Colin D. Mawer Company, Brooklyn, New York, Grandee Brand Capers

Our story actually starts, not with capers and not in Brooklyn, but across the Atlantic Ocean in an area of Southern Spain famous for its olives. It was described like this in a March 15, 1925 “Brooklyn Citizen” story.

The earth of ours is dotted with favored spots, as if only here and there soil and clime combine to give man Nature’s treasures.

In all the world there is but one spot where green olives will grow to satisfactory sizes and flavors for eating. It is just a handful of land – not more than some thirty-odd miles square in the southwestern corner of Spain. But it is there that the sun is kind to this delectable fruit. Under it the olives grow to wonderful fullness before they ripen. They retain that firm meaty succulence that is part of their charm. Spanish olives are more than a condiment, they are a delicious and nourishing food. The flavor is used to embellish a myriad of appetizing dishes.

The Colin D. Mawer Company and later Mawer-Gulden-Annis, Inc. of Brooklyn, New York, made a specialty of importing these olives and packing them in the United States such that, by the mid 1920’s they were the largest olive-packing firm in the country. To a lesser degree they also dealt in cherries and capers among other things, marketing them all under the “Grandee” brand name.

As shown in the above photograph the subject bottle does not exhibit the Grandee brand or Mawer company name. However, its unique eight-sided shape and deep green color exactly match a labeled Grandee Brand Capers bottle recently offered for sale on the internet.

As a result, I feel relatively safe in the assumption that the subject bottle once contained capers packed by a Mawer business.

So, with that as background, what follows is more on the history of Colin D. Mawer and his importing/packing businesses.

`According to a feature on Mawer published in the May, 1928 edition of “The Glass Container,” his story begins about 100 miles north of New York City in Liberty, New York.

Both of Mr. Mawer’s parents were born in Scotland. In 1950 they came over to America and settled on a farm near Liberty, N. Y. Here their son Colin D. Mawer was born…

Liberty, N. Y. was only a small town, and like all towns of its size boasted few stores. One store, the general county store, catered to the modest demands of its inhabitants. So it was only natural that when young Mawer found that he had to leave school and help to keep the family going that he should seek a position in this store. After some years he became heart and soul in the wholesale grocery business, and to this day has never strayed far from the field…

After leaving Liberty and arriving in New York City he was initially associated with the wholesale grocery company of Francis H. Leggett & Company and later became manager of the olive department of Alart & McGuire before establishing the Colin D Mawer Company in 1907. The incorporation notice appeared in the July 5th edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

BROOKLYN CORPORATION

A certificate of Incorporation has been filed with the Secretary of State by the Colin D. Mawer Company of Brooklyn, which propose to deal in grocer’s specialties. The capital stock is $15,500 and the directors are Colin D. Mawer, Edward H. Douglas and Herbert E. Sparks, of Brooklyn.

Trade Mark records indicate that the “grocer’s specialties” mentioned in the above notice included Olives, Olive Oil, Stuffed Olives, Olive Butter, Minced Olives, Peanut Butter, Prepared Cherries, Minced and Crushed Cherries and Capers, all marketed under the brand name “Grandee,” a name he began using at the very start of his business.

The company headquarters was always located in Bush Terminal, a complex of over 20 blocks located along Brooklyn’s waterfront. Its location relative to lower Manhattan is depicted in this circa 1915 map published by the Bush Terminal Company. It can be found in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections.

Within Bush Terminal, the company was initially listed with an address of 253 36th Street (Building 3). Later, in 1912, they leased space in what would become their long-time headquarters at 87 34th Street (Buildings 7 and 8). Their lease at that location was announced in the May 10, 1912 edition of the “New York Times”under the heading “Commercial Leases.”

The Bush Terminal Company reports the following leases in its loft buildings in South Brooklyn: …to Colin D. Mawer & Co., importers and bottlers of olives, 5,000 square feet in Buildings 7 and 8…

The location of both 34th Street and 36th Street within Bush Terminal can be found in this close-up of the Bush Terminal Company’s 1915 map (near the top)

The 34th Street address was featured in their business card found in the 1920 “Victory Memorial Cookbook,”published by the Women’s Auxiliary of Victory Memorial Hospital.

By then the company had expanded their packing operations up the east coast to include a Boston facility as well. This series of classified advertisements that appeared side-by-side in the May 28, 1920 edition of the “Boston Globe” located it at the “Foot of State Street,” with an address of 69-70 Long Wharf.

At the beginning of 1921 the Mawer company merged with Ralph B. Annis, Inc. and the olive packing division of Chas. H Gulden, Inc., forming Mawer-Gulden-Annis, Inc. The merger was announced in the December 31, 1920 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

BIG LOCAL COMBINE FORMED TO SUPPLY GREEN OLIVE TRADE

Starts Business Tomorrow in Bush Terminal – Includes Well Known Importers

Quite a stir has been created in the imported green olive trade by the announcement of the formation of a new corporation which will be known as Mawer-Gulden-Annis, Inc., and will begin business Jan. 1, 1921. The main office will be located at 87 34th St., Bush Terminal Building No. 7, Brooklyn N. Y.

This consolidation will be composed of the following: Colin D. Mawer, of Colin D. Mawer Co., 87 34th St., Brooklyn; Franklin Gulden, of Charles Gulden, Inc., 48 Elizabeth St., Manhattan; Ralph B. Annis of Ralph B. Annis Co., Inc., 33 34th St., Brooklyn.

These three incorporators, who will constitute the Board of Directors, have been engaged in the Spanish green olive business for years and are well known in the trade both in this country and Spain. It is anticipated that the combination of these three large concerns under one head will reduce in a considerable degree the cost of production and it will be the aim of the new company to supply the wholesale trade of the United States with Spanish green olives at the lowest prices consistent with quality.

For the present they will operate four large factories, two of which are located in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan and one in Boston, Mass., and will probably find it advantageous later to place one or two more in different parts of the country to take care of contiguous territory. The new concern, besides taking over the olive interests of the constituent companies, will also pack maraschino style cherries, olive oil, olive butter, peanut butter, capers and other kindred lines.

Gulden mustard will be conducted as before by Charles Gulden, Inc., 50 Elizabeth St., Manhattan.

The Colin D. Mawer Company’s 34th Street facilities in Bush Terminal went on to serve as the headquarters for the new corporation with Mawer serving as it’s first president. Their Boston facilities were also retained.

Three years later, in 1923, a January 7th item in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that the company was doubling its capitalization from $250,000 to $500,000.

This increase in capital certainly suggests that the company was doing well, and an April 16, 1924 story in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” serves to back up that suggestion.

An exceptionally heavy shipment of green olives, consigned to the Mawer-Gulden-Annis Company of 87 34th St., is being unloaded at the piers of the Spanish Line, on Beard’s Dock near the Hamilton Ferry. All the available space has been utilized with the result that the thousands of stacked hogsheads give the docks the appearance of a thick, stumpy tropical forest less its foliage.

Two vessels from Spain, carrying approximately 6,000 hogsheads and 6,000 barrels of green olives each, docked at the breakwater last week. The entire shipment, as are all the shipments of green olives to the United States, was produced within a radius of 100 miles of the city of Seville.

These hogsheads of olives, packed in brine, are being transported to the Mawer-Gulden-Annis Company, where they are being packed and sent out to the trade in small labeled bottles at the rate of 60,000 bottles of olives a day or 27,000,000 olives.

While olives was certainly the chief article put up by the concern, they continued to be packers of other products as well. Their business card, found in several 1925 editions of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” mentioned peanut butter, olive oil, cherries and capers.

A number of these products were touted in the May 15, 1925 edition of the “Brooklyn Citizen.”

In the warm days of the summer time the appetite is not tempted by heavy meats, but one craves appetizing foods of a lighter kind. Whether an occasion be a picnic party or a home luncheon, nothing is more satisfying than a dainty sandwich with a salad prepared with Grandee olive oil.

A more perfect garnish for salads than Grandee olive butter, manufactured by Mawer-Gulden-Annis, Inc. would be difficult to find. It is nicely prepared and saves the housewife undue labor. The butter is made with Spanish green olives, combined with Spanish sweet peppers, spices and other ingredients.

Another product of this firm is bottled cherries, which has been increasing in sales in the last few years at a very rapid pace. This is due to the quality of the cherries and to the fact that housewives of today realize the attractive appearance these cherries add to a table when placed on grapefruit or fruit salads. A table must have a touch of color to make it complete, and cherries accomplish the effect.

When the ball of the earth had been nicely rounded and it was being examined for the depositing of various gift lands, as the southern tip of Africa for diamonds, Alaska for gold, the plains of middle America for corn and the shorelines of the Asiatic for tea, the magic, kindly eye must have surely rested on southern Spain for olives, where Mawer-Gulden-Annis’ high-grade olives are grown.

Another mid-1920’s advertisement, this one found in the August, 1924 edition of a trade magazine called “The Spice Mill,” pictured the packaging for several of these items. (Spanish Olives are pictured at each end, while in the middle are, left to right, cherries, olive oil and olive butter). Unfortunately, capers were not included..

In 1935, the August 3rd edition of the “Chicago Tribune” reported that the company was opening a branch plant in Chicago.

Mawer-Gulden-Annis, Inc., of Brooklyn yesterday leased space for a branch plant in the building at 589 East Illinois Street from the North Pier Terminal Company for a term of years.

Ten years later they expanded to the west coast as well. According to the January 31, 1945 edition of San Francisco’s “Call Bulletin:”

Mawer-Gulden-Annis, Inc., one of the largest factors in the country in the packing of olives and exporters of olives and specialties have entered the west coast field by conclusion of two deals for the opening of a plant at Fairfield in the upper bay area which will be the largest on the coast, it was learned today. Nucleus of the new operation will be the large plant formerly operated by Hunt Brothers in Solano County, which was purchased by the pioneer Brooklyn firm together with the plant, equipment and business of the Albers Packing Company of Riverside, in southern California. The deal ran into several hundred thousand dollars.

Under plans of Mawer-Gulden-Annis, the Riverside plant will be moved to the upper bay for inclusion into an expanded and modernized plant for the handling of olive packing, specialties and fruit products.

The story went on to say:

A large number of persons will be necessary in the processing and packing of California ripe olives and other lines.

Whether this was in addition to or, in lieu of, imported olives is not clear.

Ultimately, in 1962, a February 13th “Associated Press” item announced that Mawer-Gulden-Annis merged with Charles Gulden, Inc. and the Mawer-Gulden-Annis name was to disappear.

Officers of Charles Gulden, Inc., Saddle Brook, N. J., and Mawyer-Gilden-Annis, Inc., of Brooklyn, disclosed the two companies will merge. The surviving company will be Charles Gulden, Inc.

Gulden makes mustard while Mawer-Gulden-Annis distributes olives, cherries and olive products.

The story went on to say that Colin D. Mawer, who, after 42 years was still serving as president of Mawer-Gulden-Annis, went on to become a director of Charles Gulden, Inc. He passed away three years later in 1965.

While not one of their marque products, Grandee Imported Capers continued to occasionally appear in advertised grocery store price lists throughout the 1950’s.

Later, in 1970, several grocery store advertisements associate the Grandee brand with “Durkee” so it’s likely that at some point they acquired the brand. This mention of “Durkee Grandee Imported Capers”appeared in the September 23, 1970 edition of the New Orleans “Times-Picayune,” where it was included in the “Gourmet and Delicatessen Department” of a supermarket called “Langenstein’s” (2nd from the bottom).