ncorporated in
1902. John Wilde died in 1914.

Another grandson of Samuel Wilde is William B. Harris, who engaged in
the coffee roasting business in Front Street from 1904 to 1917. From
1908 to 1918 he acted as coffee expert for the United States Department
of Agriculture. William B. Harris is a son of Samuel L. Harris, who
married a daughter of Samuel Wilde, and who for a number of years was
connected with Samuel Wilde's Sons.

[Illustration: PIONEERS IN THE ROASTED COFFEE BUSINESS OF NEW YORK CITY

With approximate dates of their entry into the trade]

Although a number of roasters and grinders for family use were patented
in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century, the
coffee merchants depended almost entirely on English manufacturers for
their wholesale equipment until 1846, when James W. Carter of Boston
brought out his "pull-out" roaster. This machine, and others like it,
encouraged the development of the coffee-roasting business, so that when
the Civil War came, coffee manufactories were well scattered over the
country. The demand for something better in coffee-machinery equipment
was answered by Jabez Burns with his machine for filling and discharging
without moving the roasting cylinder from the fire.

Among the early grocery concerns in New York that were also coffee
roasters were: R.C. Williams & Co., starting as Mott & Williams in 1811,
changing to R.S. Williams & Co. in 1821, to Williams & Potter in 1851,
and to its present title in 1882; Acker, Merrall & Condit Co., founded
in 1820; Park & Tilford, founded in 1840; Austin, Nichols & Co., founded
in 1855; and Francis H. Leggett & Co., founded in 1870.

There were twenty-one "coffee roasters and spice factors" in New York in
1848. Among them were: Beard & Cummings. 281 Front Street; Henry B.
Blair, 129 Washington Street; Colgate Gilbert, 93 Fulton Street; Wright
Gillies, 236 Washington Street; and Withington, Wilde & Welch, 7 Dutch
Street. In this year, two coffee importers, fourteen tea importers, and
forty-one tea dealers were listed in the _City Directory_.

The _Directory_ for 1854 listed twenty-seven coffee roasters and spice
factors, among them, in addition to the above, being Peter Haulenbeek,
328 Washington Street; Levi Rowley, 102 West Street; William J. Stitt,
159 Washington Street; and George W. Wright, 79 Front Street. In those
days not all the wholesale coffee factors were roasters; there was much
trade roasting by a