Warner’s Safe Cure: Rochester Cityscapes (1904)

In my ongoing research of all things Safe Cure, I have had occasion to stumble upon some interesting material. Frequently, that material deals with the city where H. H. Warner chose to build his empire – Rochester.  He certainly made his mark on the city in a number of ways: the Warner’s Safe Remedies Building on St. Paul’s Avenue was opened in 1884, the Warner Observatory in 1883 and the Warner Mansion on East Avenue was finished in 1879. By 1887, Warner reached the apex of his success as the first president of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce and by 1893, his empire was in ruins.

In 1904, the Rochester Chamber of Commerce published a book with the not so remarkable title “Rochester in 1904.”  As one might expect, the book is a profile of the city, its history and flourishing business community.

 

Two things caught my attention in this book. The first was a series of wonderful skyline views of the city. The second was the almost complete absence of any reference to H. H. Warner or Warner’s Safe Cure. In the decade that followed the Panic of 1893 and the financial collapse of Warner, his previously indelible mark on the commercial face of Rochester had faded to nothing. The only mention of him in the book was the listing of his name as a signatory of the original Chamber of Commerce Certificate of Incorporation in June, 1888.  What a difference a decade makes. Here are a few of the Rochester cityscapes as they appeared in 1904.

Warner’s Safe Cure: A Chronology

I thought I would take a shot at creating a time line that summaries the significant events in the existence of the Warner’s Safe Cure Company and its founder, H. H. Warner. I’m sure that I will miss something and welcome any suggestions. This will likely be a work in progress, but here goes:

• 1842    Hulbert Harrington Warner born near Syracuse, New York in a small town called Warners, which was named after his grandfather, Seth, who had moved there in 1807 from Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

• 1864     Warner marries Martha L. Keeney, a prominent young woman from Skaneateles, New York. Like Warner, she was born in 1842, but died suddenly in 1871. The marriage produced no children. 

 

• 1865    Warner avoided service in the Union Army in the Civil War. He moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan where he and a partner were engaged in the stove and hardware business.

• 1870     Returned to New York and settled in Rochester as a dealer in fire and burglar proof safes. He was a dealer for the predecessor of the Mosler Safe Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. (See New York Daily Graphic, May 10, 1888; Rochester Union & Advertiser, April 27, 1883).

• 1872     Warner marries Emily Olive Stoddard (born 1847 in Michigan). It appears that this second marriage produced one child, a daughter, Maud. It also appears that Emily predeceased Warner.

• 1879     Following his recovery from Bright’s Disease, Warner purchases the rights to Dr. Charles Craig’s Kidney Cure and promptly begins to market it as Warner’s Safe Kidney & Liver Cure. In addition, he offers four other products: Safe Pills, Safe Nervine,  Safe Bitters and Safe Diabetes Cure. The company operates initially out of a building on Exhange Street in downtown Rochester.

• 1879     Warner is introduced to “Doctor” Lewis Swift, who was by vocation a partner in a hardware store and by avocation an astronomer who has discovered several comets. It was rumored that Swift was leaving Rochester, because he believed his talents were not sufficiently appreciated.

• 1882     Warner opens his Toronto Office and offers his cures in the 3-Cities bottles.

• 1883     Warner opens his London Office and begins offering his cures in a spectacular array of colored bottles.

• 1883     The Warner Observatory is completed and fitted out by January at a cost to Warner of $100,000. It boasts a 16″ telescope that was 22 feet long donated by the citizens of Rochester. It becomes a focal point of much of Warner’s advertising.

• 1884     The Warner’s Safe Remedies Building is opened on Warner’s 42nd birthday in January on St. Paul’s Avenue in Rochester. The iron front building was also marketed as the Warner’s Safe Yeast Building and in its eight stories housed Warner’s manufacturing, shipping and marketing operations. The fascade is graced with the monograms “W” and fitted out with first class details. The building remains today as the last vestige of Warner’s patent medicine empire.

 

• 1885     Warner adds his Safe Rheumatic Cure, Animal Cure and Safe Throatine to his product line. In addition, he introduces his Tippecanoe Bitters in two grades, “The Best” and “XXX” and phases out his Safe Bitters.

• 1887     Warner introduces his Log Cabin Remedies line of products, which included Log Cabin Sarsaparilla, Log Cabin Hops & Buchu Remedy, Log Cabin Cough and Consumption Remedy, Log Cabin Extract, Log Cabin Rose Cream, Log Cabin Hair Tonic, Log Cabin Plasters and Log Cabin Liver Pills.

 

• 1887     Warner opens his Frankfurt, Germany and Melbourne, Australia Office expanding his patent medicine empire onto three continents.

• 1888     Warner delivers his inaugeral address as president of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce in January.  Warner had been elected president in 1887 winning out over George Eastman, the owner of a little known camera company. Warner is perhaps at the peak of his prosperity with business failure and bankruptcy looming on the horizon.

• 1888     Warner opens his Pressburg, Hungary Office, which remains open only two years. Bottles from the Pressburg Office are particularly prized by collectors because of their rarity.

 

• 1891     Warner opens his Kreuzlingen, Switzerland and Dundein, New Zealand Offices. No Warner bottles embossed Kreuzlingen have ever surfaced. The bottles from the Dundein Office have become known as 4-Cities bottles because they bear the names of four of Warner’s offices at the time: Rochester, London, Toronto and Melbourne.

• 1893     In what would become known as the Panic of 1893, the American securities market crashed in February. Warner was overextended and when his creditors began to call his loans, he scrambled to raise cash. Warner’s longtime business partner, Arthur G. Yates, was unable to cover all of Warner’s debt. Warner was left to travel the country trying to offer his shares in H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. as collateral for his debts. While some creditors accepted the shares, others did not, and Warner was forced into bankruptcy  on May 8. He lost his mansion on East Avenue, his Observatory, his yacht, his retreat on Warner Island in the St. Lawrence River and, most importantly, his reputation.

 

• 1917     Christina de Martinez Warner (born 1878 in Mexico) was never officially married to  Warner, but apparently resided with him and served as an officer to the Nuera Remedy Company in Minneapolis in the 1930′s to early 1940′s. She resided at his address of 1311 Blaisdell Avenue in Minneapolis between 1917 and 1948.

• 1923     Warner dies in Minneapolis having never regained the economic prominence he enjoyed when the the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company was at its peak. To his credit, he never quit trying to reestablish his former renown. Warner is buried next to his first wife, Martha, in her family’s plot at Lakeview Cemetary in Skaneateles, New York.

• 1929     The Warner Mansion on East Avenue in Rochester is razed to make way for a parking lot.

The Rise and Fall of the Warner Empire: Business Setbacks (Part VII)

 If Warner had a fatal flaw, it was, perhaps, a restless spirit for new ventures. He was not satisfied with success in the fireproof safe business and turned to the patent medicine business. Success in the patent medicine business did not satisfy his appetite and pretty soon, he was throwing himself into other ventures. Unfortunately for him, success would not attend these ventures.

His first financial failure came as he was just beginning to make his mark in the medicine business. Warner partnered with other Rochester businessmen, including Arthur G. Yates, a self-made coal magnate, for the organization of the Rochester Grape Sugar Company in Kansas CIty. The company was formed to produce glucose. It failed. Moreover, Warner and Yates agreed to act as sureties for each other’s debts.

Undeterred, Warner joined another venture in 1881, when a group of seventeen Rochester businessmen formed the Horseshoe Silver Mining Company with $1 million in capital. The Company was organized to mine silver on the western slope of the Continental Divide near Denver. With ownership of 24,200 shares of stock, Warner was elected as president. It appeared that the Company would benefit from another syndicate organized to construct a tunnel for the Union Pacific Railroad in the vicinity of the mining company’s property. Despite a flurry of positive publicity touting the collaborative benefits, no payoff was realized. According to a column in the June 22, 1893 New York Times, Warner also invested $191,000 in the Genesee Gold Mining Company, $28,000 in the San Jose Mining & Canal Company and $57,000 in the Sareno Mining Company in Mexico.

Nothwithstanding his prior mining failures, in 1892, Warner purchased the Hillside group of mines from John Lawler and Edmund W. Wells for a staggering $450,000 (about $10.5 million today). He dubbed the venture the Seven Stars Mining Company and agreed to pay $50,000 down with the balance in a year. By the time that Warner’s finances began to unravel in 1893, he had mustered only $235,000 toward the balance due. Under the agreement, the mining property reverted back to its former owners, who also kept Warner’s deposit. Ironically, between the time the mine was discovered by Lawler in 1887 and its closing in 1951, it produced gold and silver worth barely $300,000.

Whatever the reason, Warner sacrificed his considerable fortune on speculative mining ventures. Despite his undeniable business acumen, Warner failed to appreciate that he was producing all the gold he needed (albeit brown in color), from his Safe Cure business. Perhaps his downfall was inevitable. Despite his personal financial failures, his medicine company continued well into the 20th Century, albeit under the control of others.

As well shall see, Warner was not whipped. The pluck that made him a success in Rochester continued to drive him. Although he was out of the Safe Cure business, Warner was not out of the patent medicine business.