Potter Palmer

Potter Palmer (May 20, 1826 – May 4, 1902) was a Chicago businessman who was responsible for much of the development of State Street.

Potter Palmer b. 5/30/1826 Potter's Hollow, Rensselaerville, Albany Co., NY. d. 5/4/1902 Chicago, IL [son of Benjamin & Rebecca (Potter) Palmer]; m. 7/29/1870 Chicago to Bertha Mathilda Honorè b. 5/22/1849 Louisville, Ky., d. 5/5/1918 Sarasota, FL [dau. Henry Hamilton & Eliza d'Orsay (Carr) Honorè of Louisville and Chicago]

Potter finished two years at the Friends Academy in Rensselaerville, didn't care to work on any of his father's four dairy farms, and persuaded his father to allow him to take a position as a clerk (arranged by his uncle, Samuel P. Potter) in Durham, NY, working for Col. Platt Adams who owned Durham's biggest general store. Palmer proved extremely capable in the eyes of Col. Adams, and ultimately was left to manage the store as well as Col. Adams' bank, and the post office, while Col. Adams, a lawyer by training, served as Justice of the Peace, dealt in real estate, and became involved in politics. By 1848, after Potter had worked there for 3 years, Col. Adams offered to make him a partner, but Potter declined, and borrowing money from his father, opened a small country-road store in Oneida Co., NY, a Quaker community. However, the store-bought requirements of the hardy, self-sufficient Quaker farmers and their wives were few; after 2 years Potter closed that store and set out on the Erie Canal for Lockport, which had been a boom-town in the years when the canal was being dug. Potter opened a little dry-goods store there, but business there was laggard and slow-moving. His interest was piqued, however, by an order received by Lockport's quarries for limestone to build Chicago's new courthouse. It was the largest single order Lockport had received since the building of the Erie Canal. It was June, 1852. Potter was 26 years old. He determined to see what Chicago had to offer. Potter walked through the primitive muddy streets of a booming Chicago for a week and witnessed commerce as every turn: merchants, builders, freight boats and barges, railroads, shoppers everywhere. He heard time and again of the vast trade coming into the city. Excited by the prospects, he found a building under construction on Lake St., just west of Clark St., and agreed to rent a space 20 feet wide by 160 feet deep for $1,500 per year beginning in October, the projected completion date for the construction. He returned to the Sherman House and made arrangements for permanent residence there in October. Returning to Lockport, he sold his store there, and with the proceeds in the bank, went on to Potter's Hollow to tell his father and brothers of the many inducements Chicago offered. His aging father agreed to advance Potter $3000 in gold, to be added to the $2000 he already had. Potter then set off for New York to arrange stock purchases for his new dry-goods store. He ordered a sign painted for the exterior of his store at 137 Lake St., but inasmuch as the painter charged by each letter, Potter was content with only the initial of his first name - "P. Palmer & Co." He determined that his store would have no whisky barrel around which men from the dusty roads could gather as they did at country stores and even in many of the emporiums along Lake St. This was to be a store to attract ladies, not a gathering place for all kinds. Potter was an astute businessman, his Quaker principles guided him in money matters, and he was conscientious never to over extend himself. He carefully analyzed his customer's wants and needs, and wisely bought accordingly: clothing, shawls, hosiery, gloves, bonnet ribbons, embroidered collars and cuffs, laces and edgings, beads, rings, tassels, bolts of fabric from gingham and calico to fine woolens and silks, yarns and needlework, millinery, artificial flowers, intimate apparel, linens, blankets, carpets, etc. He kept a close eye on his competition and always endeavored to "sell for less". He realized that the ladies were his primary customers, even if their husbands paid the bills. He always tried to please the ladies. Now, by the winter of 1852, the movement called Feminism reached proportions of a national revolution. This inadvertently helped all dry-goods businesses as well as others. It had begun 4 years earlier as a mild insurrection against the dominance of men who ritualistically required of their women inordinate modesty, discreet ignorance, physical frailty, utter submission, and supervision in shopping for things to wear and for their homes. The cry came for a woman's right to hold property or take a job, the right to moral equality, the right to independence in the home. The "radicals" adopted loose fitting pantaloons bound at the ankles, which came to be known as "bloomers", as their badge. The more numerous conservatives concentrated on the crinoline hoop skirts, which began to billow to unprecedented proportions, some requiring as many as 40 yards of goods for a single outfit. Regardless of their preference for bloomers or crinoline, as partners in the family, women demanded a right to their share of the family purse. An offshoot of the Feminist movement was a vast buying spree in the early 1850s. Some dry-goods stores began hiring lady clerks in their stores, noting "A woman would rather buy certain articles of apparel from another woman." Potter Palmer was not yet ready to do anything so drastic as to hire a woman clerk, but he did something else considered very innovated. He permitted some favored customers to take home goods on approval with the promise to refund their money, "If your husband doesn't like it, or if you decide it doesn't look good." This honored a basic right of ladies - the right of a lady to change her mind. Potter was alert to business changes and methods, new styles and new ideas, but in his personal life he was the staid Quaker. No riotous living, saloons, gambling, or concert halls for him. At night, after hours, he often stayed late, preparing orders for new merchandise or working on his books. He was glad that there was a craze for dancing, however, for it brought hundreds of women, young and old, scurrying to the dry-goods stores to buy endless yards of goods for dresses. He had begun a wholesale business which was small but solid; he shipped orders from river-front warehouses by rail and on plank roads to carefully chosen customers in country towns who paid cash or exchanged furs. He dropped this part of his business, however, when the economy began to retreat. Rumblings of financial panic were hear in Chicago by the beginning of 1857; the nation had gone too far and too fast on the stimulus of California gold and westward expansion. Banks tottered and competitors folded, but Potter Palmer was calm. His Quaker principles allowed him to be as wary of extending credit as he was diligent on receiving credit himself. Businesses collapsed all around him as the year darkened, but the Book of Commercial Ratings, predecessor to Dun and Bradstreet's reports, stated of Potter Palmer: "Making money, economical, business not too much extended, attends closely to business, does not pay large interest, good moral character, credits prudently, not sued, pays promptly. Credit good. Capital $25,000." Because of the heretofore feverish activity in the city, Potter had been unable to find larger quarters for his business and had built a good cash reserve. Potter was doing well, incredibly well. He seized the opportunity to move into a new "more commodious" store, a four-story building at 139 Lake St. in October, 1857. The panic raged ... Potter Palmer shipped in more goods ... leading wholesale houses closed their doors ... Potter Palmer bought merchandise from wholesalers and importers at panic lows. The ladies flocked to his new store, already known to them for quality goods at low prices. His gross sales in the new store were running $120,000 ahead of 1857. Within a few short months he was again ready to expand, and to restore his wholesale division. A splendid marble-fronted building was being constructed at 112-116 Lake St., initially intended for 3 businesses. Potter Palmer leased it all, arranging with the owners to cut archways through the first-floor side walls to give him the most extensive display space for dry goods of any store in the West. His grand opening was held on September 23, 1858. The Chicago Tribune wrote: the building was "one of the finest and most costly business blocks in the United States. It is opened as a first class dry goods house by P. Palmer, one of our best established and most widely known merchants. He carried with him to his new quarters (a block east of his former location) a business reputation and standing in itself a fortune to any house, and he is prepared to expand to complete the occupation." In this new store Potter Palmer dominated Lake Street. His fame grew and spread. Among the visitors to his new store was one from New York, representing Rowland H. Macy, who had just opened his own dry-goods establishment after failing in business in Superior, WI. Potter himself did the honors, pointing out the efficient organization of his various departments, attractive displays, errand boys, etc. Later, when Macy became famous, Potter Palmer loved to boast that the New York merchant got his best ideas from him. By 1860, the nation moved toward the War between the States. Potter was quick to see that a showdown between the North and the South might cut off sources of cotton goods. He started to buy, continued to buy, and stuffed warehouses with cotton goods. The nation went to war, supplies fell off and prices began to rise. Chicago boomed: central to the country's biggest railroad network, the city became a collecting point of foodstuffs not only for the army, but much of the East as well. The town was the World's biggest pork-packing center, grain receipts jumped, the demand for farm machinery made in Chicago increased, railroad profits tripled, new factories opened to make military equipment, etc., etc. Potter Palmer, with his unlimited supplies of cheaply bought goods, was in the forefront of the war prosperity. His enormous volume of business dictated that he open an office in New York. He purchased the entire output of some factories, wholesaling good that he could not use. He dispatched buyers to Europe. In late 1864, Potter's physicians warned that the hard, driving years had taken their toll on his health. He would have to quit. He was only 38 years old, trim, somewhat grim-faced, with a trace of gray in beard and hair. He was rich, still unmarried, and could afford to quit. Marshall Field, then 30 years of age, had come to Chicago from Massachusetts at 21 in the Spring of 1856, four years after Potter Palmer's arrival, having clerked in a store in the east. After arriving in Chicago, he worked in a wholesale house where he soon gained a reputation as being hard-working, inquisitive, studious, frugal and with a "merchants instinct". They advanced him into a traveling salesman position where he proved reliable and trustworthy, but he disliked the rigors of constant travel. A partners squabble ensued, which resulted in one of the owners leaving the firm; in a relatively short time Field became a full partner; one Levi Z. Leiter was the company's capable bookkeeper and accountant. Their success rivaled Potter Palmer for a short time, in the war years, but partner personality problems again presented a problem. Potter heard of this, and, his health a priority, offered to sell Field and Leiter his business, wholesale and retail, at 20 percent below the inventory value if they would take Potter's nephew and salesman, Milton Palmer, as a junior partner. In the terms of the two year contract, Potter would leave $330,000 in the firm and remain as a silent partner. Milton would contribute $50,000 to a total capitalization of $750,000. In January 1865, Field and Leiter accepted; the firm of Field, Palmer and Leiter was formed. Potter left for a European vacation. Within three months, Potter was back, summoned by Field and Leiter. Crisis following the war caused prices to plummet. Potter put additional capital into the firm, and encourage them to buy, buy, buy! A corps of "bright young men" was added to the staff that had originally served Potter. Fields's two brothers, Joseph and Henry joined the firm. A salesman by the name of Montgomery Ward was hired for $11.54 per week (he would later make his own mark in the world of retailing). Buying and selling on credit was strictly controlled. When their first year ended, despite their fright in the first months, they showed a sales volume for the year of $8,000,000 of which some $300,000 was clear profit. At the end of the two years of the contract, Potter was reluctant to leave the profitable dry-good business and persuaded Field and Leiter to let him retain a part of his original investment. The firm became Field, Leiter and Company. Speculation followed Potter after he left activity in retail. What could he be up to? After the war, land values had dropped. Quietly he began to invest much of his available cash in real estate, not vast tracts on the city limits as many wealthy men were doing, but on State St., Chicago, first a shack here, a building there, a blacksmith shop here, a saloon there. State Street was narrow, grimy, slovenly; along its rickety walks were a collage of tumbledown shops, all in unsightly confusion. Potter was then worth some $5,000,000 - $2,500,000 in cash and securities and an equal amount in government bonds. He had the foresight to see that Lake St., Chicago's primary business street, was doomed as the city grew bigger. The Chicago River nearby was filthy and odious, and Lake Street was now bursting with retail and commercial buildings. It is reported that ultimately he owned property for about a mile along State Street. Potter then tore down a jungle of shacks and hovels at the south end of his stretch of new State Street properties, and built an 8 story, 225 room hotel, called the Palmer House at a cost of $300,000. Near the north end of his new State Street properties, at State and Washington streets, he built another huge 6 story building at the cost of $350,000 with a definite tenant in mind. It was built of limestone and Canaan marble and was fronted by Corinthian columns. The two projects, together with the purchase of other land on the street, cost Potter some $2,000,000 and were finished in 1868. Knowing their burgeoning business and cramped quarters on Lake St., he easily persuaded Field and Leiter to occupy his new marble palace, "Largest and Finest in America" with steam elevators and gas fixtures, for the lofty rental of $50,000 per year. The Chicago Tribune reported, "The formal opening [October 12, 1868] by Field, Leiter and Company of Potter Palmer's new marble palace on the corner of Washington and State was the grandest affair of its kind which ever transpired even in Chicago, the city of grand affairs..." A new trade center was born. In their new store Field and Leiter were determined to adhere to the ideas inherited from Potter and, whenever possible, to enlarge on them. These methods had built prestige and profits for Potter and for them in their brief years of partnership, and would continue to do so. The immense buying power of the wholesale division was developed early, and continued to flourish. Potter had maintained an ace buyer, George W. Vail, in Europe to spot fashion trends, buy what European experts were favoring, and send them to Chicago. Field went one step further, sending his brother, Joseph who was made a full partner in 1869, to maintain a full-time European office in Manchester, England. Potter Palmer and Bertha Mathilda Honor were married in July, 1870. Bertha, born in Louisville, KY, had moved with her parents and siblings to Chicago when she was just 6 years old. She first met Potter Palmer when she was just 13 years old, and he was 34, and 21 years her senior. They were married when she turned 21. The Palmer House and the beautiful marble palace were to be short-lived. They were just 3 years old, when the Great Fire of Chicago devoured them on October 9, 1871. Potter was visiting in New York, and learning that 32 of his buildings had fallen, telegraphed his young wife, "Am perfectly reconciled to our losses. Be cheerful and do all possible for sufferers." Field and Leiter were able to save about $200,000 of the best merchandise before the fire ate its way down State Street. After the great conflagration all that was left were red-hot ruins, twisted steel, and smoking lime into which the intense heat had powdered the proud marble. Nearly 300 lives were lost, almost $200,000,000 of property was destroyed. Field and Leiter's losses were established to be $2,500,000; all but $750,000 of this amount was covered by insurance. The total of Potter Palmer's losses are not known, nor the amount he recovered in insurance. It is known that losses in this fire were so severe that several insurance companies were liable for much more than they had in assets, and folded after paying proportionate cents on the dollar. Field and Leiter reopened for business on October 21 in a hastily remodeled and repainted horse barn, and negotiated for the construction of a permanent structure on the Northeast corner of Madison and Market streets primarily to house their wholesale division. Potter quickly set about selling much of his land and made plans for a revived State Street including a new, splendid, fireproof Palmer House Hotel with an elaborate facade, 650 large rooms, statuary in the lobbies, and an amazing barber shop whose floors would be studded with silver dollars. To finance this plan he sold the State Street site of the former Field and Leiter building for $350,000 to the officials of the affluent Singer Sewing Machine Co. who then spent another $750,000 in 1873 to build a five-story structure with a huge glass dome in the center of its mansard roof. Field and Leiter concluded that they could not loose this State Street location to another retailer, and ultimately rented this new store from Singer for $75,000 per year for their retail division. History repeated itself. In November 1877, Field and Leiter's store again burned. Only the outside walls were left standing. Insurance was more than adequate to cover the loss. They quickly arranged with the managers of the Inter-State Industrial Palace - Potter Palmer among them - to temporarily rent the huge structure for $750 per month. It had been known as the "Crystal Palace", a large, magnificent, greenhouse-like building built for the 1875 Chicago Exposition held on the Lake shore. They reopened for business on November 27. They rebuilt on the State Street site, this time purchasing, not leasing, the structure, and carried on there into the 20th century [and now, almost into the 21st century].

          Marshall Field ultimately bought Levi Leiter's interest in the business, and it became Marshall Field  & Co.  In 1905, just after the death of Marshall Field, the firm began altering and adding to the original building.  When completed in 1907, the firm occupied the whole city block, had 3 levels beneath the ground, one of which connected with the city's new tunnel railroad for the convenience of incoming stock and outgoing trash, and 12 stories exquisitely appointed floors above ground.  There was the magnificent Louis Comfort Tiffany dome, some 6,000 square feet of iridescent glass, created at the sixth-floor level in the central light well, and 67 elevators.  Then, in 1929, they completed the Merchandise Mart , the world's biggest building, at a cost of $28,000,000, half of which housed their wholesale and manufacturing space, and half to be leased.

Meantime, Potter Palmer, having completed his splendid Palmer House hotel, began investing thousands in a new project - called a "crazy scheme" by many - of building up the north shore of Lake Michigan. In the annual Derby Day parades to Washington Park, Potter and his beautiful wife always rode in an elaborately carved, highly polished French coach, with coachmen and footmen in full regalia and leopard skins thrown over the seats. His wealth had become conspicuous. Between 1882-85, the Palmers built their extraordinary home, dubbed “The Castle” on Lake Shore Dr. Sadly, it was demolished in 1950 to make way for an apartment building. Potter Palmer was very active in all civic matters in Chicago and was on the first Board of Local Directors of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. His wife, Bertha, the city's social queen, was also very active in the Exposition, known as the Chicago World's Fair. She dedicated the Woman's Building in White City by driving a golden nail with a silver hammer, and helped to dedicate a new addition to Marshall Field's store by treading a red carpet stretched across Holden Court. Also, she was President of the Board of Lady Managers. It has been reported, however, that The Infanta Eulalia of Spain, created a furor at the opening of the World's Fair by refusing to be gracious to Mrs. Palmer - "After all, " mewed the Spanish princess, "the wife of an innkeeper!"

[sources: Hon. Horace Wilbur Palmer, Ph.D., LL.B., "Palmer Families in America," Vol. 1., "Lt. William Palmer of Yarmouth, Mass. and his descendants of Greenwich, CT," 1966, Neshanic Printing Co., Neshanic, NJ; Lloyd Wendt & Herman Kogan, "Give the Lady What She Wants! The story of Marshall Field & Co.," 1952, South Bend, Ind.; (The submitter of this information, Suzanne S. Kulp of Orchard Park NY, Genealogist and Municipal Historian, is a "double cousin" to Mr. Palmer, related on both the Potter and Palmer sides)