Benjamin Brandreth

Infobox Person
name = Benjamin Brandreth


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caption = Benjamin Brandreth portrait (oil on canvas) circa 1870
birth_name = 1807
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birth_place = Leeds, England
death_date = 22 February 1880
death_place = Ossining, NY
death_cause = Stroke
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known_for = Pioneered modern mass merchandising and advertising in the sale of patent medicine
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home_town = Ossining, NY
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Benjamin Brandreth (1807-1880) was a pioneer in the early use of mass advertising to build consumer awareness of his product, a purgative that allegedly cured many ills by purging toxins out of the blood. He became a successful and wealthy businessman, bank president, and New York State Senator.

Biography

Brandreth's Pills

Brandreth was born in Leeds, England, on 23 June, 1807, the son of William Holmes (1775-1809) and Ann Brandreth Holmes (1785-1877). His father abandoned the family while Benjamin was young and he was raised by his mother and maternal grandfather William Brandreth, whose surname he adopted. He emigrated to the United States in 1835 with his three children shortly after the death of his first wife, Harriet Smallpage, hoping to find a bigger market than he had in England for his “Vegetable Universal Pill” invented by his grandfather, William Brandreth. The formula was a powerful cathartic and played off the popular notion that impurity of the blood was the source of many ills [cite book
last = King
first = Dan
title = Quackery Unmasked
publisher = D. Clapp
location = New York
date = 1858
pages = 295-296.] Establishing himself on Hudson Street in New York City, Brandreth eventually found success marketing his pills prompting a move to a larger facility which he built in Sing Sing, (later Ossining (village), New York) in 1838. Brandreth was a pioneer in using the then-infant technique of mass advertising in building brand awareness to create a mass market for his product. Brandreth created and published a wide variety of advertising material for his pills, including a 224 page tome entitled "The Doctrine of Purgation, Curiosities from Ancient and Modern Literature, from Hippocrates and Other Medical Writers". His advertising copy had a distinctly literary flavor which found favor with the public. Brandreth widely distributed his books and pamphlets throughout the country as well as taking copious advertising space in newspapers. [cite book
last = Young
first = James
title = The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation
publisher = Princeton University Press
location = Princeton
date = 1961] Eventually his pills became one of the best selling patent medicines in the United States [cite book
last = Hoolihan
first = Christopher
last = Atwater
first = Edward
title = An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American
publisher = Boydell & Brewer
location = New York
date = 2004
pages = 117
ISBN = 1580460984] “…A congressional committee in 1849 reported that Brandreth was the nation’s largest proprietary advertiser… Between 1862 and 1863 Brandreth’s average annual gross income surpassed $600,000…” [cite book
last = Hoolihan
first = Christopher
last = Atwater
first = Edward
title = An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American
publisher = Boydell & Brewer
location = New York
date = 2004
pages = 118
ISBN = 1580460984] For fifty years Brandreth’s name was a household word in the United States [cite book
last = White
first = James Terry
title = The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
publisher = J.T. White
location = United States
date = 1895
pages = 166
URL = http://books.google.com/books?id=Td0DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA166&dq=benjamin+brandreth&lr=] Indeed, the Brandreth pills were so well known they received mention in Herman Melville's classic "Moby Dick" [cite book
last = Melville
first = Herman
title = Moby-Dick; Or, The White Whale
publisher = L.C. Page & Co.
location = Boston
date = 1892
pages = 386
URL = http://books.google.com/books?id=cyokAAAAMAAJ&dq=moby+dick&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0] .

Other business interests

A prominent businessman, Brandreth was among the original founders and was the first President of the Westchester County Savings Bank in Tarrytown NY. The bank was incorporated on 21 July 1853 and was merged into Federal First Fidelity Bank on 30 December 1993. [cite web
url = http://www.banking.state.ny.us/histw.txt
title = The History of Banking in New York State
accessdate = 2008-06-06
author = New York State Banking Department] In 1857 he built the Brandreth Hotel near Canal and Broadway in New York City.

Brandreth Park

In 1851 Brandreth bought convert|26000|acre|km2 in the Adirondacks of New York State for 15 cents an acre [cite web
url = http://www.jbadamsgallery.com/article-franklin.htm
title = "Franklin Brandreth" Courtesy Adirondack Life Magazine
accessdate = 2008-06-06
author = John * Barbara Adamski] establishing the first private preserve in the Adirondack Park [cite web
url = http://www.jbadamsgallery.com/article-franklin.htm
title = "Franklin Brandreth" Courtesy Adirondack Life Magazine
accessdate = 2008-06-06
author = John * Barbara Adamski] becoming known as “Brandreth Park”. The Park remains in the family today and incorporates a number of cabins and cottages in a preserved wilderness setting. [cite book
last = Donaldson
first = Alfred Lee
title = A History of the Adirondacks
publisher = Century Co.
location = Adirondack Mountains, NY
date = 1921
pages = 60
URL = http://books.google.com/books?id=-b8LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA60&dq=benjamin+brandreth&lr=]

Political activities

Brandreth was a prominent Democrat in Westchester County and represented the district in the New York State Senate from 1849 to 1853. [cite book |title=New York Medical Eclectic |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1880 |publisher= |location=New York |isbn= |pages=95-98 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=VjsCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA95&dq=brandreth+leeds#PPA95,M1 ] In 1856 he narrowly lost election to the United States Congress to John W. Ferdon. He was active in a number of Democratic State conventions.

Civic

Brandreth was active in civic development in Sing Sing, (later Ossining, New York). He was an early subscriber to the fundraising effort to build the Trinity Church in that town. He was one of the founders of the New York Eclectic Medical College, which he supported financially throughout his life. He was active in the Masons who took charge of his funeral with full honors.

Family

Brandreth was married three times; first to Susan Leeds from whom he was divorced a few months after the marriage. His second wife was Harriet Smallpage to whom he was married 7 years until her death, and third to Virginia Graham. He had 3 children with his second wife and 10 with his third.

Death

Brandreth died on 22 February, 1880::"That morning he had risen early, reaching the plant, with his eldest son, at six-thirty. He had worked an hour or so in the mixing room. Then came a stroke of apoplexy and death. Thus, at the end as at the launching of his venture in America, Brandreth was mixing the purgative in which he so fervently believed." [cite book
last = Young
first = James
title = The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation
publisher = Princeton University Press
location = Princeton
date = 1961]

The impact Brandreth had on the local community of Sing Sing was noted by the account in the New York Times which stated that at the time of his death :“…flags have been hung at half-mast there and on Saturday all the business places of the village, including the bank, Post Office, Soldiers’ monument, and several hotels, together with innumberable private dwellings, we draped in mourning. [cite news
title = Funeral of Dr. Brandreth, Sing Sing Village in Mourning – the Whole Population at the Funeral
url = http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E01EED71E31EE3ABC4B51DFB466838B699FDE
publisher = New York Times
page = 8
date = 23 February 1880]

Brandreth's funeral was held at the Trinity Church which could hold only a fraction of the mourners in attendance. Others lined the streets to the Dale Cemetery where he was buried. His body was in a wrought metal and bronze casket hermetically sealed with a full length plate glass top. [Medical Ecclectic p 97] The procession to the cemetery included carriages for the clergymen and pallbearers, the 16th Battalion brass band, the hearse with a bodyguard of 8 Masonic knights, and carriages for 150 friends and family, stretching out over a mile in length, so that the first carriages were arriving at the cemetery at about the same time as the last were leaving the church.

Allcock Manufacturing Company

Brandreth's pill company was known as The Brandreth Pill Works when he established operations in Ossining New York. In 1848 he bought Allcock's Porous Plaster and the name of the firm eventually changed to Allcock Manufacturing. After Brandreth's death control of the firm eventually moved to his great-grandson, Fox Brandreth Conner, who began manufacturing animal traps along with pills and plasters. After a pause in production for World War II production of the traps resumed and the "Havahart" brand became a registered trademark. Conner sold the pill and plaster business in the 1960's thus ending Brandreth's medical legacy, but continued making the Havahart traps. In 1979 the Havahart trap business was sold to the Woodstream Corporation of Lititz, Pennsylvania, and the remaining property in Ossining was sold to Filex Steel Products Company. The remaining 34 employees in Ossining were offered jobs in Pennsylvania with the new owner, but many retired, thus ending the 142 year legacy of Brandreth's enterprise. [cite news |first=Suzanne |last=DeChillo |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Business is Sold After 142 Years, but Its Heart Lives On|url= http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0E1FF93C5D12718DDDAC0A94DB405B898BF1D3&scp=6&sq=benjamin%20brandreth&st=cse|work= |publisher=New York Times |date=25 March 1979 |accessdate=2008-09-10 ]

References