All about coffee by William H. Ukers

Blair, 129 Washington Street; Colgate Gilbert, 93 Fulton Street; Wright Gillies, 236 Washington Street; and Withington, Wilde & Welch, 7 Dutch Street. In this year, two coffee importers, fourteen tea importers, and forty-one tea dealers were listed in the _City Directory_. The _Directory_ for 1854 listed twenty-seven coffee roasters and spice factors, among them, in addition to the above, being Peter Haulenbeek, 328 Washington Street; Levi Rowley, 102 West Street; William J. Stitt, 159 Washington Street; and George W. Wright, 79 Front Street. In those days not all the wholesale coffee factors were roasters; there was much trade roasting by a few large plants. While the coffee-roasting business of Samuel Wilde's Sons appears to be the oldest in New York, having descended in a practically unbroken line from 1814, several others continued considerably past the half-century mark, and among them special mention should be accorded to: Levi Rowley's Star Mills, dating back to 1823; Beard & Cummings, 1834; Wright Gillies & Bro., 1840; Loudon & Son, the Metropolitan Mills, 1853; and the Eppens Smith Co., present day successors of Thomas Reid's Globe Mills of 1855. The Star Mills in Duane Street became a real factor in the wholesale coffee-roasting business on Manhattan Island about 1823. At a later date, Levi Rowley secured control, and under his able direction the business flourished. Benedict & Gaffney bought the Star Mills from Rowley in 1885. A few years later the firm became Benedict & Thomas, then Thomas & Turner, and finally the R.G. Thomas Co. R.G. Thomas sold the equipment in 1920, ending the manufacturing end of the business just about a century from the time it started. Mr. Thomas is now with Russell & Co. Before being identified with the Star Mills, he was for twenty years with Packard & James, 123 Maiden Lane. While still a lad of nineteen, Wright Gillies came from a Newburgh farm in 1838, and obtained a clerkship in a tea store in Chatham Street, now Chambers and Duane Street. He branched out for himself in the tea and coffee business at 232 Washington Street in 1840, removing in 1843 to 236, which had a courtyard where he installed a horse-power coffee roaster. In the same building, over the store, lived Thomas McNell and his wife. Mr. McNell afterward became a member of the firm of Smith & McNell, proprietors of the Washington Street hotel and restaurant, for many years one of New York City's landmarks. The coffee business, thus started by Wright Gillies, is still conducted, as the Gillies Coffee Co., by the same family and at practically the same location; and it is interesting to note that the roasting room still has the original arrangement, partly below the street level but with the machinery in view from the sidewalk. This arrangement was characteristic of the old roasting establishments. [Illustration: GROUP OF OLD-TIME NEW YORK COFFEE ROASTERS, 1892 Standing, left to right, W.H. Eppens, Fred Reid, unknown, Julius A. Eppens, Fred Eppens. Seated, left to right, John F. Pupke, Thomas Reid, Henry Mayo, Fred Akers, Alexander Kirkland] James W. Gillies, a younger brother, came from Newburgh in 1848 to assist in the enterprise. Young Gillies superintended the horse-power roaster and drove the light spring delivery cart. Soon the firm became Wright Gillies & Bro. Fires visited the business in 1849 and in 1858; but each time it arose the stronger for the experience. Wright Gillies retired in 1884, and James W. Gillies assumed entire charge under the name of the Gillies Coffee Co. He continued active until his death in