Once upon a pub... A Camillus story

Codger_64

Codger_64

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McNamara’s Pub at 5600 Newport Rd. in Camillus, New York, besides being the meeting place for the CNYPHC (Central New York Parrot Head’s Club), otherwise known as the “SnoSharks” (Jimmy Buffett Fan Club), is a historic spot. A popular venue for aspiring blues and jazz artists, meeting place for local social clubs and sports fans, McNamara’s is located a few blocks North of the Camillus Cutlery factory located at 54 Main Street.

Former Wildcat player (Class of 1984) and SU All-American Jim McNamara re-furbished the former Camillus Clubhouse in the village of Camillus and it is the place to meet following every Wildcat lacrosse game.

It is also the home of Camillus Clubhouse Lanes, bowling. But the bowling isn’t new there. The first bowling alley was installed there in 1909. And a movie theater projector in 1915. The same year the British blockaded our ports to prevent imports from and exports to Germany. That was just prior to the undercover agent, Pfeiffer, moving in. :confused:

Want to know more? ;)

Continued......

Michael
 
This is a story which was brought to my attention by Mr. Tom Williams, Camillus Historian. Due to his familiarity with the subject and the details of the story, I feel it is best told in his own words. I may add a few details and commentary, but this is the story as presented by Mr. Williams recently to the Camillus Historical Society. Thank you for sharing this with us Tom!

Germania Hall ...... Camillus, New York

In 1902, Adolph Kastor, a knife importer from New York City, purchased Sherwood Cutlery in the village of Camillus, N.Y. The original knife shop consisted of a one story building with twenty employees.

Mr. Kastor expanded the Company and needed skilled workers. Experienced cutlers were available from Germany and they were eager to come to America. Adolph Kastor who had emigrated from Germany in 1870, preferred German cutlers because he was familiar with the quality of their work and methods of knife construction.

Germania Hall, which was located at the present site of McNamara’s Pub, was built in 1903 to house the newly arrived German immigrants. For $7.00 a week, the workers were provided with room and board and Germania Hall also had a library, well stocked with German literature, a dance hall, and general assembly room.

In 1909, bowling alleys were added and in 1915, a movie projector was installed.

Camillus Cutlery, like most newly established knife manufacturers in the United States, brought skilled workers from Europe where the cutlery business had existed for several years. Many of the original twenty workers from Sherwood Cutlery had come from England.

By 1910, Camillus Cutlery had grown to 200 employees working in six buildings with many of the workers having come from Germany. The Germans were highly skilled and produced top quality work.

By WW I, the cutlery had become a major supplier of military knives to the United States, British and Canadian Armed Forces. Many of the newly arrived Germans, many of whom only spoke their native language, were viewed with mistrust. Rumors began to circulate that the German workers at Camillus were sabotaging knives intended for the military. At one point, rumors escalated that suggested the Germans were planning to blow up the Camillus factory. Acting on these rumors, the New York State Police planted an undercover agent in the cutlery and Germania Hall. Ed Pfeifer was chosen because he spoke fluent German. In 1918, Trooper Pfiefer was given a job in the cutlery and resided in Germania Hall. He blended in with the Germans and looked for signs of sabotage. After several months of observation, no sabotage was detected.

If the German knifemakers worked hard and established themselves in the community, Mr. Kastor would also bring their families to America. The Company built forty houses in the village and the Germans became an integral part of the local community.

Today, descendants of these families can be found in the town of Camillus. I have included a copy of a Company document showing some of these workers that came from Germany to work at the Cutlery. Note the name Raab and Maus. These families would later become the owners of the former Germania Hall which was later called “Raab’s”, or the Camillus Clubhouse. The Company sold Germania Hall to the Raab family in 1922.


I'll fill in some more details soon, some provided by Tom along with this paper presented to the Historical Society, and some gleaned from Alfred Lief in his 1944 book about Camillus, and the 1951-1952 Camillus Digest books, also provided by Tom.

Michael

PS- will edit in full illustrations soon. Scanner has not been responsive to faith healing!
 
Still no scanner, but with your indulgence, I'll try to expound upon the information Tom provided in his presentation, a bit at a time and from other resoiurces he has provided.

In 1902, Adolph Kastor, a knife importer from New York City, purchased Sherwood Cutlery in the village of Camillus, N.Y. The original knife shop consisted of a one story building with twenty employees.


Sherwood cutlery? A flour mill was the first real industry in Camillus, “Novelty Steam Mills”. It didn’t do well, however due to increasing competition from Midwestern grain mills and lack of transportation, the railroad passed eight miles away through Syracuse and the Erie Canal was not very dependable. The mills were soon converted into a distillery in 1855, also a failure.

A chair factory was started on the site of the flour mill in the 1886, but it soon burned. Edward D. Sherwood bought the site and built another chair factory in 1888. It burned within a year.

It lay an abandoned ruin until the spring of 1894 when Charles E. Sherwood, brother of Edward D. Sherwood built a single story building to be used as a penknife factory. He took his brother-in-law, Denton E. Bingham, a Sheffield trained cutler, as partner and factory superintendent. They made their first shipment of thirty dozen knives “of first class work” in October of that year.

Sherwood found it difficult to make a profit, however, so leased the factory to a Rochester cutlery, Robeson with Sherwood remaining as manager. But in 1898, Robeson Cutlery was offered a free factory in Perry, N.Y., closer to Rochester and moved out. The factory was eventually reopened by Sherwood, but still “with varying success”, according to Sherwood.

A cutlery importer, the country’s largest, was discouraged by high import tariffs and the slow delivery of the small amount of goods Sherwood could supply. The importer first tried partnering with a shear manufacturer in Connecticut, but to no advantage, except to recoup the investment when the factory water power resources were sold to a public utility. The Sherwood factory employed about twenty cutlers who, while producing quality knives, did so at a slow pace.

So the importer contracted with Sherwood to lease the factory. The leasee added an additional building in the rear and another story to the main building. Finally, in 1902, Adolph Kastor traveled to Camillus and laid down fifteen thousand dollars cash to buy Sherwood’s factory outright. The cutlery grew steadily from that time forward. Soon steam drop-forge hammers and fly-presses were installed. New styled alumina wheels replaced the old style dry sandstone grinding wheels, and suction removed the dust as it was made.

Kastor’s cutlery grew quickly beyond the capabilities of the original Sherwood cutlers, most of whom were, like Mr. Bingham, trained in Sheffield and the old school English practice of wholly hand made works. With brother Nathan ensconced in the company office in Ohligs-Solengin and managing their factory there, Germania Cutlery Works, Adolph began importing cutlers from Germany as well as knives. Naturally, housing the immigrant cutlers in the small, essentially one industry village was an immediate problem. Kastor’s solution was Germania Hall, a dormitory and social center for the bachelor cutlers.

Continued.....

Michael
 
...Germania Hall also had a library, well stocked with German literature, a dance hall, and general assembly room.

A dance hall? This from the 1951 Camillus Digest - Employee Recollections:

The place was a great social center, and when a dance was held there it was necessary to put props under the building to make it safe for the crowds that attended.

Costume balls and masquerades took place frequently. A fellow named Zimmerman, lover of pomp and circumstance, never failed to come onto the dance floor riding a horse.

In 1909, bowling alleys were added...

Don’t try this at your local bowling alley! (Ibid)

In the old days the grinders came over from Germany. They wore wooden shoes, not only at work, but also at bowling in the club house.

...and in 1915, a movie projector was installed.

Movies in 1915? This is a clipping from the local paper dated 1-22-15 relating the news of the new device and inviting the public to attend showings.

GERMANIA CLUB OFFER MOVIES
Camillus to Have Best in Motion Pictures, Three Runs Each Week, at Germania Hall. Popular Local Club in Charge Makes This Local Enterprise.

The Camillus Germania Club have installed in their hall an up-to-date moving picture machine and will give regular performances Wednesday nights at 8 O’clock and two performances every Sunday at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The opening day is Sunday, Jan. 24.

The club have made arrangements with one of the biggest New York film exchanges and will procure the most recent and up-to-date films. They hope to give complete satisfaction to their patrons with these pictures. In the near future the club will also show interesting pictures of foreign countries and pictures which have an educational character.

It is hoped that the people of Camillus will attend the performances as much as possible, as the club has gone to a great expense in acquiring the machine, and will pay a good deal for their high quality films. The new machine is a standard Power make, and works splendedly. See the big ad space in this issue and come and see for yourself.
 
Rumors began to circulate that the German workers at Camillus were sabotaging knives intended for the military. At one point, rumors escalated that suggested the Germans were planning to blow up the Camillus factory. Acting on these rumors, the New York State Police planted an undercover agent in the cutlery and Germania Hall.

Tom makes it easy for me to expand upon this subject. He sent along a copy of an article from the 1986 Syracuse Herald American Stars Magazine by Bob Peel on the subject.

Sabotage at Camillus Cutlery? Impossible! Few companies have a better record in efficiency or quality, even way back then in 1918.

But during the early days of World War I, whispers were heard that maybe, just maybe, some of the shipments of special military knives and scalpels going to the Western Front were being maliciously damaged or deliberately made defective even before they left the plant.

Camillus Cutlery was already more than 20 years old when the U.S. entered the war, and it was known for quality merchandise. But - and here is where the rumors began - the owner had been born in Germany and many of his workers had come from there in very recent years. The story finally grew to such proportions that it was now said the whole factory was going to be blown up.

Those rumors were strong enough that a member of the New York State Police was given orders to infiltrate the cutlery staff. His assignment: Get next to those Germans and find out just whose side of the war they were really on.

Undercover Trooper

It was a tough order for Trooper Ed Pfieffer, but the State Police knew they had the perfect agent for the undercoverwork. Ed spoke fluent German because both his mother and father had come from Germany and still used the language.

And not only could he mix in well with the German work force, but Ed had already proven his toughness, according to research completed last year by present day NYSP Sgt. Kevin Kailbourne. Shortly after graduation from trooper training camp, he had ridden horseback from the old Onondaga Valley barracks across the Adirondacks to Malone and back in one month. It was winter, but overcoats had not yet been issued and the temperature went as low as minus 14.

Ed was 25. He had been born in New York City and spent his childhood in Pennsylvania. When he was still a teenager, his family moved again to LeRoy in Western New York. There his father ran a beer distributorship. Ed might have stayed with him, but prohibition laws were on the horizon and a job with the troopers seemed to have a better future.

So the young trooper dressed in Civillian clothes checked in at the cutlery employment office early in 1918. The plant needed all the workers it could find. In addition to one of the best civillian lines in the nation, it had been turning out knives for the U.S., British and Canadian navies, Red Cross knives and military scalpels.

New Man At The Knifeworks

A little mechanical experience had been picked up by Ed at his father’s business, so he had no trouble working his way up as a cutler. That was back in the days when the blade grinders wore wooden shoes because the floor was always awash in water needed on grinding wheels.

Owner Adolph Kastor did everything possible for his workers. He built a $7 per week room and board dormitory for the bachelors and gave them a recreation hall with a library full of excellent German literature. There was even a bowling alley (where they still wore the wooden shoes) and a dance floor. Trooper Pfieffer moved into the dorm. He was good at most sports, so he joined company teams and played cards many evenings.

All the time he was assuming the role of a jolly German, Ed had his eyes and ears wide open. He made sure he had a look at many of the military shipments. He gossiped over card hands. He talked after lights out in the dorm with homesick Germans.

There were names such as Hansel and Grieshaber and Schlosser and Schmitz and Voelker. German was spoken much of the time and grand old German drinking songs accompanied many a stein of beer. But there was never one sign or suspicion of sabotage.

Patriots, not Saboteurs

Camillus Cutlery made patriots as well as pocketknives. The workers exceeded their quotas in quality knives. Many joined the American Military forces including the two sons of the owner, Kastor. Camillus was given a well-deserved clean bill of health. The rumors stopped. In World War II, the cutlery produced over four million knives for the American forces during the first two years of the war.

Trooper Pfieffer continued a glowing career with the State Police until 1921, when his father became quite ill and he resigned to help his family. Later he married and ran an automobile dealership for more than thirty years in Wayland, at the Northern tip of Steuben County...

So there you have the rest of that story. The rumors were fueled by the times, more than by racial prejudice, in my own opinion. A brief search will bring you to events like the “Black Tom Explosion”, an almost certain case of sabotage by German agents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion

Michael
 
The current business of selling beer at the old Camillus Clubhouse is not a new one either. As one might imagine, grinders and cutlers from Germany, Hungary, and Bavaria liked their beer. Here are a few stories related in the 1951 Camillus Digest - Employee Recollections:

One day Moritz Meyer, who was then plant manager, found the whole crew of grinders there (Club House); they had escaped the factory grounds by taking a board off the fence. He could not persuade them back to work until he bought them a half-barrel of beer.

Here is another.

Zimmerman was president of a ten-man club called the Rup-Ti-Up. When the treasurer’s report was rendered, it would appear that there was not enough money left which Zimmerman could use to buy himself a drink. This was an honor due him - and it was still due. Out of respect for his office, members would call for Zimmerman at his house (at 2 or 3 a.m.) To convey him to a meeting. They wheeled him in state - in a wheelbarrow.

And another.

The cutlers used to send a boy to the Club House each morning and afternoon to fetch beer. Summertime lunches were another outlet for the men’s high spirits. After the meal, those who had brought watermelons and those who had brought oranges divided into two groups, and at a given signal, the missiles flew. Of course, the contest between watermelon rinds and orange peels was an unequal one, and sometimes an innocent bystander thought so too.

Michael
 
My great grandfather, John Raab who purchased Germania Hall in 1922, was actually from Stolz , Hungary. He did work for the Cutlery but they must have listed his country of origin wrong.
 
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