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Moses H. Cone
Moses H. Cone
For other uses, see Moses H Cone (disambiguation).

Moses H. Cone was a textile entrepreneur, conservationist, and philanthropist of the Gilded Age.[1][2]


Contents

[edit] Early Life

Moses Herman Cone was born in 1857 in Jonesborough, Tennessee. He was the eldest of twelve children of German immigrants. His parents, Herman Kahn and Helen Guggenheimer, emigrated from Germany to America in the 1840s. Moses' father changed his last name from Kahn to "Cone" almost immediately upon arrival in the United States to become more American.[3]

Moses' father Herman had a dry goods and grocery business in Jonesborough along with his brother-in-law Jacob Adler, the husband of his sister Sophia. While running the business Herman and Jacob would alternately make week-long peddling trips selling their wares. On one of these trips Herman met Helen Guggenheimer near Lynchburg, Virginia. They marrried in 1856 and Moses was their first child born in 1857. Two years later their next child arrived on the scene named Ceaser with whom Moses had a close relationship with all his life.[4]

The family lived in Jonesborough until 1870 and had an additional five children. Between 1857 and 1870 Moses' father became fairly well-to-do through his business affairs and real estate ventures. The family then moved to Baltimore, Maryland. There Moses' father and relatives started a wholesale grocery business called Guggenheimer, Cone, & Company, Wholesale Grocers.[5] Then in 1873 Jacob Adler also moved to Baltimore and went in partnership with Herman selling groceries. They formed a new firm that was called Cone & Adler. They ran the business successfully and in 1878 dissolved it.[6] This same year Moses' parents had their twelfth and last child.

[edit] Adult Life

Moses and Ceasar, now as young adults, immediately formed a new firm with their father. It was called H. Cone & Sons. Moses and his brother Ceasar were "drummers" (traveling salesmen) for their father's dry goods firm. They sold their wares from Maryland to Alabama. [7]

Now as the proverb goes all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, it seems that Moses was not totally business minded. He met and wooed Bertha Lindau. In the 1880s the Cones then moved to Eutaw Place in Baltimore, conveniently the same street where the Lindaus lived. They became neighbors. Bertha was one year younger than Moses. Moses and Bertha in all likelihood met at a community social club called the "Sociables."

In 1884 Bertha was twenty six years old. In that same year Moses and Bertha began a four year courtship before marrying. Moses and Bertha were both from German Jewish descendents and had much in common. In addition, they both were first born children from large families. They had no children themselves.[8]

[edit] Career

Moses and Ceasar dealt much with textile mill owners in their travels as salesmen. They not only sold normal dry goods, but introduced into their wares ready-made clothing as well as certain fabrics like denim. This gave them experience then in textile products and the textile industry. The Cone brothers soon invested in Southern textile mills which generally had over a 20% return on average.[9] One of these companies the Cones invested into was C. E. Graham Manufacturing Company of Asheville, North Carolina, an up and coming newly formed textile mill. Moses became its president in 1882. The company's original builder Charles Edward Graham continued with its on-site management while Moses pursued other investments and ventures.[10]

In 1880 Moses moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Soon thereafter he joined Simon Lowman and Charles Burger to form Cone Brothers, Lowman, and Burger Clothing Manufactureres based out of Baltimore. Moses discovered the need for durable clothing for the blue-collar people of the High Country and fullfilled this need with denim and plain fabric based clothing.

In 1890 Moses and Ceasar were contemplating even grander ventures and formed the Cone Export & Commission Company in New York City along with Anderson Price and Jay C. Guggenheimer as the other major stockholders. They developed what was called the "Plaid Trust" which was a commission clearing house to stabilize the production market on checks and plaids. They were a marketer of Southern cloth mill-goods to South America in competition with Great Britain. Initially the par value of the capital stock of their new company was fifty dollars per share. There were 20,000 shares of the company, so the value of this new firm was placed at one million dollars. Eventually they took in another forty mills over time to capture control of this market, but their ambitious goal was never fully achieved.

In 1895 Moses purchased a defunct steel mill and developed it into a large cotton mill called Proximity that produced blue and brown denim. He built additional mills throughout the Greensboro area and the deep South and soon became one of the biggest producers of the denim fabric in the world.[11] Moses became known as the "The Denim King". At the turn of the twentieth century he began supplying denim to Levi Strauss and Company, a relationship that the Greensboro firm retains to this day - over 100 years later.[12] In the long run the conglomerate textile business that Moses developed was a financial success, showing that a person of an immigrant can achieve the American dream of going from rags to riches. Moses and his brother Ceasar learned business and salesmanship skills from their father.

[edit] After Death

Moses died at the fairly young age of 51 in 1908. His wife Bertha lived an additional 39 years and donated the property to the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital. They in turn a few years later conveyed the property to the National Park System with the proviso that it be known as the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park.

[edit] References

  • Noblitt, Philip T., A Mansion in the Mountains: The Story of Moses and Bertha Cone and their Blowing Rock Manor, Parkway Publishers 1996, ISBN 1887905022

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Moses H. Cone Memorial Park & Flat Top Manor (Milepost 294.1)
  2. ^ Historic Blue Ridge sites - Moses Cone Manor
  3. ^ Noblitt, p. 4
  4. ^ Noblitt, p. 5
  5. ^ Noblitt, p. 7
  6. ^ Noblitt, p. 8
  7. ^ Noblitt, p. 8
  8. ^ Noblitt, p. 9
  9. ^ Noblitt, p. 10
  10. ^ Noblitt, p. 11
  11. ^ Noblitt, p. 16
  12. ^ The Mast Store Jean-ome Project

[edit] External Links


[Category:United States federal parkways]] [Category:All-American Roads]] [Category:Transportation in North Carolina]] [Category:Landmarks in North Carolina]] [Category:Landmarks in Virginia]] [Category:Appalachian culture]]