Brandreth Pill Factory
Encyclopedia
The former Brandreth Pill Factory is a historic industrial complex located on Water Street in Ossining
, New York, United States. It consists of several brick buildings from the 19th century, in a variety of contemporary architectural style
s. In 1980 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
Most of the original buildings succumbed to fire in the 1870s, but the oldest, a Greek Revival
building possibly designed by Calvin Pollard
in the 1830s, remains. Nearby is a corrugated iron structure that may be the earliest use of that material in Westchester County
. The main building itself was one of the first to have Otis elevators
installed.
Benjamin Brandreth
made his family's popular medicine, said to treat blood impurities, at the factory, starting in the 1830s. The factory's construction was the beginning of the industrial development of the Ossining waterfront. It continued to be used for manufacturing until the 1940s. Some of the smaller buildings remain in use today, although the former main building is vacant. The village is considering a proposal to convert
it to green
housing.
and the railroad tracks of Metro-North
's Hudson Line
and Amtrak
's Empire Service
. With the exception of a modern warehouse facility at the end of the street, north of the old main building, they are the only buildings in the area, some still used for industrial or commercial purposes. The land is level due to the proximity of the river; Water Street generally follows the lower edge of a steep wooded bluff to the north end of the site, where a stream flows into the Hudson and opens a wide gorge.
Just past the fork to Solitude Lane, about 400 feet (121.9 m) north of the intersection with Snowden Avenue and Westerly Road, are the first set of buildings. Between the street and the tracks is a gable
-roofed one-story brick storage building with segmental-arched windows. East of the street is a group of small buildings that constituted the factory in its earliest days—Brandreth's office (now demolished), a mixing and packing building, a box-making building and the storage facility that is the oldest building of the group.
Set back a short distance are two single-story buildings. The northerly of the pair is a Carpenter Gothic
-styled one-story structre with a gable
d roof, board-and-batten
siding and lancet arched windows in the gables. It was used to dry pills and make boxes, and as office space. It has been modified greatly since its construction. The southerly is a flat-roofed brick building used for pill manufacture.
To their east, at the edge of the woods, is the oldest building in the factory complex. It is a two-story three-by-three-bay
flat-roofed structure. Doric
pilaster
s at each corner, along with three at evenly-spaced intervals along between windows along the north and south facades, support a blank entablature
below the roof. Their granite
bases and capitals
complement the granite sills and lintels on the windows. A modern concrete block addition is attached to the south. Inside, it retains much of its original furnishing.
Another 150 feet (45.7 m) to the north, also between the road and the tracks, is a corrugated iron storage facility built on the original factory site. Its framing
, visible on the exterior, consists of timber wrapped in iron. In both roof gables are simple classically-inspired designs, also of iron-wrapped wood.
Further along Water, another 300 feet (91.4 m), on the east, is the joined complex of three buildings that includes the three-story main building. It is an L-shaped three-story brick structure with a slate-covered mansard roof
pierced by four brick chimneys. The tallest, near the south end of the L, rises two additional stories above the roof. Windows and doors have brick hood lintels; above the cast iron
cornice
supported by pendanted brackets are hooded dormer windows in the roof. Inside there is exposed original brick, segmental-arched entryways, walnut
and cast iron roof columns and exposed roof framing.
The main building has two extant additions: a one-story machine shop on the north side of the western corner, and a large two-story section with a corrugated iron gabled roof and segmental-arched windows without lintels extending east from the north end. The cleared sites of other additions, as well as several buildings in the bend of the L to the east, are still extant.
To the west of the building, at the street, is a small brick office building with a granite water table
. It is one and a half stories high, three bays by four, with a gabled roof supported by large wooden pendanted brackets
. Its decoration
also includes a course
of painted brickwork crosses setting off an entablature
above in the gable fields with some other isolated brickwork crosses. Fenestration consists of rectangular windows with granite sills and lintels along the north and south profiles, with an oculus
in the gable apex. Stone steps lead to the paneled wooden and glass doors, sheltered by a curved canopy supported by large brackets at the sides. Inside the remaining original features include intricately molded
woodwork and ceiling medallions, door hardware and a vault with a stone floor and brick walls.
who was raised in Liverpool
, Benjamin Brandreth
took over the patent medicine
business started by his grandfather in the 1820s. He pioneered the use of advertising with testimonial
s to the effectiveness of the pills' treatment of the blood impurities thought to create disease at the time, and developed a growing presence in the English and American markets. In 1835 he moved to New York with his family.
His success continued, and the following year he moved to Ossining, then known as Sing Sing, to acquire all the land the remaining buildings sit on, and build a factory. By 1837 he was working from two buildings, one of which is the Greek Revival
building that still stands in the cluster of buildings east of the street at the south end of the site. It may have been designed by Calvin Pollard
, who built two houses in Ossining for Brandreth (neither extant) during this period as well as St. Paul's Episcopal Church downtown. An early engraving
, used in his ads, depicts the building as having three stories and a cupola
. It was right on the shore of the Hudson.
Brandreth may have found Sing Sing not only a beautiful place to do business but a strategic one as well. Agricultural produce shipped down to its active river port could be used as the vegetable base of the pills, and those pills could then be shipped down to New York City. At the time, there were also mining and quarrying operations, particularly at the new Sing Sing Prison, on the riverside, but Brandreth's manufacture of finished good
s at his facility made his the first true industrial facility on the Ossining waterfront.
After an 1838 trip down the Mississippi River
to sell pills, the business grew even more. Brandreth became a naturalized
U.S. citizen in 1840, and became active in the politics of the growing village. He served as its president for three years, and later was elected to two separate terms in the State Senate
. In 1848, he purchased an interest in fellow English American
Thomas Allcock
's Porous Plasters and began developing a facility to manufacture them on an old mill site further up the river. The Hudson River Railroad was being built through Sing Sing that year, further extending the company's reach and filling in the riverfront to provide a stable, straight surface for tracks. The latter opened more land for future building in the process.
The factory's expansion served it well for the next two decades. It continued to produce 1.2 million boxes of pills annually, each of which retailed for 25 cents ($ in modern dollars). The pills were well-known enough that Herman Melville
mentioned them in Moby-Dick
and Edgar Allan Poe
devoted part of his story "Some Words with a Mummy
" to a fanciful discussion of what their ingredients might be. P.T. Barnum gave Brandreth sardonic recognition in his book Humbugs of the World for his promotional skills. Back in Ossining, Brandreth helped establish two banks, and was on the founding board of Dale Cemetery, still the community's largest. If the company had wanted to expand during this period, the economic pressures of the Civil War
prevented it from doing so.
Seven years after the end of the war, in 1872, a fire destroyed many of the buildings, including Brandreth's first manufacturing facility. The rebuilding put up most of the surviving buildings, as well as the more modern facility on an old mill site at the north end of the property: the current main building. Brandreth wanted to incorporate the newest technology into his new buildings, and so the storage facility midway between the two complexes was one of the first in Westchester to use corrugated iron while the main building had some of the first Otis elevator
s.
One morning in early 1880, Brandreth collapsed and died shortly after leaving his office. His son Franklin took over management. During the later years of the 19th century and the early 20th, the factory began to diversify its operations in response to increasing federal regulation of the patent-medicine industry. Among the new products were ammunition-box
liners for the military during World War I
.
Franklin Brandreth stepped down in 1928 and was replaced by his grandson Fox Brandreth Connor. By then the domestic market for the pills it had once manufactured in abundance was gone. Of the factory's earlier products, only porous plaster remained, and that was only made in winter. The company was making nail polish, mannequins, cell forms for bulletproof
fuel tanks and the Havahart line of non-lethal animal traps.
In 1940 the company sold the buildings at the southern end of the property to the Gallowhur corporation, which used them to make insect repellent and suntan lotion. The rights to the pill formula were also sold off after World War II
. Brandreth's company, under the Allcock name, continued its manufacturing operations in the 1870s complex until 1979. They were later used by the Filex Corporation, a maker of steel office furniture.
Eventually they became vacant again. In the 2000s a local developer proposed the Hidden Cove on the Hudson project for the main building area. A total of 132 new housing units would be created, 28 of which would be in the main building. The developers hope that they can obtain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) certification for the completed units.
Ossining (village), New York
Ossining is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 25,060 at the 2010 census. As a village, it is located in the Town of Ossining.-Geography:Ossining borders the eastern shores of the widest part of the Hudson River....
, New York, United States. It consists of several brick buildings from the 19th century, in a variety of contemporary architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
s. In 1980 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Most of the original buildings succumbed to fire in the 1870s, but the oldest, a Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
building possibly designed by Calvin Pollard
Calvin Pollard
Calvin Pollard was a prominent New York City architect. He is known for his early design of the Brooklyn Borough Hall, the Petersburg courthouse, and numerous other schools and houses in the New York City area.-Early life:...
in the 1830s, remains. Nearby is a corrugated iron structure that may be the earliest use of that material in Westchester County
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
. The main building itself was one of the first to have Otis elevators
Otis Elevator Company
The Otis Elevator Company is the world's largest manufacturer of vertical transportation systems today, principally focusing on elevators and escalators...
installed.
Benjamin Brandreth
Benjamin Brandreth
Benjamin Brandreth 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...
made his family's popular medicine, said to treat blood impurities, at the factory, starting in the 1830s. The factory's construction was the beginning of the industrial development of the Ossining waterfront. It continued to be used for manufacturing until the 1940s. Some of the smaller buildings remain in use today, although the former main building is vacant. The village is considering a proposal to convert
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
it to green
Green building
Green building refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition...
housing.
Buildings and grounds
The 5.6 acres (2.3 ha) site stretches along the north end of Water Street on Ossining's waterfront, close to the Hudson RiverHudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
and the railroad tracks of Metro-North
Metro-North Railroad
The Metro-North Commuter Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, or, more commonly, Metro-North, is a suburban commuter rail service that is run and managed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , an authority of New York State. It is the busiest commuter railroad in the United...
's Hudson Line
Hudson Line (Metro-North)
Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line is a commuter rail line running north from New York City along the east shore of the Hudson River. Metro-North service ends at Poughkeepsie, with Amtrak's Empire Corridor trains continuing north to and beyond Albany...
and Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
's Empire Service
Empire Service
Empire Service could refer to* Empire Service — a train service in New York State* BBC Empire Service — a radio service, the forerunner to the BBC World Service. - a cargo ship....
. With the exception of a modern warehouse facility at the end of the street, north of the old main building, they are the only buildings in the area, some still used for industrial or commercial purposes. The land is level due to the proximity of the river; Water Street generally follows the lower edge of a steep wooded bluff to the north end of the site, where a stream flows into the Hudson and opens a wide gorge.
Just past the fork to Solitude Lane, about 400 feet (121.9 m) north of the intersection with Snowden Avenue and Westerly Road, are the first set of buildings. Between the street and the tracks is a gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
-roofed one-story brick storage building with segmental-arched windows. East of the street is a group of small buildings that constituted the factory in its earliest days—Brandreth's office (now demolished), a mixing and packing building, a box-making building and the storage facility that is the oldest building of the group.
Set back a short distance are two single-story buildings. The northerly of the pair is a Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...
-styled one-story structre with a gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
d roof, board-and-batten
Batten
A batten is a thin strip of solid material, typically made from wood, plastic or metal. Battens are used in building construction and various other fields as both structural and purely cosmetic elements...
siding and lancet arched windows in the gables. It was used to dry pills and make boxes, and as office space. It has been modified greatly since its construction. The southerly is a flat-roofed brick building used for pill manufacture.
To their east, at the edge of the woods, is the oldest building in the factory complex. It is a two-story three-by-three-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
flat-roofed structure. Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s at each corner, along with three at evenly-spaced intervals along between windows along the north and south facades, support a blank entablature
Entablature
An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...
below the roof. Their granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
bases and capitals
Capital (architecture)
In architecture the capital forms the topmost member of a column . It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface...
complement the granite sills and lintels on the windows. A modern concrete block addition is attached to the south. Inside, it retains much of its original furnishing.
Another 150 feet (45.7 m) to the north, also between the road and the tracks, is a corrugated iron storage facility built on the original factory site. Its framing
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
, visible on the exterior, consists of timber wrapped in iron. In both roof gables are simple classically-inspired designs, also of iron-wrapped wood.
Further along Water, another 300 feet (91.4 m), on the east, is the joined complex of three buildings that includes the three-story main building. It is an L-shaped three-story brick structure with a slate-covered mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
pierced by four brick chimneys. The tallest, near the south end of the L, rises two additional stories above the roof. Windows and doors have brick hood lintels; above the cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
supported by pendanted brackets are hooded dormer windows in the roof. Inside there is exposed original brick, segmental-arched entryways, walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
and cast iron roof columns and exposed roof framing.
The main building has two extant additions: a one-story machine shop on the north side of the western corner, and a large two-story section with a corrugated iron gabled roof and segmental-arched windows without lintels extending east from the north end. The cleared sites of other additions, as well as several buildings in the bend of the L to the east, are still extant.
To the west of the building, at the street, is a small brick office building with a granite water table
Water table (architecture)
A water table is a masonry architectural feature that consists of a projecting course that deflects water running down the face of a building away from lower courses or the foundation...
. It is one and a half stories high, three bays by four, with a gabled roof supported by large wooden pendanted brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
. Its decoration
Ornament (architecture)
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
also includes a course
Course (architecture)
A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
of painted brickwork crosses setting off an entablature
Entablature
An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...
above in the gable fields with some other isolated brickwork crosses. Fenestration consists of rectangular windows with granite sills and lintels along the north and south profiles, with an oculus
Oculus
An Oculus, circular window, or rain-hole is a feature of Classical architecture since the 16th century. They are often denoted by their French name, oeil de boeuf, or "bull's-eye". Such circular or oval windows express the presence of a mezzanine on a building's façade without competing for...
in the gable apex. Stone steps lead to the paneled wooden and glass doors, sheltered by a curved canopy supported by large brackets at the sides. Inside the remaining original features include intricately molded
Molding (decorative)
Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...
woodwork and ceiling medallions, door hardware and a vault with a stone floor and brick walls.
History
A native of the English city of LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
who was raised in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, Benjamin Brandreth
Benjamin Brandreth
Benjamin Brandreth 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...
took over the patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
business started by his grandfather in the 1820s. He pioneered the use of advertising with testimonial
Testimonial
In promotion and of advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a written or spoken statement, sometimes from a person figure, sometimes from a private citizen, extolling the virtue of some product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary...
s to the effectiveness of the pills' treatment of the blood impurities thought to create disease at the time, and developed a growing presence in the English and American markets. In 1835 he moved to New York with his family.
His success continued, and the following year he moved to Ossining, then known as Sing Sing, to acquire all the land the remaining buildings sit on, and build a factory. By 1837 he was working from two buildings, one of which is the Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
building that still stands in the cluster of buildings east of the street at the south end of the site. It may have been designed by Calvin Pollard
Calvin Pollard
Calvin Pollard was a prominent New York City architect. He is known for his early design of the Brooklyn Borough Hall, the Petersburg courthouse, and numerous other schools and houses in the New York City area.-Early life:...
, who built two houses in Ossining for Brandreth (neither extant) during this period as well as St. Paul's Episcopal Church downtown. An early engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
, used in his ads, depicts the building as having three stories and a cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
. It was right on the shore of the Hudson.
Brandreth may have found Sing Sing not only a beautiful place to do business but a strategic one as well. Agricultural produce shipped down to its active river port could be used as the vegetable base of the pills, and those pills could then be shipped down to New York City. At the time, there were also mining and quarrying operations, particularly at the new Sing Sing Prison, on the riverside, but Brandreth's manufacture of finished good
Finished good
Finished goods are goods that have completed the manufacturing process but have not yet been sold or distributed to the end user.-Manufacturing:Manufacturing has three classes of inventory:#Raw material#Work in process#Finished goods...
s at his facility made his the first true industrial facility on the Ossining waterfront.
After an 1838 trip down the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
to sell pills, the business grew even more. Brandreth became a naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
U.S. citizen in 1840, and became active in the politics of the growing village. He served as its president for three years, and later was elected to two separate terms in the State Senate
New York State Senate
The New York State Senate is one of two houses in the New York State Legislature and has members each elected to two-year terms. There are no limits on the number of terms one may serve...
. In 1848, he purchased an interest in fellow English American
English American
English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
Thomas Allcock
Thomas Allcock
Thomas Allcock was the inventor of a plaster for pain relief and the founder of the Allcock Manufacturing Company.-Early life:Allcock was born and educated in Birmingham, England. A age 15 he studied and practiced chemistry. Alcock emigrated to the United States in 1845, settled in New York and...
's Porous Plasters and began developing a facility to manufacture them on an old mill site further up the river. The Hudson River Railroad was being built through Sing Sing that year, further extending the company's reach and filling in the riverfront to provide a stable, straight surface for tracks. The latter opened more land for future building in the process.
The factory's expansion served it well for the next two decades. It continued to produce 1.2 million boxes of pills annually, each of which retailed for 25 cents ($ in modern dollars). The pills were well-known enough that Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
mentioned them in Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
and Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
devoted part of his story "Some Words with a Mummy
Some Words with a Mummy
"Some Words with a Mummy" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in American Review: A Whig Journal in April 1845. It is a satire and criticism of the popularity of mummies and science that was occurring at the time.- Plot summary :...
" to a fanciful discussion of what their ingredients might be. P.T. Barnum gave Brandreth sardonic recognition in his book Humbugs of the World for his promotional skills. Back in Ossining, Brandreth helped establish two banks, and was on the founding board of Dale Cemetery, still the community's largest. If the company had wanted to expand during this period, the economic pressures of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
prevented it from doing so.
Seven years after the end of the war, in 1872, a fire destroyed many of the buildings, including Brandreth's first manufacturing facility. The rebuilding put up most of the surviving buildings, as well as the more modern facility on an old mill site at the north end of the property: the current main building. Brandreth wanted to incorporate the newest technology into his new buildings, and so the storage facility midway between the two complexes was one of the first in Westchester to use corrugated iron while the main building had some of the first Otis elevator
Otis Elevator Company
The Otis Elevator Company is the world's largest manufacturer of vertical transportation systems today, principally focusing on elevators and escalators...
s.
One morning in early 1880, Brandreth collapsed and died shortly after leaving his office. His son Franklin took over management. During the later years of the 19th century and the early 20th, the factory began to diversify its operations in response to increasing federal regulation of the patent-medicine industry. Among the new products were ammunition-box
Ammunition box
An ammunition box is a container designed for safe transport and storage of ammunition. It is typically made of metal and labelled with caliber, quantity, and manufacturing date or lot number...
liners for the military during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Franklin Brandreth stepped down in 1928 and was replaced by his grandson Fox Brandreth Connor. By then the domestic market for the pills it had once manufactured in abundance was gone. Of the factory's earlier products, only porous plaster remained, and that was only made in winter. The company was making nail polish, mannequins, cell forms for bulletproof
Bulletproof
Bulletproofing is the process of making something capable of stopping a bullet or similar high velocity projectiles e.g. shrapnel. The term bullet resistance is often preferred because few, if any, practical materials provide complete protection against all types of bullets, or multiple hits in the...
fuel tanks and the Havahart line of non-lethal animal traps.
In 1940 the company sold the buildings at the southern end of the property to the Gallowhur corporation, which used them to make insect repellent and suntan lotion. The rights to the pill formula were also sold off after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Brandreth's company, under the Allcock name, continued its manufacturing operations in the 1870s complex until 1979. They were later used by the Filex Corporation, a maker of steel office furniture.
Eventually they became vacant again. In the 2000s a local developer proposed the Hidden Cove on the Hudson project for the main building area. A total of 132 new housing units would be created, 28 of which would be in the main building. The developers hope that they can obtain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
(LEED) certification for the completed units.