Читать книгу The Inventive Life of Charles Hill Morgan: The Power of Improvement In Industry, Education and Civic Life - Allison Chisolm - Страница 30

As a widower with a young son, Morgan sought to remarry. In Camden, he met young Rebecca A. Beagary, who lived just a block south of Cyrus, on Cooper Street. A neighborhood with a mix of residences and businesses, Cooper Street was also the location of the new Esterbrook Steel Pen Factory, the first of its kind in America.

Charles and Rebecca married in Philadelphia in the late afternoon of August 4, 1863, and she joined the Morgan household, now moved to 214 Friends Avenue. As her grandson, Paul B. Morgan, Jr. later described her, “She stood at least a foot shorter than Grandfather and a slightly crooked nose, caused by falling down the cellar stairs in childhood, lent character rather than disfigurement to her attractive face.”

The newlyweds honeymooned in New York City and travelled to Niagara Falls, according a letter written by a girlhood friend of Rebecca’s the following April. The couple visited the venerable Trinity Church and the newly expanded Central Park before heading north to the Canadian border. “I should like to have seen you when you were dressed to go under the falls,” said her friend, known only as “Charity,” adding, “you must have looked beautiful.”

The two women had shared many happy moments together before Charity moved to San Francisco, where her father was stationed at Mare Island, the West Coast’s only naval station. Her pet name for Rebecca was “Faith,” although she also called her “Beck.” Her friendly informality extended to Rebecca’s new husband.

“I have not received Mr. Morgan’s (may I call him Charlie! It doesn’t seem right to call your husband by his last name) picture... I want one of him very much indeed.” Homesick for her friends in Camden, she also asked for Henry Morgan’s picture, as well as his wife’s, promising to send one of herself in exchange. One of the few single women left among their group of friends, Charity shared many details of the Russian Ball she had attended the previous fall, hosted in honor of Russian officers in town for repairs to their ships. She signed off “always your loving and true sister,” with the admonition, “Don’t forget to send me Charlie’s picture.” The letter must have arrived during Rebecca’s final months of pregnancy.

It was a happy day in Camden when baby Harriet was born on June 8, 1864. Her healthy delivery less than two years after the deaths of baby Hiram and mother Hatty must have helped dispel some gloom and grief for Charles and now 10-year-old Harry.

Rebecca Morgan

Before baby Harriet’s birth, Charles had received an offer to become superintendent of manufacturing for Ichabod Washburn’s wire company in Worcester. By July 1864, he was dating his diary entries from Clinton. His family may have followed later in the summer, after Rebecca had fully recovered from Harriet’s birth and could undertake such a journey. Together with Charles’ father and Rebecca’s mother, Keziah Landers, her sister, Elizabeth Field, a war widow, and their niece, four-year-old Katie Field, they moved into their new Worcester home at 13 Prescott Street, an easy walk to Morgan’s office at 94 Grove Street.

The post-war Morgan Brothers bag business continued with Henry remaining in Philadelphia. He received an official license from Charles to manufacture the bags in the city in October 1865. With his brother now fully engaged in his work for Ichabod Washburn, Henry sought new partners. He found them in William H. Nixon and Edward D. Stokes.

On February 5, 1866, the firm of Morgan, Stokes & Nixon began operations in Philadelphia in a building at the corner of 24^th and Vine Streets. Charles Morgan granted them permission to manufacture the bags, requiring they pay him the standard royalty of three cents per 1,000 bags produced.

A diary entry from late 1867 details the profits estimated by Morgan, Stokes & Nixon. On the smallest-sized bags (#1/2), given the paper’s weight, cost per pound, card price and net price (with 15 percent off), every day that the machine made 30,000 bags would net them $13.20. For the largest-sized bags (#25), that figure rose to $46.80 per day.

Despite the healthy profits, the original partnership of the company lasted less than a year. On January 17, 1867, Henry Morgan sold his rights to William H. Nixon. Soon after, Martin Nixon bought out William Nixon and the firm became Stokes & Nixon. Their royalty obligations continued, however, as Henry directed them to pay Charles Morgan.

Only three months later, Stokes & Nixon, having liquidated the company and relinquished their rights to manufacture paper bags, made their last payment to Morgan. Henry moved to Boston within a few months, and Charles granted him a license to manufacture bags there. His agreement, dated November 2, 1867, gave Henry the same terms as any other licensee—royalty payments of three cents per 1,000 bags, due quarterly.

In August 1867, Charles summarized the competitive—and litigious—environment the Morgans operated in when he responded to an inquiry about bag manufacturing licenses in California and Oregon:

In every instance where parties are manufacturing Bags they are using my machine or else are forced to use the other from their territory having been previously sold. It may seem anomalous that two parties would hold Patents so similar. It arises from the fact that although my invention has achieved at the Patent Office the claim of being the only one entitled to a Patent, yet the test of an injunction has not yet been arrived at, and while I am anxious to bring this issue as soon as possible it cannot be determined sooner than from one to two years.

In order that you may form some judgment who will triumph, I enclose a copy of the decision of Wm. M. Merrick, Judge of the Circuit Court in reply to an appeal from the decision of the Commissioner of Patents. As to the other inquiries, I will say my machines are more simple, requiring less skill to operate and will produce more uniform and superior work and in larger amounts.

... I could not grant an exclusive right which in an emergency might shut off any other party from using my machine, thereby inviting into the field machines from the Union Co. thus depriving me of that much Royalty.

Morgan concluded in a postscript that he would be willing to sell, on a non-exclusive basis, the patent rights for those territories for $5,000. Because Union Paper Bag Company was still selling paper bags under other patents, the industry was maturing. It was no longer possible to maximize profits by granting exclusive licenses to distribute bags under the Rice patent. The maximum returns now lay in making and selling as many bags as possible.

While Morgan retained a business advantage as a key patent holder, he could no longer help to establish small paper bag making companies by limiting their territories, particularly not along the East Coast. The paper bag business had become a capital-intensive operation with a high cost of entry, due to larger competitors’ volume production, established channels of paper supply, bag distribution and possibly name recognition with their regular customers. The ongoing legal challenges clearly made business more difficult for Morgan, but as he wrote to a customer, “I do not fear the result, for I have posted myself in the history of the manufacture.”

He told prospective Baltimore customer Dr. George W. Bailey that before he would sell him the standard set of three paper bag machines, he warned:

I have grave doubt of the ultimate success of your undertaking, for the following reasons, which I must be candid and name to you, Viz. The business to be carried on as to successfully compete with the Philadelphia and Boston Establishments requires considerable capital, say from $70,000 to $150,000. Providing you bought all your paper, say from $20,000 to $50,000. The business has become one requiring a great amount of careful attention, and good judgment.

Charles continued to keep his hand in the business, however, seeing continued value in his half of the Rice patent, even from a distance. In December 1866, he bought the exclusive rights to extend Rice’s full patent another seven years beyond its original expiration of 1871. He shared this news with R.G. Peckham, a paper dealer and business colleague in Troy, New York, writing on February 4, 1867 that “in about 4 years the Rice Patent (Father of all Bag Machines) runs out and I have bought the right of extension which will give me control of the business for the next seven years (this is confidential).”