Codger_64
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Henry Baer was born on Decenber 24th, 1899.
Born Henry B. Baer in Manhattan on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1899, the man known to his peers, workers, customers and friends, eventually to the world as "Uncle Henry", was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Henry Bodenheim (1823-1873).Today would have been Henry B. Baer's 112th birthday.
His maternal grandfather, Henry Bodenheim (1823-1873) was a partner of Aaron Kastor and Abraham Meyer in Bodenheim, Meyer, and Kastor of New York City, importers of guns, cutlery, and hardware from Belgium, England, and Germany, primarily marketed in the South. Bodenheim came to America from Germany in the 1840’s and lived in Vicksburg, MS., until 1865. The Vicksburg, Missisippi city directory of 1860 lists Bodenheim H. & Co., drygoods merchants, Washington St., West side.
Aaron Kastor (Koester) 1822-1885, came to America in 1841 and settled in Natchez, Missisippi becoming a prosperous merchant. He became a naturalized citizen in 1847 and changed his last name to the anglicized spelling (later adopted by his nephews). In 1864, six months after Union forces took Vicksburg, Aaron went to New York City and exchanged his $250,000 in greenbacks for $100,000 in gold. He then went to Europe (England, France, Germany) to buy hardware for import. He joined with Henry Bodenheim and Abraham Meyer in 1865 to form Bodenheim Meyer & Co. Kastor became a full partner in 1867 and their primary market was the American South.
Bodenheim, Meyer & Co., 149 Duane and 9 Thomas street, New York is listed in a letter of 1872 pleading with the Federal government to end the post war Federal occupation of New Orleans. It is also listed in Wilson's New York City Directory Of Copartnerships in March, 1874. The 42 Warren Street address is listed in the New York Hardware Directory of 1871.
Henry Bodenheim died in 1873 and the company reorganized as Meyer & Kastor, but did not fare well for a variety of reasons. In September of 1876, the company closed up shop for the final time; all debts and assets were liquidated.
In fact, it was Aaron’s nephew, Adolph Kastor, immigrated from Germany in 1870, who hired Henry's younger brother, Albert as a salesman at age 16 in 1922. In October, 1876, the 20-year old Adolph Kastor had his new company operating in a building on Canal Street in New York City, Adolph Kastor & Bros., importers of German made knives. This eventually became Camillus Cutlery. In 1932, August Kastor retired from Kastor Bros. and sold his shares in Kastor Bros. to Albert Baer. This is how the Baer's came to begin Camillus ownership.
Henry started out at age sixteen working for Frank Seeman Inc., an advertising agency in New York in 1916 and attended classes at the Art Student‘s League at night. But he soon joined the U.S. Navy in 1917, serving in WWI.
Returning home at the war‘s end, Henry was employed with his two uncles in their furniture business. Both Uncles died four years later in 1922 and Henry, then 22, took over the business, traveling from Maine to Georgia three weeks of the month as salesman.
It was while making a sales call in New York City that Henry met with a bizarre accident. Opening a door he thought led to a stairwell, Henry plummeted four stories down an open elevator shaft. He survived the fall, but spent six months in Bellevue Hospital recovering from his injuries… a broken pelvis, two broken arms and nose, and a potentially fatal skull fracture.
For those six months he was recovering in the hospital younger brother Albert, then 18 and employed with Adolph Kastor & Bros., visited nightly and wrote to Henry’s customers, taking care of their orders so that no customers were lost.
Henry joined his younger brother Albert in the knife business when the latter bought out the Divine family who owned what would be renamed the Ulster Knife Company in Walden New York. And continued with his brother when he, under the auspices of IKAC, purchased the Schrade family ownership of Schrade Cutlery, subsequently renamed Schrade Walden just at the end of WWII, and still later when he bought the remaining shares of the Kastor family in Camillus Cutlery in 1963, and Imperial Knife Associated Companies in 1983 to form Imperial Schrade Corporation.
Henry's creativity bloomed in the cutlery world with colorful logos, slogans, and unique knife designs including the Old Timer lines (1958) and the Uncle Henry lines (1967) that saw Schrade rise to the top of the heap in the marketplace, holding the title of the world's largest manufacturer of quality cutlery for years.
From the 1989 Schrade newsletter:
“Henry Baer possessed a natural business accumen which along with his sense of humor and affability made him a success. His creativity was evidenced by many Schrade innovations. And his commitment to making quality product demanded that he field test all Schrade designs before they were introduced to the public.”
In 1983, Henry Baer was elected into the Cutlery Hall of Fame for his contributions to the cutlery industry.
He was artistic in the more commonly thought of arts as well as in his knife design work. His inter-office memos were decorated with caricatures of himself doing whatever action he was requesting of his staff in the memos. His communications with customers were often spiced with poems and jokes, his watercolors and self-portrait artwork hung in the factory. I have a few examples of his sketches and caricatures from some papers of the early 1970's.
Henry Baer, retired President of Schrade Cutlery Corporation died in his apartment in Manhattan NY., at age 88 at 12:00 noon, Sunday, June 14th, 1987. He had been the President more than 35 years, and also Vice President of the Imperial Schrade Corporation, Schrade’s Parent Company. Listed in his obituary were his wife, Elsa Baer, sons Henry Phillip and Albert, both of Manhattan and two grandchildren, Hank and Susie Baer.
Happy birthday Henry!
Born Henry B. Baer in Manhattan on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1899, the man known to his peers, workers, customers and friends, eventually to the world as "Uncle Henry", was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Henry Bodenheim (1823-1873).Today would have been Henry B. Baer's 112th birthday.
His maternal grandfather, Henry Bodenheim (1823-1873) was a partner of Aaron Kastor and Abraham Meyer in Bodenheim, Meyer, and Kastor of New York City, importers of guns, cutlery, and hardware from Belgium, England, and Germany, primarily marketed in the South. Bodenheim came to America from Germany in the 1840’s and lived in Vicksburg, MS., until 1865. The Vicksburg, Missisippi city directory of 1860 lists Bodenheim H. & Co., drygoods merchants, Washington St., West side.
Aaron Kastor (Koester) 1822-1885, came to America in 1841 and settled in Natchez, Missisippi becoming a prosperous merchant. He became a naturalized citizen in 1847 and changed his last name to the anglicized spelling (later adopted by his nephews). In 1864, six months after Union forces took Vicksburg, Aaron went to New York City and exchanged his $250,000 in greenbacks for $100,000 in gold. He then went to Europe (England, France, Germany) to buy hardware for import. He joined with Henry Bodenheim and Abraham Meyer in 1865 to form Bodenheim Meyer & Co. Kastor became a full partner in 1867 and their primary market was the American South.
Bodenheim, Meyer & Co., 149 Duane and 9 Thomas street, New York is listed in a letter of 1872 pleading with the Federal government to end the post war Federal occupation of New Orleans. It is also listed in Wilson's New York City Directory Of Copartnerships in March, 1874. The 42 Warren Street address is listed in the New York Hardware Directory of 1871.
Henry Bodenheim died in 1873 and the company reorganized as Meyer & Kastor, but did not fare well for a variety of reasons. In September of 1876, the company closed up shop for the final time; all debts and assets were liquidated.
In fact, it was Aaron’s nephew, Adolph Kastor, immigrated from Germany in 1870, who hired Henry's younger brother, Albert as a salesman at age 16 in 1922. In October, 1876, the 20-year old Adolph Kastor had his new company operating in a building on Canal Street in New York City, Adolph Kastor & Bros., importers of German made knives. This eventually became Camillus Cutlery. In 1932, August Kastor retired from Kastor Bros. and sold his shares in Kastor Bros. to Albert Baer. This is how the Baer's came to begin Camillus ownership.
Henry started out at age sixteen working for Frank Seeman Inc., an advertising agency in New York in 1916 and attended classes at the Art Student‘s League at night. But he soon joined the U.S. Navy in 1917, serving in WWI.
Returning home at the war‘s end, Henry was employed with his two uncles in their furniture business. Both Uncles died four years later in 1922 and Henry, then 22, took over the business, traveling from Maine to Georgia three weeks of the month as salesman.
It was while making a sales call in New York City that Henry met with a bizarre accident. Opening a door he thought led to a stairwell, Henry plummeted four stories down an open elevator shaft. He survived the fall, but spent six months in Bellevue Hospital recovering from his injuries… a broken pelvis, two broken arms and nose, and a potentially fatal skull fracture.
For those six months he was recovering in the hospital younger brother Albert, then 18 and employed with Adolph Kastor & Bros., visited nightly and wrote to Henry’s customers, taking care of their orders so that no customers were lost.
Henry joined his younger brother Albert in the knife business when the latter bought out the Divine family who owned what would be renamed the Ulster Knife Company in Walden New York. And continued with his brother when he, under the auspices of IKAC, purchased the Schrade family ownership of Schrade Cutlery, subsequently renamed Schrade Walden just at the end of WWII, and still later when he bought the remaining shares of the Kastor family in Camillus Cutlery in 1963, and Imperial Knife Associated Companies in 1983 to form Imperial Schrade Corporation.
Henry's creativity bloomed in the cutlery world with colorful logos, slogans, and unique knife designs including the Old Timer lines (1958) and the Uncle Henry lines (1967) that saw Schrade rise to the top of the heap in the marketplace, holding the title of the world's largest manufacturer of quality cutlery for years.
From the 1989 Schrade newsletter:
“Henry Baer possessed a natural business accumen which along with his sense of humor and affability made him a success. His creativity was evidenced by many Schrade innovations. And his commitment to making quality product demanded that he field test all Schrade designs before they were introduced to the public.”
In 1983, Henry Baer was elected into the Cutlery Hall of Fame for his contributions to the cutlery industry.
He was artistic in the more commonly thought of arts as well as in his knife design work. His inter-office memos were decorated with caricatures of himself doing whatever action he was requesting of his staff in the memos. His communications with customers were often spiced with poems and jokes, his watercolors and self-portrait artwork hung in the factory. I have a few examples of his sketches and caricatures from some papers of the early 1970's.
Henry Baer, retired President of Schrade Cutlery Corporation died in his apartment in Manhattan NY., at age 88 at 12:00 noon, Sunday, June 14th, 1987. He had been the President more than 35 years, and also Vice President of the Imperial Schrade Corporation, Schrade’s Parent Company. Listed in his obituary were his wife, Elsa Baer, sons Henry Phillip and Albert, both of Manhattan and two grandchildren, Hank and Susie Baer.
Happy birthday Henry!
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