Remembering Conshohocken and West Conshohocken (7 page)

When you say the name Walker Brothers, one might think of an American pop group formed in 1964 that sang songs like “The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore” or “Make It Easy on Yourself.” But in Conshohocken, if you say “Walker Brothers,” most old-timers would tell you about a couple of brothers who formed the Walker Brothers of Conshohocken and became the leading manufactures of under-floor electric distribution systems in the country.

The Walker brothers, Hervey and Newton, founded the company in 1912 and, by 1958, employed more than 650 production workers and more than 200 administrative employees, most of whom were Conshohocken residents. The company operated on eighteen acres of prime riverfront property, much of it later purchased by Quaker Chemical.

Early contracts for Walker Brothers included the designing and installation of switchboards for the United States naval vessels, notably the USS
Wyoming
. The
Wyoming
was a battleship weighing twenty-seven thousand tons and was built at the William Cramp and Sons Shipyard in Philadelphia and commissioned in 1912 at League Island Navy Yard. It was for a time the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet's commander-in-chief, Rear Admiral Charles J. Badger. Badger served with the fleet during World War I and was present at the surrender of the German Grand Fleet off May Island on November 20, 1918.

By the early 1920s, Walker Brothers had begun making and installing under-floor electrical distribution systems and, in 1923, landed its first installation at the Jefferson Standard Building of Greensboro, North Carolina. Once Walker installed the system in that first building, the company had trouble keeping up with production, as it began work on buildings such as the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., the Equitable Assurance Building in New York, the Inquirer Building in Philadelphia, the H.J. Reynolds Tobacco Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, several buildings on Wall Street and dozens more. In later years, Walker installations included heavy power cables vital to space satellite launchings at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and an under-floor wiring system in the White House Oval Office, transmitting reports of nuclear events to the president of the United States of America.

By the mid-1920s, Walker Brothers realized that it needed a suburban location that would provide space for continued expansion. Hervey pointed out an old abandoned terra cotta pottery factory site in the Spring Mill section of Montgomery County. Newton was unimpressed with the property, but Hervey pointed out the rich history of the area, not to mention two railroads—the Pennsylvania and Reading lines—running right past the property, the river and canal behind the property and finished roadways for overland shipping and transportation. Newton also pointed out the successful businesses just across the tracks, including the Lee Tire and Rubber Company and, just up the Schuylkill River, Alan Wood Steel Company, operating at that point for nearly a century.

On June 5, 1926, Walker Brothers officially purchased the property from George N. Witherspoon and his wife, Jean, of Hendersonville, North Carolina. The riverfront property that had been known as the old Moreland Clay Works was purchased for a total price of $16, 715.88, with an adjoining fifty-foot lot bought for $1,621.00.

Years later, when Walker Brothers of Conshohocken Company became the biggest manufacturer of underground electric cables in the country, Hervey turned his attention to civic-minded projects. In March 1945, the Walkers founded the Conshohocken Business Association with 62 charter members. Newton spearheaded the purchase of Leeland, the former home of John Elwood Lee, located on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Fayette Street, and turned the property into a centrally located meeting place. By the early 1950s, more than 150 local business executives and industrial men would meet at Leeland, set up as a luncheonette to discuss routine problems pertaining to production, sales, labor and current economic situations and outlooks.

In 1953, after more than three years of Newton raising money for the Conshohocken Community Chest for the purpose of building a youth center called the Fellowship House (a name given by Newton Walker), the community center opened its door with Newton presiding. The Fellowship House opened at Christmastime in 1953 at a grand building cost of $225,000, most of it donated by Walker Brothers or fundraising undertaken by Newton.

In 1958, following a fire at the Harry Street School, the borough was in financial straits and unable to rebuild the school. It was Hervey to the rescue—he drafted the plans and laid out a good portion of the funds to rebuild a modern school, renamed Hervey S. Walker Elementary School. In 1957, a group of businessmen founded the Leeland Foundation, with Albert A. Garthwaite Sr. as president and Hervey S. Walker as one of the founders. The Leeland Foundation still gives out grants and supports Conshohocken today.

Hervey S. Walker never lived in Conshohocken; in fact, he lived six miles from the town in Haverford. He passed away in September 1958 in Atlantic City. Many people never knew what the “S.” stood for in his name; it was Stricker, Hervey Stricker Walker.

Quaker Chemical had very humble beginnings when Emil Niessen, a German-born chemist who had been a salesman for a chemical company, began his business on December 13, 1918. Niessen started his business on the second floor of an old factory that was located on the berm bank between the canal and the Schuylkill River. The John Wood Manufacturing Company would later expand and occupy the site.

Niessen manufactured oil products and lubrications for the textile industries. He called his company Quaker Oil Products. By 1927, Emil Niessen had moved the company to its present location, an old glass factory on the border of Conshohocken and Whitemarsh Township along East Hector Street. As the nation was headed into a depression, an offer came to sell the company. Mr. Niessen was only too happy to sell to brothers D.J. and L. Osmond Benoliel, while Niessen retained part ownership. By 1930, the firm incorporated as Quaker Chemical Products Company and consisted of twenty employees, including laborers, two chemists and nine office employees. The nation felt the full impact of the Depression by the end of 1930. Many local factories were working four-day workweeks, but Quaker Chemical Products Company managed to go over $200,000 in sales for the year.

Over the next twenty years, Quaker expanded, opening plants in Wilmington, Chicago and Detroit. The postwar years helped stimulate Quaker's business with the growing automobile industry and the popularity of household appliances. By 1953, Quaker Chemical had posted more than $10 million in sales.

In April 1951, a massive explosion at Quaker set the company back but not out. The explosion caused a fire that gutted most of the main production plant, causing more than $400,000 in damages. The employees worked around the clock to rebuild the plant in something of a record time. Company executives were pleased when the production lines were back in full force and not a single customer was lost.

Today, the Quaker Chemical Company is still headquartered in Conshohocken, with regional headquarter locations in China, Brazil, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and the Netherlands. From $200,000 in sales back in 1930 to a $581.6 million company today, Quaker continues its commitment to excellence for its customers.

Quaker Chemical treated its customers the way it has treated the Conshohocken community for more than ninety years. Along with the Walker brothers, the Benoliel family contributed much to the building and maintenance of the Conshohocken Fellowship House. Peter Benoliel, chairman of the board for many years, took a keen interest in the Fellowship House and the development of Conshohocken's youngsters, participating in many events throughout the years. The Quaker Chemical Company has never failed to support Conshohocken, and Quaker is currently helping many communities not only throughout this country but around the world as well.

The story of Hale Pumps of Conshohocken can be traced to Wayne, Pennsylvania. In 1906, the Radnor Fire Company purchased a new state-of-the-art motorized fire pumper, the first in America. Radnor firefighters Jan Wendell and Charlie Young would often take the horseless fire carriage to the Hale Knox Motor Company garage for repairs. Alan C. Hale, who owned the garage, was also an active firefighter with the Radnor squad. Hale shared a common interest with Wendell and Young to make firefighting equipment more efficient, especially the horseless carriage and its pumping capacity of water to extinguish fires.

The three dedicated firefighters developed an interest in the new motorized fire carriage and strongly believed improvements could be made on both the truck and pump that would provide better fire protection to the community. The three men formed a partnership and set up shop at the Hale Knox garage, making fire engine pumps. The company would be known as the Hale Motor Company.

By 1914, a military conflict was raging overseas, and before it was over the conflict would become known as World War I and involve most of the world's great powers. In that same year, the three partners came up with a new pump for firefighting called Young Giant and, shortly thereafter, got its first test. The bronze body pump was mounted on a secondhand simplex chassis, and on December 30, 1914, the Young Giant was called out to fight a fire at the Wayne Opera House.

Fire companies from throughout Philadelphia and Montgomery County took notice when the Young Giant pumped water for six straight hours until the fire was extinguished. The George Clay Fire Company of West Conshohocken was so impressed with the truck and pump that the company purchased the truck and used it for more than ten years before purchasing another Hale truck. The Hale Motor Company all of a sudden had trouble keeping up with the demand for the trucks and pumps. By 1917, it was time to move to Conshohocken.

The Hale Motor Company of Wayne purchased a plot of ground on Spring Mill Avenue near Eighth Avenue from C.A. Desimone. The company awarded a contract to Burns and Desimone for the erection of a one-story brick building forty by ninety-six feet. The Hale Motor Company was already building fire pumps and trucks for Plymouth Fire Company, Conshohocken Fire Company No. 2 and George Clay Fire Company, among others. The new plant was dedicated to the building of pumps and would employ about fifteen local skilled mechanics. It was at this time that the partnership was incorporated, becoming Hale Fire Pump Company. Alan C. Hale was the company's first president and treasurer, and Wendell and Young were members of the board of directors.

By 1924, Alan Hale had resigned from the pump company to concentrate on his garage business. Hale had a love of the automobile and wanted to devote more time to the auto industry. E.J. Wendell took over as president and general manager of the Hale Fire Pump Company, and in 1924, the Conshohocken plant quadrupled in size. Hale would continue to expand its operations in the borough for the next fifty years.

In 1952, Hale purchased seven acres of land to build a new plant on Washington Street at the foot of Jones Street, in an area formerly known as “the Meadow.” The Meadow served the borough as a baseball field for close to seventy-five years.

In 1974, Hale opened a “clean air” foundry, also located on Washington Street, that featured both induction and gas-melting furnaces used by gas and electric. The thirty-four-thousand-square-foot foundry cast pump parts in iron, aluminum and brass. In that same year, the company also broke ground for the second phase for a new sixteen-thousand-square-foot air-conditioned machine shop. With the addition of the foundry, the company employed as many as 250 union employees by the mid-1970s.

The Hale Fire Pump Company started with 3 men and a fire pump back in 1914; by 1922, 24 employees found full-time work with the company. By 1954, a total of 240 employees were collecting paychecks from Hale, and by the mid-1970s, more than 500 employees, including office personnel, enjoyed employment with the Conshohocken firm.

Generations of families have realized the American dream working at the Hale Fire Pump Company, and today Hale Products Inc., with products and production plants throughout the world, continues to employ Conshohocken residents while servicing the continent with the best firefighting equipment in the world.

Cigar, brewery, ice cream and casket companies were all part of Conshohocken's job market at one time or another. In 1928, the Bobrow brothers opened up their cigar factory, called Bobrow Brothers Cigar Manufactures. The cigar factory was a three-story building located on the corner of Hector and Apple Streets.

The Crystal Spring Brewing Company was located on the southwest corner of Hector and Jones Streets. F.A. Loeba started the business in 1898, and two years later, it became the Crystal Spring Brewing Company. The company was short-lived, closing its doors in 1902. The building for many years was occupied by the Acme Saw Company, owned by the Capozzi family, and is currently a condominium complex. Also around the turn of the twentieth century was the Leibert and Obert Brewing Company, once located on the canal bank. The company also had a cold storage building, where it stored kegs of beer. According to newspaper accounts in 1910, the cold storage building was also the site of weekend drinking get-togethers for the young men about town.

In 1919, I.D. Shaffer leased his planing mill located at Elm and Maple Streets to the newly organized Conshohocken Burial Casket Company. The casket company was unable to sell to any of the local undertakers for the first four weeks, as it had backorders promised.

The Harvey Ice Cream Company was opened in 1929 by Michael J. Harvey. The Eleventh Avenue resident built a two-story ice cream factory at the corner of Twelfth and Maple Streets and purchased the most modern ice cream–making equipment available.