Showing posts with label billheads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label billheads. Show all posts

Monday, February 21, 2011

Dugan's Patent Snow-Guards


Here's a timely piece of ephemera for all the snow the winter of 2011 has produced. It's an 1897 billhead from a New York company that made, among other things, snow-guards for tin and slate roofs--Dugan's Patent Snow-Guards.

M. Halliday was the proprietor of the roofing company at 281 East Ninth Street, between Second and Third Avenue. Snow guards on sloped roofs help prevent damage from sudden avalanches of accumulated rooftop snow.

This job was billed to the Department of Public Charities for work done at Bellevue Hospital.


From Sanitary and Heating Age (Sanitary and Heating Publishing, 1899), this entry indicates that Halliday's son, Charles, took over the business within a few years after this billhead was prepared.
Charles G. Halliday has bought out the business of his father, M. Halliday, 218 East Ninth street, New York City, and will continue the business of practical Slate and Metal roofer and manufacturer of Dugan's Patent Snow Guards for slate and other slanting roofs, cornices, &c.
I don't know how long Halliday stayed in business, but the historic Bellevue Hospital is still around. Well known as a psychiatric hospital, Bellevue is the oldest public hospital in the United States, having been established in 1736. But if Halliday were, or is, still around, their snow guards for a job at Bellevue might look like those shown in some of the images HERE.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Guns and bikes

How about a bicycle to go with that rifle?


Former Town Clerk, Hiram Barton, had no need for either the day this billhead was prepared. He merely stopped by to pay the balance on his account. Could that balance have been for a bicycle? A gun?

W.M. Hastings of South Shaftsbury, Vermont was the man to see for all your gun, ammo, and bicycle needs back in 1898. Seems like an odd association today, perhaps not so much back then. He also sold "other supplies," so maybe there was a little something for everyone.

But was this a firearms and ammunition store that also sold bicycles or was it a bicycle shop that happened to also sell guns and ammo?

I think the former. Until the 1890s, bicycles enjoyed no popularity among the masses--they were toys of the well-to-do. That changed in the 1890s with a revolutionary design that made the bicycle safe and accessible for all. And probably something for which a firearms and ammunition shop could make extra cash by having a few stocked on the side.

Read all about the 1890s "Bicycle Craze" HERE.