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Established 5 October 1881 – into the twentieth century
Founded: Gideon Webster Seavey (born 14 February 1848, Lee County, Illinois; died 13 March 1893) headed the company until his death; by then it was "one of the oldest and largest hardware establishments of northern Indiana." The founding is fixed at 5 October 1881 by the spring-1914 newspaper account of the company's reorganization, quoted in full in Griswold's 1917 sketch of the founder (see the founding entries below).
Founder: Gideon Webster Seavey.
What it did: Wholesale and retail hardware.
Course: In fall 1913 the company bought the building at Harrison and Pearl streets and reorganised effective 1 February 1914, with Walter R. Seavey as manager. For many years it occupied the Randall Building at 616–618 South Harrison Street.
Sources:
- B. J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Vol. II (1917), biographical sketch of Gideon Webster Seavey (part 72) — dates, the 1913 purchase, the 1914 reorganisation.
- Randall Building, National Register listing (Wikipedia summary) — Seavey's long occupancy of 616–618 South Harrison.