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W. H. SCHIEFFELIN & CO.,

Importers and Jobbers of

Drugs, Fancy Goods, Perfumery,

&c., &c.

170 & 172 WILLIAM STREET,

NEW YORK.

THE Establishment under notice is the oldest and most extensive of its kind in the United States. It was originated before the beginning of the present century by Mr. JACOB SCHIEFFELIN, whose warehouse at that time was at 193 Pearl Street in this city. The location was subsequently changed to Maiden Lane, where the business was continued until 1841, when the vast increase of its operations demanding more room, the firın, under the style of H. H. SCHIEFFELIN & Co., removed to 104 and 106 John Street. In the year 1848, having bought and added to their business the stock and trade of Hoadley, Phelps & Co., one of the largest and most respectable houses in the city at that time, the style of the firm was changed to SCHIEFFELIN BROTHERS & Co. In May, 1854, their business being increased so much as to require still more ample accommodations, the establishment was removed to the present spacious warehouse at 170 and 172 William Street, cor of Beekman. This warehouse was constructed expressly for themselves, and is universally regarded as a model one, being admirably adapted, in every respect, for the varied requirements of the wholesale trade in Drugs, Chemicals, Perfumery, Druggists' Sundries, etc.

In January, 1865, the firm of SCHIEFFELIN BROTHERS & Co. was dissolved, Mr. SAMUEL B. SCHIEFFELIN retiring from active business, and the name of the house was altered to W. H. SCHIEFFELIN & Co., the firm being composed, as at present, of the following gentlemen:

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All of the present firm, with one exception, were partners in the old firm; and all the general partners were trained to the business from their youth in this house, and have had severally from fifteen to thirty years' intimate practical knowledge of the business. Mr. W. H. SCHIEFFELIN is of the fourth generation of the family engaged in the wholesale Drug Business, which has been handed down from father to son for the greater part of a century. This is a record of which any mer. cantile firm might be proud; and while it is very unusual to find a house whose

business has been carried on and transmitted to successive generations for so long a period, it is doubtless one circumstance which has contributed much to the high reputation of the house.

THE WAREHOUSE,

at 170 and 172 William Street, is a brick structure, six stories in height, with basement and sub-cellar, and numerous fire-proof vaults extending under the sidewalk. It has a front of seventy-eight feet on Beekman Street, and eighty-eight feet on William Street, and more than eighty persons are continually employed in the various departments, all of which are organized under a system peculiar to this house, by means of which each branch of the business is greatly facilitated, perfect order and accuracy being insured throughout the work in each section being always confined to its own set of employés, whose discipline is thus rendered the more complete, and enables them to fill all orders with surety and dispatch. The benefits of such system in any warehouse are obvious; but especially so in a business like this, where ignorance or carelessness is liable to involve the security of human life.

THE SUB-CELLAR,

is mainly devoted to the storage of goods, such as original packages of Indigo, Sal Soda, Carbonate of Ammonia, Chloride of Lime, Camphor, Asafoetida, Bi-Carbonate of Soda, Olive and other Oils, Balsam Copaiva, Soaps, Paints, and other goods of great bulk. In one division is the Engine Room, eighteen feet in length by nine in width, and here is an engine of twenty-horse power, one of the latest improved patterns, made by N. P. Otis & Brother, of Yonkers, used to hoist the two Elevators -one from the basement to the street, the other from the street to the sixth story.

THE BASEMENT,

like the Sub-Cellar, is admirably regulated, and kept scrupulously clean.

The Boiler-Room, communicating by a short flight of steps, extends under the street, is thirty-three feet long by fifteen wide, and contains a flue Boiler twelve feet long, three and a half feet in diameter, with forty-three flues, each three inches wide, consuming over two tons of coal per week. It also supplies the whole building with steam heat.

There are numerous Fire-Proof Vaults communicating with the basement and built beneath the sidewalk, dry, cool, and well ventilated, each furnished with two iron doors, one of which is grated, a uniform temperature being maintained in all. One of these, twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, is used for the storage of all packages of Vanilla Bean, Musk, Opium, Morphine, Ottar of Roses, and all the more costly Essential Oils. There are two others, of about the same size, for the storage of such Oils as Bergamot, Lemon, Orange, Lavender, Rosemary, Savin, Cassia, Cloves, Anise, Wintergreen, Sassafras, etc. Another is the Acid Vault, for Muriatic, Sulphuric, Nitric Acids, etc. Besides these are a Miscellaneous Vault for Ointments and Paints, the Ammonia Water Vault, Ether Vault, the Safe Vault, a Vault for Extracts and Tinctures, and one for Liquid Extracts, Congress Water, etc.

The main floor of the Basement is divided into three departments. One of these is the room for the storage of full packages of the heavier descriptions of goods, such as Tartaric Acid, Cream of Tartar in its crystalized form, Madder, Gum Arabic, Epsom Salts, Alum, Isinglass, Borax, Oxalic Acid, Blue Vitriol, Copperas, Saleratus, Olive Oil in Boxes, &c.

Another is termed the Sponge Room, containing rows of mammoth bins, filled with strings of all the different kinds of Turkish, Mediterranean and Bahama Sponges a very extensive stock, and more varied and excellent than we ever saw before. Some idea of the variety of grades may be had from the fact that these Sponges range in price from as low as fifteen cents to thirty-five dollars a pound.

In the same room are a series of large closets, which contain the stock of Chamois, Sheep, Kid, and other Skins, used for medical and other purposes. The third apartment in the basement is appropriated for the Wholesale Stock of Miscellaneous Fancy Goods, comprising Soaps, Hair Oils, Pomades, Perfumery, Mirrors and Toilet Articles generally in demand by the trade.

We may here remark that this house was the first in its line of business to appreciate the desirableness of a Department exclusively for the sale of Perfumery, Fancy Goods, and that large class of articles known in Europe as Druggists' Sundries—a technical name, which, although little known in the nomenclature of the drug business a few years since, has now become familiar to the ear of druggists as a household word.

THE FIRST FLOOR,

which fronts on William and Beekman Streets, includes the Counting Room, or Office Proper, which is the center from which radiates all the vast operations of this large establishment. There are over a score of book-keepers, salesmen, correspondents, entry clerks, &c., engaged in this room, which has much the appearance of a large banking or insurance office. Here is carried on the vast correspondence of this house-embracing all parts of our country, even to California, and the Canadas, West Indies, Central and South America, and Sandwich Islands; England, France, Germany, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, in fact all Europe, besides China, Borneo, and the East Indies. Indeed we may safely say there is scarcely a part of the habitable globe where drugs are bought and sold where this house has not correspondents, and with which it does not transact business.

One portion of the Office is set apart for the City Department, where are carried on all the transactions with the City Retail Trade: and we will remark, in passing, that this house gave evidence of its sagacity in early paying especial attention to providing for the wants and cultivating the trade of that highly respectable and intelligent class of dealers the Retail Druggists and Apothecaries of New York City and suburbs. The extent of its business with this class of trade is very great; it would of itself be considered a very large business for one house.

Separated from the Counting Room by a partition and glass windows, is the Shipping and Receiving Room, for the reception and delivery of all goods. Here is the office of the Shipping Clerk and his three assistants, with a desk for the Warehousemen, whose especial duty is to examine and report on all goods received, and to supervise the large number of porters regularly employed by the house.

Adjoiningand communicating with the Counting Room is the Fancy Goods, Perfumery, and Druggists' Sundries Department, which is under the superintendence of a gentleman who has been connected with the house from early boyhood. The department is filled with samples of every known kind of Druggists' Sundries, from the most minute to the largest, the cheapest to the most costly, from an ordinary Tooth-Brush to a fine Prescription Scale worth $100. These goods are in about equal proportions of Domestic and Foreign manufacture-American, English, French and German-and comprise a variety of useful and elegant miscellaneous articles, more interesting to examine or possess than to describe.

The stock is choice and varied, some of its chief features being Perfumery,

produced by the Societé Hygienique, Lubin, Coudray, and many other famous manufacturers; some fifty different brands of Fancy Soaps; the world-renowned Apothecaries' Scales, of Cattenot & Beranger, celebrated for their neatness, simplicity and perfect accuracy, and for the sale of which this firm are the sole agents in the United States; Soda Fountains, Show Cases, Twines, Wafers, Weights, Tooth Preparations ; Artists' Marking, Painters' Pencil and Toilet Brushes, of a hundred varieties; Bonnet, Children's Dressing, Side, Pocket and other Combs, of over fifty descriptions; Syringes, of nearly a hundred kinds; Dental and Surgical Articles, such as Anatomical Preparations, Amputating and Trepanning, Cupping, Stomach and Injectingand all Dentists' Miscellaneous Instruments; Fracture Apparatus, Hydrocole and other instruments; all which are used in Lithotomy, Lithotripsy, Midwifery and Phlebotomy; Stethoscopes, Speculums, Forceps, Tooth-Keys, &c., many of which are in Cases, and any style of which is made and furnished to special order; all kinds of Chemists' and Druggists' Pottery Ware, Apothecaries', Druggists' and Perfumers' Flint and Green Glass Ware and Furniture Articles, Druggists' Sundries, and including Birkner & Hartman's celebrated German Bronzes, of all colors and grades; Pill, Soda, and other Boxes of American and Foreign make, turned wood, chip, paper, and metallic, of some fifty different varieties, and all sizes; Corks, from the smallest Vial to the largest specie; Drug Mills, Mortars, and patent Sifting Machines; Flasks of some fifty approved descriptions; Glaziers' Diamonds; Graduated Measures; Inks, Labels, Mirrors, Night lights; Toy and Tube Paints, of from eighty to a hundred kinds; Tooth Brushes, from $6 to $72 a gross; Hair Brushes, from $1 25 to $48 a dozen; Rubber Goods, Medicine Chests, Saddle Bags, Tincture Presses, and so on through all the wide diversity of articles which characterize this branch of business. Prominent among the most elegant of all this merchandise were the Silver Prescription Scales, in plate glass cases, with black walnut frames a specialty of this house, made in this country, and unequalled for nicety of balance.

THE SECOND FLOOR.

Something more than a quarter of a century ago, we could boast of an intimate knowledge of the wholesale drug business, having been then attached, for several years, to an establishment which at that period was reputed one of the very best conducted and leading houses in this line. On this account we took more than ordinary interest, the other day, in ascertaining the manner in which the largest and most highly reputed drug establishment of the present day was conducted. The old house to which we refer, in 1840 employed about twenty-five persons, all told. This one as we have stated employs about eighty, but the extent of its transactions is far greater in proportion. Owing to the perfection of its system, probably the same number of men perform thrice the former amount of work, and perform it better, and with more positive security against serious mistakes.

The most vitally important department of a warehouse of this kind is that which is devoted to the Filling of Orders. At SCHIEFFELIN & Co.'s this is done on the Second Floor, the foreman of the department being a gentleman whose experience extends over a period of more than thirty-two years, and at our request he gave us an insight into some of the mysteries of the place, where the old familiar names and odors brought back the days of youth so vividly that we almost sighed to exchange the world of types for that of tinctures, manuscripts for medicines, pens and paper for pills, potions and perfumery.

As we passed through the various departments, we could not but remark the order and neatness on every hand, so different from what was to be found of old, when a wholesale drug-store was a model of disorder and dirt. On this floor we

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