000 a year, which at the day was
a figure seldom reached by the best men even in that city of large salaries. Young
Sanford, however, feeling sore over his disappointment in not having secured an
interest in the business of his late employers, thanked the gentleman who made
him the generous offer, but declined, with the remark, “I am determined never
again to accept a position of clerk in any firm.’ How doggedly he kept his
resolution, the following lines will show. A week afterwards we find him in
London, Canada, having entered the foundry business under the name of Anderson,
Sanford & Co. Eighteen months later, Mr. Sanford withdrew from this firm
and entered the wool business. In two years’ time, we find him in complete
control of the wool market of the country, and generally known under the
sobriquet of “the Wool King of Canada.”
Mr. Sanford, in
connection with some gentlemen in New York, at this period, made the first
shipment of 29 carloads of Canadian butter to the gold mines of Fraser river,
British Columbia, which at this first were in full operation.
A few months later, Mr.
Sanford entered on the business, where for 22 years he so successfully carried on
in the spot where the elegant warehouse now stands. The history of such men comprises
the history of a town. The growth of such a man’s business is the growth of the
city. From a small beginning, with the first year’s sales of $32,000, this
great house had grown until its sales for several years reached nearly a
million a year. It employed nearly 2,000 people in the manufacture of clothing.
, without doubt the largest and leading house in that branch of trade in the
Dominion, and unquestionably almost, if not quite doubled the business of any
other house in Canada. One has only to gaze through their vast warehouse to see
the piles of manufactured and unmanufactured clothing, together with their
system of working, to see the method, almost like music, by which every
department works under its proper head, to be convinced of its magnitude. The
whole establishment is a model of order. The office and staff, the Canadian and
foreign buyers, the warehouses, the shipping room, the manufacturing
department, the retailing room, the buttonhole department, are all worked under
proper heads, who employ and discharge all help.
One of the advantages
of the firm was the system adopted, in the early stages of its career, of
employing a large number of German tailors. These men took the work by lots of
19 to 30 hands. Each man having some part of the work to perform secured to the
firm a uniformity of style and finish impossible in any other system. The
Canadian government felt the want of having their military goods manufactured
in a uniform manner. Now, it is patent that no firm in the country are in a
position to handle this trade anything near on an equality with Sanford and
company.
An interesting fact
in the cutting room was the cost of these curious cutting machines, amounting
to $1,000 each, which, with their surplus arms, are capable, in the hands of an
expert, of being run in any direction; of these, Mr. Sanford had two in
constant operation. One of the troublesome bits of labor on the part of cutters
by the old hand shears is the cutting of notches in the cloth at certain points
for the guidance of the tailor. An ingenious inventor had provided a notcher
about the size of an old-fashioned candlestick to do this work, but carefully
made his fortune by fixing its price high – at 50 cents each. Mr. Sanford’s
establishment was, of course, fully equipped with all that mechanical art can
supply. In the matter of buttons, a machine button is used, which is stronger
than any thread could attach, and placed on garments with the speed of the
ticking of a clock.
As an example of the
perfect working of this system, Mr. Sanford himself pointed to a young girl in
charge of the cash desk of the work room, saying: “There is a young lady who
has amounts from 70 cents to thousands of dollars a day in paying out wages,
and while she has handled from $150,000 to $200,000, never yet has she made a
mistake of a penny.” The precision and regularity is so uniform in every
department that no losses are incurred. The goods are entered in the workroom,
and all work going out is charged to the parties who handle it; then the
receiving department is chargeable until the work is paid for, and if the goods
are not in the proper department they must show up in the sales, so that there
is no possibility of loss. Every garment, from the time it is cut is followed
until it is shipped to the customer, so that when 500 garments have been cut,
there must have been 500 in stock or else the sales must account for them.
A very large
proportion of Hamilton industries have been born and nursed by a few leading
pubic-spirited citizens. Mr. Sanford, with the few in the front rank, took an
active part in the boards of insurance, banks and educational institutions,
until quite recently but found his own business growing so rapidly and
demanding his entire time, and was obliged to withdraw and devote his whole
energies to the huge concern he has so successfully created.
The great work of
establishing the trade of the house was mainly done by Mr. Sanford himself, who
pushed his trade from the east to the west. Mr. Sanford was the first
commercial representative to visit the Red River country in the days of Riel,
and in the early days of confederation, when a Canadian was received with the
greatest coldness in the Maritime provinces. Mr. Sanford was foremost in
pushing his business in that section. At the request of the Great Western railway,
he went to British Columbia when it wa received into confederation and arranged
for the shipment of freight through in bond; and hs early, energetic efforts
being ably followed up by competent representatives, the great increase of business
in these later years is the natural result of his in dominatable energy in that
province. The firm now employs an army of commercial travelers, who
periodically push their weat throughout the length and breadth of our great
Dominion, visiting every one of its thousands of villages, towns and cities in
British North America.
A few more words and
we have done. This great institution, the structure raised by the vigorous and
prudent push and enterprise of W. E. Sanford himself, is itself the greatest
tribute and testimony to his genius, and while working himself, he abled in
making others successful. While his talents were developed by his own efforts,
others caught the fire. Some very bright men occupying eminent positions are
not ashamed to say they have been in Mr. Sanford’s employ. One of the greatest
railway men of this continent, John
Muir, general manager of the Northern Pacific railway, began life, as the first
office boy in this establishment. The constant tribute to this city’s business
in the distribution of salaries to the hundreds of employees of such a firm is
not the least of the benefits Hamilton receives from the house.
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