Seed boxes and Seed Packets of Hiram Sibley Co.

Gifts keep raining from the sky...or at least, cyber space!
I  just bumped into these photos of Sibley's  display boxes and seed packages and packets!  I had never found any seed packets before.  I don't know why I hadn't, given the size of his operation.

These plump bags filled with seeds and tied with what was probably red string are the first I have seen of this type package from any company.  Packages are so ephemeral it is alway exciting to find them!

This following box seems to have been varnished at some time and it has darkened.

A Few Extra Bits Concerning HIram Sibley and His Seeds

Link:  A fun to read, eccentric history of Rochester that pays homage in one part to Sibley!

From Seed Savers and many other sources you can still buy the Sibley Winter Squash.  

If you are really interested in Cornell or Sibley in more detail, the following is interesting :-)

 

KIckstarter Project: Seed - The Untold Story

Visit the Project Page.  

"Entertaining and engaging, SEED follows heroes working tirelessly to preserve agricultural diversity as well as the rich knowledge held by indigenous cultures. These farmers, scientists, and seed collectors such as Gary Paul Nabhan, Bill McDorman, Vandana Shiva, Harald Hoven, Native American Emigdio Ballon and Winona LaDuke are the visionaries and caretakers of many of the world’s remaining seeds. On an absorbing journey following a diverse cast of characters, we will witness a brave new movement as these heroes struggle to create a vibrant web of biodiversity and resilience.

SEED will reveal the awe, wonder and hidden beauty of seeds. It will ignite the imagination of audiences, inspiring them to be part of a new movement to help sustain seed diversity. We will unearth the resilience and power that all seeds have to sustain, enliven and enrich our humanity. "

1946 - A Flower Picking Garden

 I love the old New Yorker covers - and not just because they give me something nice to post when I haven't had time to do a post for this blog!!

1882 - A Catalog Remnant Forecasts the Future

This tattered bit of the 1882 Hiram Sibley & Co. catalog is all that I can find.  It was offered on eBay some time ago and I downloaded the images.  I assumed I could find a better copy in one of the archives, but took it as a reminder to get it.  Good thing I did!  There is no 1882 Hiram Sibley catalog I can find.

The first page, after the beet, is of great interest to me as it is sharing with the readers the new look of agriculture, one of produce being shipped from great distances on the increasingly efficient train system.  Wish we had the verso!

Sibley Ephemera: History for Sale

I cruise eBay for fascinating bits and pieces of the seed business past that float to the surface with astonishing regularity. Because I am looking into Hiram Sibley I took another look today and found three interesting things!  One, admittedly, has nothing to do with Sibley but it relates to yesterday's post's participants.

This envelope was sent by Sibley and Co. to the U.S. Consul in Nagasaki, Japan!  Think, here it is on eBay...A.C. Jones left Japan by 1885.  Wish I knew what the letter was about.
Great envelope.

___________________________________________________________________

This next one documents selling to Sibley an item related to telegraph history for the Cornell collection.
(A transcript and notes from seller follow.)

Stephen Vail accepts an offer to place the very first telegraph machine in the Museum of Cornell University in this signed 1898 letter... and turns down an offer for the machine from Andrew Carnegie.

Autograph letter signed "Stephen Vail". 3 pages, 4¾x8 (1 page folded, front and verso), on Vail's personalized stationery. New York, New York, February 21, 1898. 

Addressed to Mr. W. E. Bull, Estate of Hiram Sibley, Rochester, New York. In full: 

"Dear sir: Upon my return to the city this morning, (having been away for a few days), I [illegible] yours of the 16th a-waiting for me, and I have just sent you a telegram advising you of its receipt, and of my sending you per express this [illegible] my scrapbook. in which I think you will find the [illegible] evidence of the authenticity of the instrument, which I am for [illegible] more than pleased has been deemed worthy of deposit, through the liberality of Mr. Sibley, in Cornell University, the most appropriate place for it. If you will acquaint me with Mr. Sibley's address. if any other than that of Rochester is advisable, I shall be glad to thank him for his response to my offer. As you may decide, I will, upon receipt of the information, direct the instrument to be sent from the National Museum to either Rochester or Ithaca. If to the latter please designate to whom it shall be addressed [illegible] Schuman or Director Thurston. It may not be improper for me to state that since the receipt of your letter this morning, I have had an offer of a larger amount for the instrument, but declined it for its deposit at Cornell, is much more desirable to me. I send enclosed herewith, a copy of the photograph of the instrument, which please present to Mr. Sibley, with my compliments, upon his return to this country. At your convenience, please return to me the scrapbook, and Memorial to Congress, and believe me very sincerely yours". 

"The instrument" is the first telegraph receiver on which the first telegraph message was sent. According to an included newspaper clipping, it was given to the Museum of Cornell University around 1898 by Hiram B. Sibley, who offered Vail $1,000 for it. The other offer that Vail writes about was a $5,000 one by Andrew Carnegie. 

Stephen Vail was the son of Alfred Vail, one of the partners of Samuel F.B. Morse. In 1837, Judge Stephen Vail, proprietor of the Speedwell Iron Works, Morristown, N.J., agreed to put up $2,000 if Morse would take on his son, Alfred. An agreement was entered into between them, with Vail supplying the money. The American patent was obtained on October 3, 1837, and young Vail, in secret quarters at the iron factory, worked upon the invention. It was Alfred Vail who worked out the final form of Morse's code, introduced the key, and reduced the machine to the final, compact form. And it was Vail who invented the printing telegraph that was patented in Morse's name. The instrument mentioned in his letter was the only existing one of the two devised by and constructed by his father, Alfred, the partner of Morse in the ownership of the patent for the Electric Telegraph, and used upon the first line of telegraph ever erected that built between Washington and Baltimore by the appropriation of $30,000 by the U.S. Congress.

______________________________________________________________________

Hiram Sibley Warehouse,315-331 North Clark Street,Chicago,Cook County,IL

 Now this one is Morse writing Dall.
He had a nice hand.  When did people stop using the "f" for "s"?

 "Saml F.B. Morse", 1p, 4¼x6½. Po'keepsie, 1856 June 2.

 To Henry P. Dall, Esq., Secretary of the Trimount Literary Association. In full:

 "Yours of 31st is received at the moment of my leaving home for Europe; but I am happy in the opportunity however slight, to give any gratification to the Officers & Members of your Association, especially when it can be accomplished by Simply assuring you of the respect & well wishes." 

"Having A Bully Time..."

" When Ezra Cornell called his old antagonist in business, (who had) become his best friend, into the board of trustees of Cornell University, Mr. Sibley saw his opportunity and promptly seized it. He took as his share of the work the foundation of the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts."

 

Rowing Medals 

BUST OF HIRAM SIBLEY.

Mr. Hiram Sibley's early days were spent in North Adams, Mass., where he was born on the 6th of February, 1807. After a few years of schooling, before he was 16 years old, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. The trade, however, was distasteful to him, and he entered a cotton factory, and subsequently tried wool-carding and machine work. In 1853, after a number of successful business ventures on his own account, he was elected sheriff of Monroe county, N. Y. After Prof. Morse had put up his first practically operative line, other inventors took up the work, and soon many telegraph companies were established all over the country. Mr. Sibley consolidated these rival interests, and founded the Western Union Telegraph Company, of which he held the presidency for sixteen years. His next great achievement was the erection of a telegraph line to San Francisco from the Eastern States. His other business ventures were of much importance also. In Illinois he owned a farm of 40,000 acres. He was the proprietor of a most extensive seed and nursery business at Rochester, N. Y., which was his home during most of his life. Mr. Sibley was one of the incorporators of Cornell University, and one of its chief benefactors. He died at his home in Rochester, July 12, 1888.

"The world honors men who have inaugurated great enterprises; it doubly honors men who have made great beginnings of grand social movements." It was in these words that Dr. R. H. Thurston referred to the founder of Sibley College, Mr. Hiram Sibley, upon the occasion of the unveiling of a bust of Mr. Sibley in the chapel of Cornell University, on the I5th of June last.

When Ezra Cornell called his old antagonist in business, become his best friend, into the board of trustees of Cornell University, Mr. Sibley saw his opportunity and promptly seized it. He took as his share of the work the foundation of the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts. He stepped into the place of honor, and accepted those duties which the State had failed to perform; and Sibley College became the root and sustaining trunk of an enterprise of such importance and of such possibilities as even the wise man who founded it little realized, even though before his death he had the pleasure of witnessing its first great expansion. But it would be an error to suppose that Mr. Sibley's work and munificence were confined to the departure which bears his name. 

When, at the time of Mr. Cornell's death, it was necessary for the university to secure a loan of $250,000 on security, which at that time seemed very doubtful, though it was in the midst of one of the worst financial crises which has ever occurred in this country Mr. Sibley left his own business, came to Ithaca, and was one of the small number of trustees who advanced the sum which disentangled the finances of the university from their troublesome connection with the treasury of the state, and thus began the real prosperity of the institution. To the close of his life Mr. Sibley remained to Cornell University a true friend, a liberal benefactor, a wise counselor.

Mr. MacNeil, who modeled the bust of Hiram Sibley, is a graduate of the Boston Normal School of Fine Arts, and a former instructor in the art department of Sibley College, Cornell University. He is now engaged in modeling for the art department of the World's Columbian Exposition.

Cassier's Magazine, 1892

I feel Hiram Sibley really enjoyed what he chose to do.