Today is the last official day that Bon-Ton stores will be open. I’m not even going to try to write about the reasons why the Bon-Ton failed. There have been many articles written and conversations on various facebook retail history groups that have examined the reasons behind the demise of the Bon-Ton.
Instead I’m going to focus on a local store that Bon-Ton bought out- AM&A’s.
Plans for the leasing of the J. N. Adam and Co. property by the Adam, Meldrum & Anderson Co, means that two pioneer and competing mercantile businesses founded by two brothers in Buffalos early days, have joined at last. Robert Brothwick Adam and James Noble Adam are proud names in Buffalo’s heritage of the past. The brothers were the sons of the Rev. and Mrs. Thomas Adam and both were born in the ancient borough town of Peebles, near Edinburgh, Scotland.
COMES TO U.S.— Robert was born Feb. 4, 1833, and James was born March 1. 1842. At the age of 11 Robert went to Edinburgh and began working for a hosier and glover. By the time he was 24 he had a promising position as manager of a wholesale house. He gave this up to establish an agency for Clappertons thread in Boston. However, when he arrived in the United States in 1857, the country was in the throes of a financial panic and instead of setting up his agency. Robert Adam went to work for a leading importer of French and German fabrics in Boston.
OPENS STORE—Later a friend offered to help him financially in setting up his own business. In partnership with Alexander Meldrum and a Mr. Whiting, he opened a store. Adam, Meldrum & Whiting March 21, 1867 This was In the American Hotel, present site of the store. After a few years. Whiting dropped out of the partnership and his place was taken by William Anderson. At the time the dry goods establishment was considered too big and too far uptown to be commercially sound. In a newspaper story written in 1888 during an expansion program it was stated: “The original store was considered injudiciously large in view of the uptown trade, prospects of that time.”
VARIOUS POSTS—In the meantime the younger brother, James, had left Peebles at the age of 12 to work in a bookstore in Edinburgh. Later he began working in a dry goods store for $1 a week. After completing bis apprenticeship in the mercantile business he had various positions. When James was 30 years old, bis brother Robert, head of the family, advised him to move to this country. James came to the United States and ft 1874 opened a store in New Haven, Conn. At that time the fervor to “go west” was sweeping the country. Robert advised his younger brother to go no further west than Buffalo and informed him that if he came to Buffalo immediately he could get a lease in a wonderful new building. This was the White Building on Main St. between Swan and Erie and the present site of the Blue Cross Building.
“SKYSCRAPER”—In referring to the building later, a newspaper writer in the 1900s Stated: “It was a seven-story skyscraper whose towering height was the pride of Buffalo in those mauve days of the early “80s when Delaware Ave. was a speedway for trotting horses.” James Noble Adam opened his store on the first floor and basement of this building on Oct. 20. 1881. The store was “brilliantly illuminated” with gas lights and deliveries were made in hand carts.
SALES GROW — Within two years sales were so heavy that horse delivery was inaugurated and Mr. Adam’s own driving horse was put into use. Ten years later these quarters were outgrown and property at 29 Erie St. was acquired. Shortly thereafter additional space was rented at 82 Pearl St. Ten years after the first expansion program, J. N. Adam acquired his first property on the present site of J, N. Adam and Co. This was the Stevenson Building between Eagle and Clinton.
THIRD UNIT—A year later the Matthews Building to the north was acquired. It was a big event when the third unit of the store, all new construction, was opened in 1896. The J. N. Adam Shopping Store News of Feb. 3, 1896, stated: “The architects. Green and ‘ Wicks, adopted for this building a form of construction new to Buffalo for the purpose of securing a ground floor 36 feet wide and 200 feet deep, which should be without columns or any other form of obstruction to interrupt the view from the street.
BUILT DOWN—”Instead of being built from the ground up the building was practically constructed from the roof down. The side walls at the top support strong, triangular wrought iron trusses, and from these are suspended al! floors except the ground floor, which rests on light iron columns beneath ” It was in this same year, 1896. that James Noble Adam entered politics. Adam was a popular man, referred to informally by his friends and employees as “J.N.” an appellation the store has to this day. Although Adam lived in a strongly Republican section, he won his bid for councilman by a wide margin
“BUSINESS MAYOR”— Later he served as alderman and in 1905 he was elected mayor and bore the title. ‘Buffalo’s business mayor.” In 1906 Adam sold his interest in the store to United Dry Goods of New York City. Adam devoted the six remaining years of his life to civic and political enterprise. While in conference with Mayor Fuhrman in the latter’s office, he suffered a stroke and died on Feb. 9, 1912 at the age of 70.
MEMORIAL — Among his many memorials to the city and Western New York is the J. N. Adam Memorial Hospital at Perrysburg. This bears his name as he donated the 290-acre site for the hospital for tubercular patients. He had been preceded in death by his brother, Robert, who died on June 30, 1904. The fortunes of Robert had also prospered, and his store had gone through one expansion program after another. Although Robert never formally entered politics, his financial and civic contributions were of major importance.
STAYS IN FAMILY- \t the time of his death the interest in Adam, Meldrum & Anderson Co. remained in his family and the constantly growing business over the years has been operated by his descendants. James Noble Adam and his wife had no children. Although J. N. Adam and Co. has remained the name of the store since its founder sold it in 1906, no Adam has been connected with it since the time of the sale. The Associated Dry Goods Co. of Dover, Del., was formed in May. 1909 and later developed into Associated Dry Goods of New York of which J. N. Adam and Co. is one of 11 stores, independently managed.
EXPANSION — In 1923 additional property was purchased for expansion to the south of the original store, and in 1930 Walter J, Brunmark was named president of the company, a post he held through 1940. A six-story building was constructed in 1935 at the corner of Main and Eagle and the entire front of the three buildings already in use were remodeled. Interior walls dividing the buildings were removed, and there were installations of new elevators, new fixtures and service equipment involving an expenditure of $700,000.
STORE AT FALLS — In 1937 the branch store was opened in Niagara Falls. That same year another $325,000 was spent on the Main St. store for the installation of escalators. Albin O. Holder succeeded Brunmark as president in 1940. The following year the firm took on additional warehouse space of about 150,000 square feet in the Pierce Arrow building. The company already had 117,780 square feet of space on Ellicott and Washington.
1946 PROGRAM—The most expensive expansion program in the department store’s history was undertaken in 1946 at a cost of $4-million. The structure was enlarged to 10 stories and a basement and sub-basement were constructed adjacent to the existing structure. In 1949 Homer P. Selman, Jr., was named president and in 1957 Stewart Orton became president.
AGAIN IN FAMILY—When the quarters are taken over by Adam, Meldrum & Anderson Co., the J. N. Adam store will again be connected with the Adam family. The president of Adam, Meldrum & Anderson Co., Robert B. Adam, is a grandson of the original Robert B. Adam and a great nephew of J. N. Adam.
