In business for almost 40 years during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, George Bennett served as a mineral water manufacturer and bottler of lager beer in the Rockaway Beach (Oceanus) section of New York’s Rockaway peninsula. This advertisement touting his business was published in several 1898 and 1899 editions of a local newspaper called “The Wave.”
Bennett’s biographical sketch found in the “Portrait and Biographical Record of Queens County, New York,” published in 1896, gets his story started.
George Bennett is a native of the city of Brooklyn, born March 15, 1860, a son of Jacob and Mary (Scheffel) Bennett, residents of Brooklyn, where the father is connected with the North Amsterdam Brewing Company, but was previously engaged in the cider and vinegar business… At the early age of eleven or twelve years he began assisting his father in his cider and vinegar establishment… He was twenty-one years of age, when he came to Oceanus, and here established his present business, which was the first of the kind to be opened at Rockaway Beach.
This all suggests a start date for the business sometime in the early 1880’s, not 1877 as claimed in the above advertisement. This suggestion is further supported by census records that indicate Bennett was still living at home in Brooklyn in 1880 when, at the age of twenty, he listed his occupation as “saloon keeper.”
From all appearances Bennett’s bottling business was strictly a local operation content with supplying the Rockaway area restaurants and hotels with soda and beer. This August 15, 1914 receipt for what appears to be two cases of “Blue Label” seltzer certainly supports that case.
Always listing an address of “Grove Avenue and the Railroad,” the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Queens County, 1898-1903, Vol 4, 1901, located his bottling facility just north of the railroad on the east side of Grove Avenue, directly adjacent to the Brooklyn Hotel (just right of the “G” in Grove). Note Grove Avenue was later renamed Beach 86th Street circa 1920.
George Bennett continued to list his occupation as “Proprietor-Bottling” in census records dated January 16, 1920. That said, by then he was certainly planning his retirement and less than three months later, the April 5, 1920 edition of the “National Bottler’s Gazette,” announced that Bennett had sold the business to Harry Kandel and Harry Gordon.
ROCKAWAY BEACH. – Mr. George Bennett advises us that he has sold his well-known and old-established business to Messrs. H. Kandel and H. Gordon, who will continue to manufacture the same beverages that gained for the former owner such a fine reputation.
Calling Kandel & Gordon “successors to George Bennett,” this April 8, 1920 story in “The Wave” went on to say they were preparing for their first season as proprietors of the business.
Kandel &Gordon, the successors of George Bennett in the old established bottling and mineral water works propose keeping fully abreast of the times in using appliances and methods which are the latest to be devised in this now important industry, and they are getting into readiness to handle a tremendous business during the coming season. Every indication is that they will be severely taxed despite their extensive facilities, but they propose to make superior goods and dependable service their first and consistent policy no matter what conditions confront them. Their business experience and code of policies assure customers of Kandel & Gordon the best that is obtainable in that line.
Subsequent advertisements during the early 1920’s continued to reference Kandel & Gordon as the “Successor to GEO. BENNETT.”
Short-lived, the business only operated under the Kandel & Gordon name for three, maybe four years. They were listed in the May, 1920 edition of the Brooklyn and Queens Telephone Directory and the 1922 Copartnership and Corporation Directory for Brooklyn and Queens. By October, 1924 the Brooklyn and Queens Telephone Directory listed the business as Gordon & Hoffman. Gordon & Hoffman was still listed on Beach 86th Street with the heading “mineral water”in the 1932 “Directory of New York State Manufacturers” after which I lose track.
George Bennett passed away in September of 1940 twenty years after selling his bottling business. His obituary, published in the September 27, 1940 edition of Brooklyn’s “Daily Eagle” suggests he was also heavily involved in the Rockaway Beach community both before and after his retirement.
…In 1911 Mr. Bennett and other business men organized the hospital on land donated by the late Peter Wycoff. A few years later Mt. Bennett, who had retired from business became president. Under his direction the institution’s beds have increased from twenty-five to more than 100.
During the World War Mr. Bennett was a member of the draft board of the Rockaways and for the last decade served as president of the Exempt Firemen’s Association of the Fifth Ward…
The subject bottle is a champagne style beer bottle, blown in a mold with a blob finish. It likely dates to the earlier side of the company history.
Also found in the bays was this 8-ounce bottle embossed with the “Kandel & Gordon” name along with the Beach 86th Street address.
Machine made, it certainly dates to the early 1920’s when the business operated under that name.
Today, the former footprint of the bottling works is occupied by what appears to be three multi-unit apartment buildings. The aerial photo directly below the Sanborn map depicts the area as it is today, courtesy of “Google Maps.”
Finally, his image, also courtesy of “Google Maps” is looking north on Beach 86th St. (Grove Ave.) with the apartments/old bottling site on the right and Jamaica Bay in the distance.
