The Slingerland Box at B.H.A.
Over the summer, the beautiful wooden box pictured here
was donated to the Bethlehem Historical Association. The outside is smooth wood with an inscribed
plaque. The inside is lined with silky
looking fabric. There is a shallow space under the lid and a deep drawer. According
to family lore, George Slingerland was a surveyor and this was his box for his
surveying equipment. However, the box
itself refutes this. It is simply too
nice inside for a workman’s case. I
think it held a set of silverware. Follow along for how I got to this
conclusion.
First, I started with the plaque on the case. It is
inscribed:
Presented
to
Mr. and Mrs. George W. Slingerland
by employees of the
National Express Company
New York City Division
September 1899
Mr. and Mrs. George W. Slingerland are George Wayne
Slingerland (1847-1923) and Rosalie Mattice (1850-1929) who married in
1870. George was born in Bethlehem’s
hamlet of Slingerlands to William and Elizabeth Slingerland.
Tracing the couple through the census, we find them in
Bethlehem in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census and the 1875 New York Census. He is listed as a farmer (at age 23 still at
home with the parents), then a surveyor (in his own household with Rosalie and
their young children) and then as a civil engineer. Then there is a gap in the Census trail until
the 1905 New Jersey State Census where he is living in Hackensack with Rosalie
and is listed as a manager with the Express Company. The 1915 New Jersey and
the 1920 Federal censuses have him in Hackensack as a superintendent with the
Express Company.
So far so good. I hope you connected the references to
the Express Company and the inscription on the plaque.
George turns up often in the newspapers. One of my
favorites is from the February 13, 1886 edition of the Albany Argus. Under
the headline “Express Officials Fraternize” it goes on to describe a party
where employees of the Boston office of the National Express Company
entertained their superintendent, Mr. Merritt Seely, at a “sumptuous” banquet
at the Quincy house. Among the 30 gentlemen present were George W. Slingerland,
assistant to the general superintendent at Albany.
Apparently, George made a
speech. As the article reads:
He
soberly drew a voluminous manuscript from his pocket, and read a humorous poem,
which coved all the great events in American History down to the time of the
formation of the National Express company. When this point had been reached,
his poem “cracked” every official of the company. This production convulsed his hearers, who
“laughed till they cried.”
I wish we had a
copy of that poem!
Sometime around 1890, he and his family moved first to
Brooklyn then to Hackensack likely for George’s work with the National Express
Company. Then along comes this article
from the September 29, 1899 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Let me just quote it:
George
W. Slingerland, superintendent of the New York and Long Island divisions of the
National Express Company, recently resigned his position to engage in other
business. He was agreeably surprised
last night when arriving at his residence in the Brevoort, he found there his
former assistant superintendents, route agents and principal agents, who on
behalf of themselves and other employees, presented a magnificent silver
service of eighty pieces as a testimonial of their appreciation and regard for
Mr. and Mrs. Slingerland.
The article goes on to describe George’s work:
At
the time of his resignation Mr. Slingerland had been with the company over
twenty years, during the last thirteen of which he has been in immediate charge
of its metropolitan service. He
originated and organized the first trolley express car system ever in
existence, which operating over the Rapid Transit lines here has proven of
inestimable advantage to the citizens and business interests of Brooklyn and
Queens.
Did you notice the silver service mentioned in the
article? And that the date of said article is September 29, 1899, the same date
as inscribed on the box? I am wholly
sure that our box was the container for this set of silver.
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| These images of the King George pattern from the 1909 Goreham Hand Book of Stirling Silver give an idea of what the silver service might have been like.is. |
And what is an Express Company you ask? Basically they
were in the business of moving packages and freight and maybe people. For
example, here’s a snippet from The March 5, 1902 issue of the Standard Union:
Mrs.
Eugene A. Philbin, has sued…George W. Slingerland as head of the Century
Express Compony for $200 said to represent the vault of a package the plaintiff
shipped by express on August 16 last to Seabright, and $50 for the failure of
the package to reach its destination.
And a final, funny note if you do much historical
research. I was trying to find George’s
obituary. Did you know there were two George
W. Slingerlands who died in 1923? Thankfully Rosalie is a unique name. I often searched on her name while looking
for George.
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| This photo of George Wayne Slingerland is from a public Ancestry.com family tree. |
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