E. C. Hazard and Company was a major grocery importer, manufacturer and distributor

Distribution (business)

Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user.The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing,...

 in 19th-century and early 20th-century America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. In particular, Hazard and Company has been credited with pioneering the U.S. domestic manufacture and distribution of "fancy groceries" — a term that referred to processed canned, jarred and bottled food products (now commonly found throughout modern-day groceries and supermarkets).

The founder

The firm was founded in 1850 by Edward Clarke Hazard, born April 4, 1831, at Mumford's Mills near Peacedale

Wakefield-Peacedale, Rhode Island

Wakefield-Peacedale is a census-designated place in the town of South Kingstown in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States that includes the villages of Peace Dale and Wakefield...

, Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

; died February 2, 1905 at his home Shrewsbury Manor Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury, New Jersey

Shrewsbury is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 3,809....

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. Hazard attended public schools in Narragansett

Narragansett, Rhode Island

Narragansett is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 15,868 at the 2010 census, but there is a greater population in the summer. The nickname for the town is "Gansett". The town of Narragansett occupies a narrow strip of land running along the eastern bank...

, Rhode Island, and at age 18 went to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to enter a trade. There, "with horse and wagon, he became engaged at vending soap and fancy goods with B. T. Babbitt," particularly imported grocery items. Eventually, he opened his own grocery firm, which he called E. C. Hazard and Company. Frank Green was his original partner.

He lived in Greenwich Village, first at 22 Grove St., and then 36 Grove St in 1858 just before or after his second marriage, to Emily (Emma) Howe. They had two sons, Edward Howe Hazard.(born 1861) and Charles Hazard (born 1863). Emma died in May 1880, age 42, and Hazard married for the third time on November 23, 1880, to Florence (Frances) Adaline Frothingham of Charleston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.

Hazard had eight children with Florence, 5 sons and 3 daughters. The children were: Elmer Clarke Hazard, Bowdoin Frothingham Hazard, Florence Elsworth Hazard, Elizabeth Robinson Hazard, Frank Green Hazard, Helen Franklin Hazard and Arnold Watson Hazard. Florence married Austrian Prince Francis von Auersperg on June 26, 1899, and thereafter was known as "Princess von Auersperg

Principality of Auersperg

Auersperg was an Austrian princely family, which held estates in Austria and Thengen...

." They divorced in January 1915 after the Prince demanded that she place her fortune in his name. She married New York businessman John Joseph Murphy of New York in May of 1915. Murphy was the son of New York State Senator Edward Murphy, Jr.

Edward Murphy, Jr.

Edward Murphy, Jr. was a single term United States Senator from New York, a businessman, and mayor of Troy, New York.-Birth and early years:...

.; Elizabeth married Harry Lord Powers, son of NY builder, banker, politician, and NY Parks Commissioner (1884–1888) on June 26, 1908. Helen married Alfred Nash Beadleston - forty years her senior - who was senior partner of Beadleston & Woerz Brewery (Empire Beer) in 1909. After his death 12 years later, she married Julian McCarty Little of Newport, RI. Elmer became a well-respected doctor in Long Branch, NJ and founded Hazard Hospital.

The company

First located at No. 69 Barclay Street and then at 92, 94, 96 and 98 Chambers St. — and from 1886 at the new Mercantile Exchange at Hudson and Harrison with his warehouses at Hudson and North Moore Streets in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 — E. C. Hazard and Company opened a large factory

Factory

A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...

 after 1883 at Shrewsbury, the latter of which also became the adopted home of the Hazard family.

It was in Shrewsbury that Hazard and Company purchased a 165 acre (0.6677319 km²) tract on which it built "extensive factories, including handsome offices and one of the best-equipped laboratories in this country." The firm also grew many of its own agricultural produce on this Shrewsbury tract.

Among the consumer goods produced by E. C. Hazard and Company at its Shrewsbury facilities were Hazard's Shrewsbury Brand "Tomatoketchup" (one word), canned tomatoes (which the firm sometimes called by the archaic name "love apples"), canned baked beans

Baked beans

Baked beans is a dish containing beans, sometimes baked but, despite the name, usually stewed, in a sauce. Most commercial canned baked beans are made from haricot beans, also known as navy beans – a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris – in a sauce. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, a tomato...

 and mushrooms, as well as asparagus

Asparagus

Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennialplant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and...

, okra

Okra

Okra is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of South Asian, Ethiopian and West African origins...

, peppers

Capsicum

Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Its species are native to the Americas where they have been cultivated for thousands of years, but they are now also cultivated worldwide, used as spices, vegetables, and medicines - and have become are a key element in...

, tarragon

Tarragon

Tarragon or dragon's-wort is a perennial herb in the family Asteraceae related to wormwood. Corresponding to its species name, a common term for the plant is "dragon herb". It is native to a wide area of the Northern Hemisphere from easternmost Europe across central and eastern Asia to India,...

, jellies

Fruit preserves

Fruit preserves are preparations of fruits and sugar, often canned or sealed for long-term storage. The preparation of fruit preserves today often involves adding commercial or natural pectin as a gelling agent, although sugar or honey may be used, as well. Prior to World War II, fruit preserve...

, salad dressings, and various sauces.

Perhaps the earliest well-known product it distributed, however, was made by another manufacturer: McIlhenny Company's Tabasco

Tabasco sauce

Tabasco sauce is the brand name for a hot sauce produced by US-based McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana. Tabasco sauce is made from tabasco peppers , vinegar, and salt, and aged in white oak barrels for three years. It has a hot, spicy flavor...

 brand pepper sauce, which Hazard and Company helped to introduce nationally beginning in the early 1870s.

Hazard had a devotion to purity of his products and is credited with marketing the first pure and unadulterated ketchup. He was president and presiding officer of the Pure Food Manufactures Association at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

 in 1904.

At its peak, Hazard and Company was said to have generated annual revenues in the range of $7 to $9 million. In 1907, however — two years after E. C. Hazard's death — the company suffered in the credit panic. By the end of the year, it was forced into bankruptcy

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

by his widow, Florence A. Hazard, to wrest control from the former partners and two of her children. Eventually the firm went out of business entirely.

Hazard's son-in-law, Harry Lord Powers of New York, and his wife Elizabeth Robinson Hazard, bought Shrewsbury Manor, the forty-bedroom manor in 1911, and the factory and more land in 1913. Hazard's widow and Powers fought in court for many years over whether Powers had bought just the factory, and not the recipes and business.