Darkest Hour

photo from architekturezt.com

So after learning about all the blood, sweat and tears the Arkells poured into Canojarharie  (see Can-0-what? post) and then discovering that Beech Nut had been moved to Florida and the factory left empty and rotting, 

I was feeling a little depressed.

What would James and Bartlett think if they pulled off on exit 29 and saw that both their great companies had gone to greener pastures?  What would they do?

Because they were both passionate about supporting Canojoharie and the citizens who lived there, my guess is that they’d be depressed too.  But as businessmen they might understand how the world, and certainly Upstate New York, has changed.
Since they were in town anyway, I bet they’d set off for the Arkell Library and Museum to enjoy their passion - American Art.

The library in Canojoharie dates back to 1880, where it was started in the drawing room of the Arkell home.  As it grew it moved to the school and then to rented space downtown.  In 1915, sponsored by Bartlett Arkell, the library was granted a state charter.  

After another decade, and great success at Beech Nut, Bartlett decided to build a library for the town in honor of his dad, the great James Arkell.  The stone used to construct the library came from the building that James Arkell had used to first print his paper sacks for Arkell & Smiths in 1859.   A few years later he added an art gallery wing with his own personal collection.  Bartlett had a passion for art and loved visiting museums in America and Europe.  His gallery in Canajoharie was inspired by trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Walker Art Museum in England and Rijkesmuseum in Amsterdam.  Pretty cosmopolitan for rural New York.  Bartlett began collecting art for his gallery in earnest and particularly loved buying paintings that portrayed landscapes he experienced as a child, student and European traveller.  The result is a collection of art that includes Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keefe and American impressionists.

The museum and library partnership is unique, they bill themselves as the place where books and art meet and their  motto is “For the joy of it”.  The combo offers the community modern library services and a broad perspective on their past.  Even though the library is public, patrons are encouraged to become members of the museum and support both institutions (if your a member you don’t have to pay fines on overdue books!).

The Museum Collection includes the Beechnut Packing Company Archive and Mohawk Valley artifacts that bring you right back to a time when Canajoharie was booming and James and Bartlett Arkell ruled the valley with optimism for the future of their community and the people who lived there.    

This week current Mayor Leigh Fuller remembers when he first moved to the town in the 1950s and Arkell & Smith was leaving, he reminded citizens that, “Everything changes. Canajoharie will have to change, we'll have to find a way to live better than when Beech-Nut was here and we're working towards that.  I think the board and myself have started moving Canajoharie, at our darkest hours, forward."

I bet James and Bartlett have their fingers crossed.

Can o' what?

photo by Mike Groll, The Associated Press

A century ago, there were a couple ways to get a library in your town:  a Carnegie grant, a society of thinkers or do-gooders or a Captain of Industry looking for a legacy project.  Some of my favorite library stories come from the last group; exquisite library ‘monuments’ built by men who made their fortune when America’s economy and population were exploding.    

As they aged, many freshly minted industrialists looked around their town for ways to leave a meaningful and important personal or family legacy.  A library was a perfect combination of community philanthropy and ego boost.  Unraveling the name of a library to discover the man and industry that led to it’s birth makes for some interesting reading.

And so it went in Canajoharie, NY (exit 29 on the N.Y. Thruway, smack dab in the middle of the state).  The library is public but it’s also a joint venture with the Askell Museum (a small museum that features a well regarded collection of American artists and Mohawk Valley landscapes).  The museum and the library were built by Bartlett Askell, who is responsible for another famous thruway landmark, the Beechnut Packing Company.

Arkell’s story starts with his father, James Arkell, who might as well be called Mr. Canajohaire.  James  moved to Canajoharie from England at the age of 12 and was instrumental in building the thriving  community that still exists today.  After dabbling in the newspaper business, James Arkell partnered with Benjamin Smith to begin Arkell & Smith Company, a food stuffs paper sack company for sugar, flour and the like. 

Arkell’s innovation was making the bags from paper, instead of cotton, and developing the folded flat bottom.   Then he came up with a ‘printing press’ to print company logos on the bags.  Arkell & Smith became the main industry in the town and employed generations of citizens.  
In his spare time, James Arkell served as a state Senator and had a great interest in Art and Mohawk Valley artists.

James Arkell’s  son, Bartlett, had a tough act to follow.  Instead of riding on his father’s coat tails, he decided, in 1891, to go into business with a few friends selling ham and bacon.  First called the Imperial Packing Company, Beech Nut  grew quickly and added on an amazing diversity of products.  Arkell believed that they should expand into any market that could use improvement, and they found a lot.  Over the years they made jam, peanut butter, catsup, caramels, gum and coffee.   

Bartlett Askell believed that “perfect flavor in food will find it’s customer”.  Beech-nut has grown, morphed and been purchased countless time since Lifesavers first bought the company in 1931 but, until this year, the factory has remained in Canojoharie.  I was crushed to learn that Beech-Nut closed it’s factory doors, after 118 years, in March 2011 and moved the operations to a new plant in Florida.  The Beech-Nut headquarters remain in Albany, but the company is now owned by the Hero Group, a international corporation based in Switzerland.

Fortunately, Bartlett was planning ahead and preserved the memory of his family’s influence on the city of Canojarharie with the Askell Library and Museum which I will visit tomorrow.