Seavey Hardware Company — the founding years

Hardware house founded 5 October 1881; at 35 East Columbia by 1884 (the Businesses section carries the company from 1893)

Founded: No directory states the founding outright, but Gideon W. Seavey's own biographical record brackets it closely — and the spring-1914 newspaper account of the company's reorganization, quoted in full in Griswold's 1917 sketch of Seavey, fixes it within the bracket. Born at Palmyra, Lee County, Illinois, 14 February 1848, he served in Company D, 140th Illinois Infantry, in 1864–65, took his B.A. at the University of Michigan in 1871 (M.A. 1873), and founded the Hoopston (Illinois) Chronicle on 1 January 1872, which he conducted five years. "His residence in Fort Wayne began in 1877, when he engaged in the practice of law with P. A. Randall. In 1880, he engaged in the lumber business, which he subsequently disposed of to enter the hardware business in which he is now occupied." By 1884–85, Polk's Indiana State Gazetteer lists "Seavey G W, hardware, 35 E Columbia" at Fort Wayne, among the wholesale and retail hardware trade; the Fort Wayne directory of 1885–86 shows the young house already employing a travelling agent and a salesman. The 1889 county history, written while he was in mid-career, calls him "proprietor of one of the largest wholesale and retail hardware houses in the country." The founding therefore falls between his 1880 lumber venture and the 1884 directory listing — and the 1914 account fixes it within that bracket, at 5 October 1881. the Businesses section carries the company from Gideon Seavey's death on 13 March 1893 through the fall 1913 purchase of the Harrison and Pearl building, the reorganisation effective 1 February 1914 under his son Walter R. Seavey, and the long occupancy of the Randall Building at 616–618 South Harrison Street.

Sources:

1. Valley of the Upper Maumee River, Vol. II (1889), p. 162 — Gideon W. Seavey's sketch: the 1877 arrival, the Randall law practice, the 1880 lumber business and the move into hardware.
2. Polk's Indiana State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1884–85 — "Seavey G W, hardware, 35 E Columbia." R. L. Polk, Fort Wayne city directory, 1885–86 — his travelling agent and salesman.
3. B. J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Vol. II (1917), Seavey sketch — the family record carried in the Businesses section.