It’s Halloween, and while traditionally I’ve posted about something like someone reading about their own suicide, manslaughter or desecrating graves on this day, today I thought it would be interesting to look in on that other aspect of the holiday we all so look forward to: candy!

While of course, we in the present day associate Halloween with candy, that wasn’t so much so in the 19th century. That holiday was much more about night-time japery, with girls performing pseudo-occult divination rituals in the woods and boys stealing cabbages from fields to huck at people’s doors. It was often topped off with a bonfire, kindled with numerous wooden items stolen from around the neighboring area. Wearing costumes and shouting “trick or treat!” for candy goodies took form in the 20th century and nostalgic media from the Great Pumpkin to Hocus Pocus would solidify our concept of Halloween–although every generation from now until the end of time will pronounce the holiday “not the same” as their own youthful experience. Them’s the breaks, boys and ghouls!

Candy was more often found at Christmas, with its iconic peppermint sticks, or Easter with sugar eggs that were prettier than they were tasty. Valentine’s Day grew into a powerhouse of candy sales mostly due to efforts of 19th century candy merchants, and that one has definitely overstayed its welcome in my opinion.

Enough chit-chat, let’s meet some of the people and see some of the places associated with candy-making in Rochester during this time.

---

Confectionery, 19th Century Style

The confectionery industry of the 19th century had its capital in Boston. There, the Chase brothers, immigrants from England, brought their knowledge of apothecary and confectionery. Oliver R. Chase invented a machine for the mass production of “lozenges”, or compressed shapes of a dough comprised of sugar, gum arabic, and flavoring; these would become the predecessors of Necco Wafers [known at the time as “hub wafers” after Boston’s nickname, “The Hub”] and later on–after brother Daniel G. Chase devised a method for printing words on the lozenges–“conversation hearts”.

---

Steam Confectionery

The 19th century saw many machines of industries improved with steam power, and confectionery joined the throng; steam would do such things as turn the pan on a rotating shaft in which candies could be panned–the polished candy covering familiar from M&Ms and other dragées, and jelly beans. The chocolate-coating counterpart, the enrober, could also be turned by steam.

These steam-powered improvements would allow for far more candies to be churned out, turning a highly laborious occupation into a profitable mechanized industry.

Steam heat could also be used to melt the chocolates and bring sugar syrups to boil, as well as to heat the “stove” or drying-room, a heated finishing area of the confectionery shop:

And so, the technological scene set for confectionery in this age, let us meet some important figures in Rochester’s own confectionery scene. Note that these are a select few of the many confectioners throughout Rochester’s history, and these are specifically ones who worked within or beginning in the 19th century, so if you don’t see anyone you recognize there will probably be a more 20th-century follow-up before long.

---

Michael O’Brien

Michael O’Brien was one early confectioner; he appears as early as the 1841 directory, his shop being at No. 50 Exchange Street, within a block of the swing bridge over the Canal.

Michael O’Brien specialized in “Confectionaries of all kinds–German toys, Pastry, &c.” German clear toy candies were a very old tradition brought from Germany, of molding candy into shapes–usually animals, but sometimes rocking horses, trains, or a dog biting someone’s ass. Below, a page from a catalogue shows some forms toys could take when made by “Mills’ Excelsior Toy Machine”, patented in 1868 by Thomas Mills & Bro. of Philadelphia.

O’Brien’s first advertised place of business was on Front Street, “One door North Rochester Seed Store”; the Rochester Seed Store was “Nearly Opposite the Market”.

Between 1848 and 1851, O’Brien operated the Rochester Confectionery out of No. 82 Buffalo Street, “under City Hall”. At this time, City Hall had not been fixed in a permanent structure, and so the city rented the top two floors of the five-story building of Erastus Peck, on the north side of Buffalo Street, now West Main Street.

As of 1851, O’Brien moved to No. 44 State Street, “opposite the savings bank”. This placed it between Market Street and Exchange Place, in the building that would go on to house Steele & Avery.

Michael O’Brien is listed as a confectioner dealing out of No. 44 State Street until the 1859 directory, at which point he is listed as a partner in O’Brien & Madden, confectioners and dealers in fruit at No. 27 Buffalo Street, near the corner of Exchange Street.

O’Brien and Madden seem to have begun their partnership a bit earlier than this, however, as mention is made in articles prior to 1859:

Sadly, this sweet partnership was sundered early on, as Patrick A. Madden would die on July 13th, 1861 of consumption.

Michael O’Brien seems to have sold off his confectionery business at last in 1888, due to illness:

O’Brien would die in August of 1892.

---

Bartholomew O’Brien

Also in the early confectionery business was Bartholomew O’Brien. Given that Bartholomew O’Brien shared an address with Michael O’Brien [No. 21 Spring Street] it seems as though they were necessarily related, but precisely how I’ve yet to determine. Brothers? Father and son? Cousins?

Whatever their relation, Michael and Bartholomew entered into a brief partnership making confectionery together in 1846.

However, I never saw any other mention of this O’Brien confectionery partnership after this. If it continued in any form or if it dissolved shortly thereafter, I cannot say. The two of them seemed to have carried on in their separate candy stores.

Bartholomew O’Brien captured his share of the Jenny Lind craze by printing candy wafers bearing her name and likeness, along with his own company’s name. Employed in this process, a specialty candy roller with two rolling dies, which would leave the impressions on the candy wafer with the turn of a crank–or, the belt of a steam-driven engine.

Bartholomew O’Brien patented this device, which is US8657A, “Improvement in machines for making sugar candy.”

This would appear to be a variation or improvement upon the lozenge cutter, the confectionery device Oliver R. Chase had introduced in 1846–albeit, the candy drop roller manipulates molten sugar rather than compressed fine sugars as in the lozenge cutter. The video below demonstrates use of an antique candy drop roller:

In 1860, O’Brien would open up a new location at No. 85 East Main Street, the “Crystal Palace Block” named for having some of the earliest large plate glass shop windows on the street.

The Crystal Palace Block, on the north side of East Main Street just east of St. Paul Street, was erected between 1852 and 1853 by Jones & Osburn.

In May 1861, Bartholomew O’Brien would move to No. 11 Main Street Bridge, but hold onto the Crystal Palace name, which had to have been mildly confusing for customers.

O’Brien lost a significant amount of his stock when the 1865 flood damaged the buildings on the Main Street Bridge, including Ocumpaugh’s block where O’Brien’s shop was.

---

James Bond

Englishman Bond, James Bond, Double 00 Sugar, came to Rochester from Yarmouth, England around 1830, and taught himself the confectionery trade.

Bond’s first place of business seems to have been the same as Michael O’Brien’s, No, 82 Buffalo Street, that being the confectionery under Everard Peck’s building, temporary quarters of City Hall. This was at the corner of West Main Street and Pindell Alley, as pointed out in the Michael O’Brien section.

---

John Wightman Graves

John W. Graves was one son of the pioneer John H. Graves, who moved to Greece from New Hampshire in 1829, and on to Rochester; John H. Graves worked in the grocery trade, then helped build a section of the Genesee Valley Canal, then became a dealer in stoves. Finally, he took a turn towards mechanical invention, patenting oil stoves and beehives and butter churners.

His son, John W. Graves, went into the confectionery business at No. 3 Front Street in 1868.

He would move to No. 27 Exchange street by 1873:

It was while he was on Exchange Street, in the building of thermometer maker and wholesale confectioner Lewis C. Tower, that a great disaster would occur: the building would collapse, and Graves’ kettle of boiling sugar syrups would be sent through the floor, where it would pin another resident of the building and scald him badly. This is gone into a bit more later on, in the section devoted to Lewis C. Tower.

The year following, Graves would sell out to Tower and remove his business to No. 32 East Main Street.

Then, after 1880, No. 99 East Main Street was the location of his business.

---

Lorenzo Dow Fleming

Lorenzo Dow Fleming came onto the candy-making scene in 1861, at No. 84 State Street.

In 1869, Fleming moved his confectionery into No. 14 Main Street Bridge, which had formerly been the Central Drug Store.

He seems to have kept one of the main attractions of the former Central Drug Store, the “Polar fountain” purchased by Pomeroy & Low in 1866; this provided sparkling water, Kissengen Water from the now-defunct Kissengen Springs, and the “new and favorite” New York Root Beer.

The below article describes a fancy cake that was centerpiece at the 50th anniversary of Reverend Mark Cork and Eliza Hugin Mark of Lima, NY.

One anonymous person writing their reminiscence to the Democrat and Chronicle recollected Fleming’s candy store on the bridge, and made note that Fleming’s wife, Minerva, was called “the handsomest woman in Rochester.”

---

Ira A. Lovejoy

Ira A. Lovejoy began in the confectionery business in the 1870s, in the Ocumpaugh Building on the south side of the Main Street Bridge.

Lovejoy specialized in “cream candies”, which did not contain cream. These were sugar, water, and cream of tartar boiled “to the thread” and then worked with a tool until the mass reaches a creamy-looking “soft grain”, upon which flavoring could be added.

Exactly what a “Grenoble cream” was is not gone into, but if it follows from other “cream candies” described in “The Candy Maker” it would be a whipped confection of water, sugar, cream of tartar, and flavoring–in this case, the signature walnuts endemic to Grenoble.

You’ll notice a lot of emphasis on purity, with “no coloring or other objectionable matter used” touted. This was no small boast at the time; candy-making was rife with the use of dangerous adulterants and chemical colorants, with several noteworthy poisonings resulting from their use–such as the 1854 Bradford sweets poisoning, wherein twenty people died and 200 were injured by poisons when arsenic was “mistakenly” used in a batch of peppermint humbug candies.

In 1880, Lovejoy and his family moved to No. 26 South Union Street, which would become No. 52 South Union Street after an address reconfiguration.

Lovejoy remained in his house at No. 51 South Union Street until his death on August 18th, 1913.

---

Boston Chips

In 1875, a candy craze was being born in Boston. Some enterprising confectioner had stumbled upon a process leading to wafer-thin, crispy flavored candy pieces. The trademark for this candy, at the time No. 226, was filed for March 27, 1875 by Charles B. Hill of Roxbury, Massachusetts.

The last line of the above–“they have proved very popular within the last year or two” would become something of an understatement as every decently fashionable confectioner in the world, even in such gauche backwoods towns as Rochester, would start offering Boston Chips.

The candy, at least from description, seems to be akin to ribbon candy, albeit served as broken shards rather than crimped lengths–the crimping machine for ribbon candy was not patented until 1886, by Dr. Philip Benjamin Laskey.

Earlier on in the 19th century, “Boston Chips” had been common parlance for a type of wood shingle, and now and then a cheeky advertisement would draw on this correlation.

By 1878, even the coffee counter at the Four Corners street car waiting room received a shipment of the crisp candy chips:

Also mentioned above is another old-fashioned classic candy, horehound drops, still available today but enjoyed by very few. Kind of a strong, bitter minty black tea mixed with old grass flavor, if you’ve never experienced it.

The Boston Chips craze petered out before the 1920s was out; one of the very last mentions of the crispy candy wafers I encountered was one from 1929, wherein the candy is presented as one of several classic old candies from Page & Shaw‘s “old Recipe Book of fifty years ago”–apparently, Boston Chips were an old-fashioned candy, a reminder of the 1880s.

After this, Boston Chips simply went without mention, one of the ever-increasing list of lost candies of yesteryear. Though doubtless, some one-kettle mom-and-pop candy shop still makes these thin confections, the product seems to have vanished from general consciousness.

---

Zimmerman’s

Marshall Andrew Zimmerman came from Norwich, Ontario, Canada on the first train ever to cross the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge.

He opened a candy store at No. 144 State Street, the Waverly House block, at the corner of State Street and Central Avenue.

After just one year, he removed to his permanent location, the north side of the Main Street Bridge. This was No. 27 East Main Street, which had previously been a florist, plant store, and bird shop. The address would become No. 86 East Main Street.

Marshall A. Zimmerman died March 30th, 1895, at his home at No. 30 Meigs Street, which would become No. 96 Meigs Street in 1913.

Following Marshall’s death, his wife Hester Anne Baker would take on daily operations of the confectionery until such time as their son, Howard, was old enough to take over the shop.

In 1913, Zimmerman’s acquired a second location, No. 251 East Main Street. That can be seen below in this photo sourced, ironically, from an ad for the dentists on the top floor.

This shop was located across from Sibley’s, between South Clinton Avenue and Cortland Street.

In 1915, the Main Street bridge location was closed and only No. 251 East Main Street remained.

The No. 251 East Main Street Zimmerman’s candy store closed in 1928, bringing the Zimmerman name in confectionery to a close after 47 years of business.

The Post Express demonstrates a remarkable inability to do math:

Hester Zimmerman died April 1st, 1948; she had remarried to shoe manufacturer William Henry Wood, who died in 1916.

---

Huyler’s

Huyler’s was a New York City chain of confectioners and chocolatiers, which made its Rochester debut at the entrance of the Reynold’s Arcade.

Around 1887, Huyler’s moved from the Reynolds Arcade entrance to the shop at the corner of Front Street and East Main Street, under C. E. Furman’s.

Sometime around 1892, Huyler’s closed their branch in Rochester. Some fifteen years would pass; finally, Huyler’s would re-open a location next door to the location they previously were at. Instead of the corner of East Main and Front Streets, Huyler’s would inhabit the L-shaped former grocery store with faces on East Main and Front Streets, which wrapped around its former location.

---

Whittle’s

Thomas A. Whittle entered the confectionery game as an employee of Huyler’s, where he worked thirteen years–eight in New York City, five in Rochester. In 1888, he set up his own shop at No. 102 East Main Street, near the corner of North Water Street, a “little gem” where “everything [was] of the latest crinkle”.

In 1915, Whittle opened up a branch in Nos. 3 and 5 East Avenue.

In 1907, Thomas A. Whittle’s storefront at No. 102 East Avenue became the entrance to a nickelodeon theatre that was opening up in the old Gerling mill behind it, the “Knickerbocker Theatre”. This theatre suspended operations in 1917, at which point Whittle moved his East Main Street location to No. 44 East Main Street, the former Huyler’s location in the L-shaped store on East Main and Front Streets.

Because Huyler’s left town again.

Whether the below image is of the East Main Street or the East Avenue location, the caption does not specify:

The next year, 1928, Thomas A. Whittle would retire and sell Whittle’s off.

Thomas A. Whittle would die at his home, No. 107 West Avenue [100 Chili Avenue], on June 11th, 1938.

---

James Zwtes

James Zwtes was a well-respected confectioner, but had another claim to fame: for many, many editions of the Rochester city directory, his name was the very last–as one might expect from a “zw” name. The long-reigning first name in the directory was August Aab.

Oddly, in 1899, Gustaf Zwtes was last in the directory, implying James Zwtes must not have been present that year, for he regains his rightful place in 1900, only to lose it again in 1902 to Michael Zwtes, a florist. This was shockingly short-lived, as Michael moved away and James was once again the Omega to Aab’s Alpha.

---

Lewis C. Tower

Though primarily a producer of thermometers, Lewis C. Tower would also dabble in wholesale confectionery. He shared a building on Exchange Street with J. W. Graves, which collapsed in 1878:

It was Graves’ cauldron of boiling sugar syrup which careened through the collapsed floor and pinned Colonel Milton H. Smith, severely scalding him and even causing the amputation of an arm:

Tower and Graves relocated their businesses to No. 39 Exchange Street:

The following year, Tower bought out Graves share, whereupon Graves relocated to No. 32 Main Street.

The whole thermometer angle of Tower’s career is very interesting indeed, but I’ve decided to leave that out of this entry and will hopefully return to it in the future.

---

The Rochester Candy Works

The partnership of P. James Costello and C. E. Harrah bought out Lewis C. Tower, the Exchange Street confectioner, and together they established the Rochester Candy Works at No. 59 Mill Street, a building owned by grocer George C. Buell.

Circa 1891, the Rochester Candy Works constructed a large building on State Street for the production of candies.

Also in 1891, Joseph B. Demerath began working at the Candy Works; he is credited with the development of a marshmallow-casting machine, allowing marshmallows to be mass-produced instead of hand-portioned in a finicky, sticky process.

In 1932, A. S. Colebrook of the Rochester Candy Works tried out a homey sort of retail shop attached to the front of the factory, “Colebrook’s Candy House”. This was short-lived, apparently petering out around 1933.

By 1934, the Rochester Candy Works ceased operations, and sold off the old factory building:

---

Sweet Nothings

So, so much candy; so, so many years. The 19th century’s hand-pulled molasses candy had given way to steam- and electricity-powered machinery churning out candy by the hundreds of pounds. Dozens of men and women whose trade centered around the sweet, sticky stuff had lived and died, and each set of hands left a lasting impression on the candy we consume today.

Though the cozy candy shop of yesteryear isn’t entirely gone, it’s definitely a novelty these days. However, there seems to be an upswing: one can’t deny that candy manufacturing makes for some highly satisfying reels on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. In fact, my algorithm seems to have entirely given over to the process, as seemingly dozens of small candy shops vie for my attention with boiling sugars, taffy-pulling, shattering sets of candy drops, and scooping with the microphone as close as possible to the bulk bins. So, we may yet see a handmade candy revolution in our future!

---

Supporting Gonechester

Did you enjoy what you read? Consider giving me a little tip at buymeacoffee.com/Gonechester, by way of saying “thanks!” It’s not necessary, but it certainly helps!