Question: Do you recognize this fellow? He is “doing a good deed.” Perhaps you recognize the setting or know what service organization he was with. These are clues that may help you determine what this photo is about.
Last week’s answer: The photo from last week shows some of the damage that resulted from the fire that happened on Dec. 19, 1898. The three buildings that were destroyed stood on the spit of land immediately behind the mill known at that time as Clark and Mercer. It later was known as Mercer Mill and is now the Red Mill Inn. It was saved by the firemen.
The other buildings in the photo were not so lucky. The brick walls were from the mill known as the Hotaling & Co. stone flour mill. Next to it was the Rawhide Process Works, and west of that, the Kenyon Co. paper mill. The fire, discovered at 2:30 p.m., is believed to have started from spontaneous combustion in a storeroom at the paper mill. Firemen were only able to fight the flames from the east and west ends because of the river on the north and a power canal on the south. The paper mill had a previous fire in 1879 and the stone mill in 1861. The rawhide company, producer of bushings, gears and mallets, eventually rebuilt in Syracuse under the name New Process Gear.
The loss to the three firms was put at $100,000. The twin-arched outflow of the flour mill still remains along the north bank of Paper Mill Island.
Several residents recognized the photo and either called or emailed to identify the site, including Peter Smart, Harry Burton and Randy Burrows. George E. Sollish, however, emailed the following:
“The company in question is, of course, New Process Rawhide, later New Process Gear, later New Process Gear division of Chrysler, later the flagship division of New Venture, later Magna Powertrain. My grandfather represented New Process as a manufacturer’s agent from the mid 1920s, moved to Syracuse when the Depression made it impossible to sell on the road, and by 1942 managed their aftermarket sales. In 1945 he purchased his department to start his own company — Auto Gear. I’m proud to say that Auto Gear is still designing automotive gearboxes and continuing a tradition that New Process began in 1888, the last Onondaga County survivor of a corporate heritage that predates the automobile.”
Sollish is now chief engineer of Auto Gear Company.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
