Joseph H. Colyer & Son business records and papers
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Abstract
The collection contains business records and personal papers relating to Joseph H. Colyer, dating from 1867 to 1930. It includes three oversize ledgers of Joseph H. Colyer & Son tracking the materials, supplies, and financial transactions involved in the firm's contracts with various clients in Brooklyn and New York City. The ledgers cover contracts that were active during the period 1893 to 1907. The collection also includes an assortment of other business records and personal papers relating to Colyer and his business.
Biographical note
Joseph H. Colyer was born circa 1848 in New York to Abram and Bernah Colyer. He was a lifetime resident of Brooklyn, New York. In the 1870s he was involved in the real estate business, working for the Bulkley & Horton Company. According to a receipt found in this collection, by 1877 Colyer became a dealer in coal and wood. He had formerly worked for, and became successor to, J.F. Muchmore's business. That same year he resided at 321 Myrtle Avenue. Colyer's business would later become Joseph H. Colyer & Son by the 1890s, which operated as a contracting firm dealing in masons' building materials, coal, and wood that was in operation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally located at the foot Washington Street (with an office at 95 Plymouth Street), the firm later relocated to a yard at Fulton and Front Streets.
Joseph married Harriet Colyer in 1877. He had one son, also named Joseph H., and two daughters, Hattie and Hazel. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery.
Scope and Contents
The collection contains business records and personal papers relating to Joseph H. Colyer, dating from 1867 to 1930.
The collection includes three oversize ledgers of Joseph H. Colyer & Son tracking the materials, supplies, and financial transactions involved in the firm's contracts with various clients in Brooklyn and New York City. The ledgers cover contracts that were active during the period 1893 to 1907. Also included are various receipts and correspondence of Joseph H. Colyer & Son interfiled in the ledgers, an oversize volume containing an index to the ledgers, a 1907 contract between Colyer and the City of New York, and a packet of several documents containing more of the firm's financial records.
There are two additional items relating to Colyer's business included in the collection, one business card and one receipt dated 1877.
The collection also includes an assortment of personal papers relating to Colyer. These include: A document regarding the Baptist Rev. Orrin Dodge, 1867; one stock certificate for The Telemeter Company of New York, signed by Charles L. Clarke, 1886; a legal document regarding a "hot blast oven" patent, 1888; a menu for a banquet held at Delmonico's Restaraunt celebrating Ulysses S. Grant, 1888; a menu for a dinner held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrating George Washington, 1889; an indenture transferring property near Eastern Parkway and Rogers Avenue from Charles T. Reynolds ("a lunatic") and Colyer, 1889; two stock certificates for the John W. Wallace Company, signed by Colyer, 1905-1906; and a Brooklyn Daily Eagle clipping on the Brooklyn real estate business in the 1870s featuring an image of Colyer, May 11, 1930.
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Conditions Governing Access
Open to researchers without restriction.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date (if known); Joseph H. Colyer & Son business records and papers, ARC.251, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Source and date of acquisition unknown.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Minimally processed to the collection level by Nicholas Pavlik on August 17, 2011. An additional folder of business and personal papers were discovered and added to the collection, and the finding aid subsequently expanded, by John Zarrillo in December 2015.
