I decided to write about Mr. Allaire because he has an entire state park named after him. I'm not certain but I *think* he is my only ancestor with a state park.
is based on my 5x- great grandfather's life. Our lineage is as such:
Bruce Bronson Gant Sr. who was the father of
The biography from the park website was written better than I could so I'm sharing that here.
At the age of 17, he began working for Francis Elsworth, a brass founder in the city. Allaire would marry Frances Duncan, a distant cousin, two years later, and he continued to advance at the brass foundry. They would eventually have nine children, five of whom lived to adulthood.
By 1806, having learned the brass business, Allaire opened his own foundry. Before the War of 1812, Allaire’s foundry received an order from Robert Fulton to make the brass works for the Clermont, the first commercially successful steamboat. After Fulton’s death in 1815, Allaire leased Fulton’s shop in New Jersey from the estate. Charles Soutinger, Fulton’s chief engineer, became his partner. Under that partnership, Allaire and Stoutinger built the engine for Fulton’s last steamship design, the Chancellor Livingston, as well as the air cylinder for the Savannah, the first steam powered vessel to successfully cross the Atlantic.
By 1820, Allaire was operating that largest marine engine building shop in the United States. He personally held a number of patents for steam engine improvements developed at his shop, which was known as the James P. Allaire Works.
In 1822, after acquiring the property which is now known at The Historic Village at Allaire, building began on what would eventually become the Howell Works – a community of approx. 400 workers and their families. The Howell Works was designed to be a self-sustaining community that would integrate all of the economic components needed to support Allaire’s businesses (production of the bulk pig iron to be shipped and cast into machine parts at Allaire Works in NY, for use in the building of the ships for the (Allaire owned) Steamboat Packet Lines. By 1833 most of the standard features of Village life were in place at the Howell Works. A post office, school for worker’s children, blacksmith shop, carpenter’s shop, carriage house, manager’s house, foreman’s cottage and chapel were in place. The company store (General Store) was completed in 1835. Allaire’s family moved to the site sometime in 1834 (although he often stayed in NYC to oversee the Allaire Works). His first wife, Frances, died in 1836 after a long illness and though deeply affected by her death, he returned to his work. Despite a 26 year age difference, ten years after Frances’s death, he would marry Calicia Allaire Tompkins, a distant cousin who had nursed his first wife during her illness. They had one son, Hal, born in 1847.
The village was at its most prosperous in 1836 (the year we interpret) but began to decline as richer deposits of iron and coal in Pennsylvania made production cheaper and the use of charcoal in the furnaces was not as efficient as coal. By 1848 the production had been in steady decline and the furnace ceased to operate. Although the Howell Works was only one of James P. Allaire’s numerous businesses, it has turned out to be a lasting monument to a man who combined business acumen with a concern for his employees. A true testament to an early industrialist during a time of growth and change in the American landscape.
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More about James P. Allaire from the www.geni website:
Founder of Howell Iron Works. James P. Allaire was one of the best known industrialists in the country.
Records indicate James Peter Allaire was born 12 July 1785 in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia; however, new evidence may prove he was born in his family's ancestral home city of New Rochelle, New York. Petitions to the Continental Congress in 1784 by a Peter A. Allaire of New York indicate this branch of the Allaire family may have remained in New York during the British evacuation. We do know, though, that members the Allaire Family held Loyalist views during the United States War of Independence and fled to Canada during the British evacuation of New York after the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783. Among these was Allaire's uncle, Anthony Allaire, who served with the British Army during the war under the infamous Col. Tarleton as well as in Maj. Patrick Ferguson's famed rifle corps during the Carolina Campaigns. It was Col. Tarleton who issued the notorious decree offering freedom to any slave wishing to join his army.
Little, if anything, is known about James Peter Allaire's early years. Scant evidence indicates he may have received only the most rudimentary, elementary education. This, however, would be in direct conflict his Huguenot heritage and his family's socio-economic status. We know from Allaire's actions later in life that he was strongly instilled with the Huguenot philosophy of free and equal education and firmly believed in the Huguenot conviction that life is a learning experience and one should strive to better him or herself through continued learning and education.
Peter Alexander Allaire, James P. Allaire's father, moved his family to New York City sometime after 1793, where he purchased a house at 29 John Street. Evidence indicates that Peter Allaire operated a livery stable nearby, which is probably where James Allaire was first introduced to iron production. In 1802, at the age of 17, James Peter Allaire began working for Frances Ellsworth, a brass founder in the City of New York, and by 1804 was operating his own small brass foundry located at 466 Cherry Street on the city's Lower East Side. It was this same year he would marry his second cousin, Frances Duncan, on 25 January. Frances and James would have nine children together, but only five of them would reach maturity.
Prior to the War of 1812, James Allaire received orders from two gentlemen hoping to built a craft and begin regular steam service from New York City to Albany: Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, Jr. and Robert Fulton. This would commence a long lasting relationship between Allaire, Livingston and Fulton as well as mark the foundation of his career as a marine engine manufacturer. Allaire was commissioned to cast parts for The Boat, as Livingston and Fulton called her. She would leave New York Harbor on the 17th of August 1807 and sail into history, proving to the world the possibilities of nautical steam navigation. After several successful runs during the autumn of that year, The Boat would be pulled from service and set in dry dock at Clermont, the country seat of Chancellor Livingston, located in Germantown, NY. She would be re-outfitted during the winter months of 1807 and 1808, with the assistance of James Allaire, and put back into service during the spring of 1808 after being christened the North River Steam Boat and dubbed by the public the North River Steamboat of Clermont. Today she is known simply as The Clermont.
Allaire would continue his personal and business relationship with Livingston and Fulton. Allaire continued his relationship with Fulton and Livingston's heirs after the Chancellor's death on 26 February 1813. He continued to work with Fulton up to the time of Fulton's own death on February 23, 1815 from pneumonia. Allaire's relationship with Fulton became so close that he may have even been the executor of Fulton's estate. We do know though that Allaire continued his business relationship with the heirs of Robert Fulton and his wife, Harriett Livingston who was the ward of the Chancellor, as well as his relationship with the heirs of the Chancellor himself. Historic records show that the Allaire family and the Livingstons had dealings in the past and it is even possible James Allaire was distantly related to the Chancellor.
After Fulton's death, Allaire formed a partnership with Charles Stoutinger, the chief engineer for the Fulton Livingston Works in Jersey City, NJ, and leased the tools, machinery and shop from the Fulton/Livingston heirs. The two immediately began work to complete the last boat designed by Fulton, the Chancellor Livingston. Work was completed by 1816, but shortly after this Stoutinger died. After Stoutinger's death, Allaire closed the Jersey City plant and relocated to Cherry Street at Corlear's Hook, where his small brass foundry was located. It was here that James Peter Allaire founded the Allaire Works, a move that would thrust him into prominence as one of the world's most famous marine engine manufacturers of the time.
His reputation for honesty and integrity, his attention to exacting detail, and his demands for perfection all contributed to the success of his Allaire Works. It was due to this reputation that, in 1818, Capt. Moses Rogers, a native of New London, CT, would contact Allaire with a proposal. A perfectionist himself, Rogers, with the backing of a consortium of wealthy Savannah merchants and planters, had set out to build the first trans-Atlantic steam powered vessel.
Rogers selected carefully in who would contracted to supply the parts for his craft and where it would be assembled. Samuel Carson, trained in London by sons of Matthew Boulton and James Watt who invented the steam engine, was employed to draft the design of the engines along with Daniel Dod of Elizabethtown, NJ. The engines would be cast and assembled by Steven Vail at his Speedwell Ironworks and James P. Allaire was selected to cast the cylinder, the largest made up to that time. On 22 1819, the Savannah "put to sea with steam and sails." She made the crossing from Savannah, GA to Liverpool in 29 days and 4 hours traveling for 18 days under steam power. While the crossing set no speed records, due in part to bad weather, the Savannah gained critical acclaim and proved to the world that trans-Atlantic steam navigation was possible. Unfortunately though, the Savannah showed her to be more of a curiosity and proved a financial failure.
Despite the financial failure of the Savannah, his contributions to her would secure James Peter Allaire's place in the annals of marine history and place him in the forefront of marine engine building during his time. By 1820, the 35 year old Allaire was producing over 50 percent of all marine engines manufactured in the United States and operating the largest marine engine shop in the country. Allaire personally held numerous patents for steam engine improvements developed at his Allaire Works in New York and proved his genius time and again through increased technological developments of his own design.
As his business grew and production increased, so did Allaire's need for raw materials which, in his case, was primarily iron. At the time, the United Kingdom was the largest manufacturer and exporter of iron in the world, but, as a result of the war of 1812, high ad velum tariffs had been placed on the British commodity. At one point these import tariffs reached the astounding figure of 130 percent. Allaire was forced to find a more economical means of securing the raw materials he so desperately needed.
In 1822 Allaire's long time friend and business associate Benjamin B. Howell wrote to him about a small forge on the upper fringes of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Howell had been leasing the property form its owner, William Newbold, where he operated the Monmouth Furnace. Howell wrote Allaire, "The furnace, as you know, is situated in a pleasant and good country.and I think this country wants only to be known to render it a place of much greater moment.As a situation for a furnace it possesses many great advantages."
Upon the advice of his friend Allaire purchased the property form Newbold on 27 April 1822 for a cost of $19,000. Unfortunately Allaire was unable to raise the necessary capital quickly enough to meet the terms of his purchase agreement. Newbold subsequently sued Allaire in the New Jersey Supreme Court for Breech of Covenant. This would be the first of many legal battles into which Allaire would enter during his ownership of the property. With the contract satisfied, his legal difficulties behind him and the transfer of ownership complete, Allaire took full possession of the property by early 1823. Over the next few years, Allaire would make many improvements to the site, repairing existing buildings and constructing new ones. The isolation of the site also forced him to consider the development of a self sufficient community, one that would eventually include a blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, bakery and grist mill, a boarding house, larger homes for workers and their families, mills and factories, a school and church and a general store.
Immediately after purchasing the Howell Works site, Allaire spent much of his time there working on development plans; however, the needs of his Allaire Works would summon him back to New York. Once back in the city, he shifted his attentions to the business of marine engine manufacturing and only went to the Howell Works as business required, hiring a fulltime general manager to oversee the operations in New Jersey. It is unsure exactly when Allaire relocated his family to the Howell Works property, installing them in the largest house on the property, and some evidence indicates it may have been as early as 1824. However, we do know by 1834 the Allaire family had relocated form their Cherry Street home to the Monmouth County property. At the time of the move, Allaire's wife's health was increasingly deteriorating. Also at this time a devastating a cholera outbreak was sweeping the world and, between 1832 and 1833, New York was hit. The hardest hit area of the city was the Lower east Side where the Allaire family lived. This provided the impetus for Allaire to remove his family to the more healthful climate of South Eastern Monmouth County.
With operations in full swing at the Howell Works furnace, Allaire found himself with the need for a constant flow of supplies and products in and out of the small Village he had created so he set out to improve transportation between his new property and the New York City works, as well as to the markets directly. He leased land at the Eatontown Dock, now known as Oceanport, on the Navesink River, to build a carriage shed. From here he could store and lade farm goods, pig iron and cast iron wares onto vessels under his own control for delivery to New York. On the return trip, the ships would bring whatever supplies were needed by the Howell Works, the surrounding community and the Allaire family. In time, Allaire's seaboard holdings would include enlarged warehouse and wharfage facilities at Eatontown Dock and similar facilities in Red Bank. Allaire is even credited with running the first regularly scheduled steam packet passenger service between Red Bank and New York. Early plans to build a small railroad to one of these facilities never materialized, however, due to a chronic lack of liquid capital that would plague Allaire's business empire for years to come.
Although Allaire was fairly successful and diversified in his businesses at the time of the purchase from William Newbold, the availability of cash to expand his business was limited. The banking and financial industries at this time had only recently emerged form their infancy in America. The national Economy was still feeling the effects of the War of 1812, and the mighty financial engine of American Industry envisioned by Alexander Hamilton was still experiencing growing pains. Despite unprecedented growth of the nation's industries however, liquid capital was hard to come by and industrials like James P. Allaire were caught up in the never ending cycle of re-investment.
Allaire was also faced with another challenge to surviving in a cash poor economy. The ship building industry, upon which he depended, was notorious for cash flow problems. The nature of the industry was such that the builder of a ship and its major parts, such as the steam engines that Allaire manufactured, took in a small amount of cash and a financial interest in the vessel. When the ship became profitable, the builder could either sell his shares or take his part of the profit. Since insurance was expensive and rarely purchased, the ship builders and those who built the major parts took a great deal of risk and had no way of recouping their losses if the ship foundered. For Allaire the risk was enormous as the engines he produced cost anywhere from $60,000 to $150,000. Added to this was the fact he had to pay out of pocket all production expenses including materials and payroll. This meant that men, like James P. Allaire, had to have vast sums of capital available just to cover costs. Fortunately for Allaire, he had sources of financial capital close at hand. His primary backer was his brother-in-law, John Haggerty, the husband of James' eldest sister Maria.
Despite all of this Allaire prospered and became a wealthy man. Between the years of 1822 and 1836 the Allaire Works reached the peak of its production and Allaire was building over 50 percent of all steam boat engines and boilers in the country. His business expanded to include the construction of hulls and he was able to produce complete vessels. During this time he made many technological advances and became highly respected in his field and one of America's most prominent men. During this period the Howell Works developed into a major industrial centre. It employed, at its peak production, between 400 and 600 employees, both residents of the Works community and the surrounding neighborhood. With pig iron production at a surplus Allaire turned his attentions to the production of hollow ware, things such as pots, skillets, household items and sadirons, as well as making machine parts and tools. He also laid the foundations for a vast transportation network reaching as far north as Boston and as far south as Charleston. He began regular steam service to New York from red Bank, NJ and regular cartage service to New York from Eatontown Dock. He even developed several stage lines to service his steam boat service and was on the verge of constructing a small railroad to service his steam boat lines by the year of 1836. Allaire had the US Government contract for mail service between New York and Monmouth County and, through the negotiations of his partners Charles Morgan and John Haggerty, in the New York to Charleston Steam Packet Company, which would be reincorporated as the Southern Steam Packet Company in 1836, gained the contracts for mail service to New Orleans and Texas as well.
By 1836 James Peter Allaire was at the peak of success with his diversified businesses. He was unaware, however, that he was about to run into problems, both of his own making and beyond his control, which would cause his expanding empire to constrict and ultimately fail. In little more than a decade the Howell Works would take on an even greater importance as it became the last of his resources.
The first and most personal tragedy Allaire had to face was the death of his beloved wife of 32 years. Frances Duncan Allaire, second cousin of James Allaire, to whom he was married on 25 January in 1804, had given him nine children, although only five would survive to adulthood. As she got older, her health became increasingly fragile and, about 1834; Allaire removed his family to the Big House at the Howell Works property, partly in hopes that the country air would improve Frances' health. Allaire's brother Andrew was know to frequently visit the Howell Works for health reasons.
Frances' poor health had also prompted Allaire to ask his first cousin once removed, Calicia Allaire Tompkins to live at the house and help his wife with her duties as mistress of the house. Calicia was also niece and second cousin once removed to Frances. Despite the best efforts of the medicines of the day, Frances Duncan Allaire left this world on 23 March 1836 at the Howell Works. His wife's death devastated the industrialist and it is said he remained by her empty bedside for two months grieving for her. Business concerns however forced Allaire out of his mourning and he turned his attentions to the maters at hand. Shortly after the marriage of his daughter Maria Haggerty Allaire to Thomas Andrews in June of that year, Allaire returned to New York for good, never wanting to be reminded of the loss he had just suffered. Had his fortunes not been reversed it is most likely Allaire would never reside again at the Howell Works.
As it was, bad news was to follow bad news. That October, one of Allaire's steamboats, the William Gibbons, ran aground. The flagship of his reorganized Southern Steam Packet Company was destroyed. Luckily no lives were lost, but the loss of this boat may have led to greater financial problems from which he was never able to recover. At the time of the William Gibbons' destruction, the new company had just completed re-outfitting the Home for ocean going travel. At a cost of $155,000 to build and outfit her, the capital to complete the Home was tied up in the profitability of the William Gibbons. With its loss, Allaire was left in a huge financial bind.
The following year, another of Allaire's boats ran aground. This time it was one of his vessels on his Red Bank line. But it was in October 1837 that Allaire suffered his greatest disaster. While making its third voyage from New York to Charleston, the Home struck a sandbar off the Jersey coast. Unaware of the extent of the damage, her captain proceeded on schedule to Charleston, SC. The Home started taking on water as she rounded Cape Hatteras, and her captain put her aground to ride out the developing storm. Leaking badly from the earlier damage and battered by the high winds and seas of Racer's Storm, the Home was torn to pieces by the surf. Before rescue operations could be effected the next day 90 lives had been lost.
The financial loss to Allaire was heavy, as the ship had little, if any insurance. But it was the bad press generated by the circumstances of Home's loss that was to leave the most lasting impact. Insurance inquiries centred on rumours that the boat's captain had been drunk while at the helm. Although those charges were ultimately found untrue, the public outcry over such a terrible loss of life led to demands for greater safety regulations for steamboats and other sea-going vessels. Allaire would never fully recover from the damage done to his good name and reputation, which he had worked so long and hard to cultivate.
The timing of these losses could not have been worse. On May 10, 1837 the bottom fell out of the American Economy. The Panic of 1837, which had been inevitable since President Jackson issued his Specie Circular the previous July, plunged the young nation into its first great depression. For James P. Allaire the panic was crippling. Demand for his products dried up quickly as the crisis grew.
Throughout much of Allaire's early operations, and into the 1840's, his brother-in-law John Haggerty was his main source of backing. William Gibbons, for whom the fated steamer was named, was one of Allaire's best customers often fronting him as much as $5,000 toward the construction of the steam engines he ordered. Allaire's reputation and contacts in government and industry were also instrumental in securing him loans from Nicholas Biddle, president of the Second Bank of the United States.
But good financial backing can only go so far and, when the markets evaporated for Allaire's products in the wake of the financial crisis, his empire crumbled. As if to punctuate the end of James P. Allaire's iron empire, the discovery of large iron and coal deposits in Pennsylvania in the early 1830's signalled the end of the bog iron industry in that state as well as in New Jersey. By 1850 the Howell Works Company ceased operations as an iron producing industrial centre. Allaire was forced to reorganize his Allaire Works in New York and, turning once again to his brother-in-law, secured the necessary capital, but not without a price. Haggerty now had the controlling interest in the corporation, largely funded from his own bankroll.
In 1846, ten years after the death of his beloved wife Frances, James Allaire married Calicia Allaire Tompkins, his first cousin once removed, who had been charged with caring for the ill Frances, and who had remained at the Allaire house at the Howell Works after Frances' death. The marriage caused an uproar with Allaire's children and, apparently, with John Haggerty as well. Whether it was the 26 year age difference or concern about Allaire's estate is unclear, but Haggerty refused any further financial backing. By 1849, through Haggerty's machinations, James P. Allaire was forced out of any interest in the Allaire Works. Shortly after this the Howell Works Company was officially declared bankrupt.
Throughout Allaire's control struggles with Haggerty, Calicia lived at the Howell Works with their infant son Hal, who was born on 5 October 1847. Meanwhile, from New York, Allaire did his best to work his way out of the growing business problems facing him. In 1850 Allaire was forced to surrender the three story, company owned, brownstone which had been his home since the beginning of his career. Ousted from the firm that bore his name, he was unable to renegotiate a lease on the company owned house. Having lost his New York business and his home, and barely able to keep steamboats in operation on his Red Bank line, Allaire permanently retired to the Big House on the Howell Works property and, by January of 1851 had spent nearly all of his liquid assets in buying the lands back form the now defunct Howell Works Company. Fortunately, however, fate would intervene in the shape of his former employee John Roach. By this time Roach, who had begun his career at the Howell Works Company, was now a well respected and affluent ship builder in his own right. Roach purchased the troubled Allaire Works in New York and reinstated James Allaire on the Board of Directors in an advisory position with a salary that enabled the former industrialist to live his last days in comfort as a country gentleman.
On the 20th of May in 1858, in the company of his wife Calicia and their son Hal, James Peter Allaire; industrialist, engineer, inventor, merchant, philanthropist and visionary; passed away quietly at the Howell Works Property at the age of 73 after a brief illness. Allaire was interred in the Allaire Family Cemetery plot of the Old Huguenot Cemetery in New Rochelle, New York.
While James Peter Allaire is often overlooked by the history books, his legacy lives on. From his founding of the first free public fire company in Manhattan, to his dedication to providing free and equal education to the masses, to his introduction of the first apartment buildings to the United States, to his advancements in marine navigation and travel, which would change the world forever, the contributions of James Peter Allaire to humanity can not be overlooked. Therefore, it is the goal and purpose of Allaire Village, Inc. to educate the visitors to the Historic Village, which bears his name, on the life and times of James Peter Allaire and the Howell Works Company.
