The Pill Box Industry
From the Knox Sesquicentennial Booklet (1972): Pill Box Manufacturing
Frieda Saddlemire demonstrates how to make pillboxes.
NATHAN CRARY (1784-1866) Founder of the Pill Box 1ndustry in 1806
ARTHUR QUAY — SENIOR CITIZEN Demonstrates the use of the draw knife, in making pill boxes.
The most important industry for Knox was the manufacture of wooden pill boxes. In 1806 Nathan Crary invented and organized this industry and for almost 100 years Knox and pill boxes were synonymous.
Arthur Quay, Millard Quay, Mrs. Herman Quay, Mrs. Morgan Quay, Mrs. Clarence Stevens, Mrs. Byron Adams, Mrs. Charles Swart, Mrs. Seward Quay, Mrs. Clow, Miss Lizzie Baxter, Mrs. Leroy Youngs, Miss Emma Swart, Mrs. Eugene Saddlemire, Mrs. Ambrose Saddlemire, Mrs. Ervin Quay, Mrs. D. W. Stevens, Mrs. Miles Swart. Mrs. George Southwick, Mrs. Miner Quay, Miss Margaret Fullington, Miss Eunice Bogardus, Miss Nancy Bogardus, Miss Adelaide Gallup, Mrs. Lydia Gallup, Mrs. Charles Fairlee, Mrs. Dillenbeck, Katherine Pitcher, Katherine Ostrander, Mrs. D. W. Quay, were all pill box makers.
Tenney and Howell states that "Many of the citizens of Knoxville and vicinity find employment in the industry."
Landmarks of Albany County declares "Nathan Crary began the manufacture of wooden pill boxes and supplied some of the largest pill makers in the country. At the present time John M. Quay and Sanford Quay are conducting the business".
The late Millard Quay was a nephew of Sanford Quay and his wife, Loretta, reports that "Millard cut down numerous basswood trees, cut them up to make winding and stamp shavings for the many ladies to make into pill boxes. Sanford stamped the bottom and tops of the boxes by the keg full and Millard cut winding shavings and got them ready to be made into boxes."
In 1939, Arthur Quay read the following at a meeting of The Albany Institute of History and Art featuring Early American Industries.
The Process of Making Pill Boxes
by Arthur Quay
"The one thing absolutely necessary in the manufacture of pill boxes was the selection of basswood of excellent quality. This was done, first, by locating the best trees of the forests and secondly, by chopping a large chip from the base of the tree to see whether or not the wood would split freely, as straight-grained timber was especially required. Many times, trees would be purchased and cut down, only to find that they were of no value in the manufacture of pill boxes. If however, the timber proved to be of the required quality the trees were sawed by hand into blocks of a certain Length. The blocks were then split into four, six or eight pieces, depending on the size of the blocks. After splitting, the timber was often piled up in the woods to dry or "cure", as they called it. When it was dry enough it was hauled home and stored in some building for future use. For many years, the shavings known as the "winding" or "hoop" shavings, which formed the sides of the boxes, and the heavier shavings known as "stamp" shavings, from which the tops and the bottoms of the boxes were made, were cut by hand.
Later, however, this work was done by horse power; a horsedrawn sweep attached to a large circular frame-work on the top of which heavy gears were fastened. These gears rotated a shaft which extended into the shop. On the end of the shaft was a fly wheel to which the arm of the plane was connected. One man held a piece of timber against the plane while another caught the shavings as they came from the end of the hollow plane. The stamps mentioned as the tops and bottoms of the boxes were always cut by hand. The assembling of the different parts into the finished product was usually done by the women and girls, though, in some households where the boxes were made all members of the family had some part in the work. That part of the work done by the women and girls required four different operations for which they received from three to seven cents per hundred. For keeping the horse going steadily, turning the sweep, for one-half day, the driver, usually a boy ten or twelve years of age, received twenty or twenty-five cents. The man, who pushed the plane all day, could cut winding shavings enough for two tierces of boxes, averaging twelve thousand boxes per tierce and received $1.50 for making forty-eight thousand shavings. For cutting out twenty-four thousand corner and bottom stamps a man earned one dollar."
Miss Lesley Brower at this same meeting read the paper entitled "The Pill Box Industry", from which the following excerpt is taken.
"When completed the boxes were packed in "tierces". A tierce held over 10,000 boxes for which $3.50 was paid! The average daily product of one pair of hands was from 1600 to 1800 boxes. The workers were paid a shilling for 400 boxes. One boy could stamp 30,000 pieces (the top or bottom of the box) in a day for which he received $1.50. Words, almost extinct in our language today, were applied to the industry, such as "tierce", "grippe", "maul", "frow", "shavehorse", and "stamper-down".
"The boxes were used for various "cure-alls". On exhibit are some boxes, some loaned through the courtesy of the Albany College Pharmacy, made in Knox over 100 years ago and advertising the following remedies: "Sherman's Cathartic Lozenges, New York"; "Doctor Ingoldsby's vegetable extract 20 cent pills"; "Jones' compound Vegetable Pills, Price 50 cents, dose 2-5 for humors and Family Physic"; "Dr. Newton's Jaundice Bitters or Elixir of Health", etc. Dr. J. C. Ayres, Lowell, Mass., a patent medicine company used more than 1,000,000 boxes a year! Dr. Schenck of Sing-Sing, N. Y., and E. B. Estes and Sons, jobbers on Nassau Street, New York City were also customers. John F. Crary, in 1870, had the contract for Brandreith's pill boxes and held it as long as he lived.
To realize how primitive life was then, will you try to imagine with me the little town one hundred years ago. It was heavily wooded, with narrow dirt roads, full of stones over which the wagon wheels would glance and slide down with steep ascents and declines where squeaky brakes would be applied. Imagine stepping to one side to let a hay-rick rumble by, piled to the ridge poles with tierces, filled with wooden pill boxes and bound, not for Albany, but for Rensselaer by Ferry boat to the freight office and hence down the Hudson. There were pioneer days and this a pioneer industry. The invention of machinery to turn out glass vials and tin boxes and the scarcity of basswood trees were the chief causes for the end of the industry."
ROLLERS IN FOREGROUND, AND GRIPES — The shaving was wound around the roller, glued on one end and lapped over the end, then put into gripe until glue dried. Landing must be close or tight to roller so that stamps will fit. When eight gripes were filled, the ones done first were dry enough to take off.
STAMPER CUT TOPS AND BOTTOMS OF BOXES
POTS ON THE STOVE IN THE PILL BOX FACTORY — Glue was heated to become a liquid, and then used to hold strips of basswood together for the pill box.
SAMPLES OF DIFFERENT SHAPED PILL BOXES - The tall solid wood cylindar is stamped "Knox" but is unlike anyknown pill boxes made in Knox, NY.
