[SOME OLD FIRMS.]
No. 6.
OF the hatters engaged in business in Baltimore during the early part of this century, many are worthy of more than passing notice as men of honest character, strict in their dealings and successful in their business undertakings, gaining the respect of their fellow-townsmen and becoming honored and trusted citizens of a growing community.
When it is known what were the social surroundings of the "old time" hatter in his youth, it seems a matter of surprise that such good fruit should spring from so unpromising soil.
No one was supposed to be capable of conducting the retail hat business unless he had served his term of apprenticeship to the trade, and apprenticeship in those days was no trivial matter. It meant the surrender at an early age of home, with its parental influences—a most dangerous experience for the untrained youth to encounter—and was entered into by contract for a term of years, binding master and hand to its faithful execution; not merely a verbal agreement between parties themselves, but one solemnly executed by parent and employer, ratified and signed before a magistrate and made binding after all this legal form by the attachment of the portentous seal of the Orphans' Court, before the boy could be considered bounden as "an apprentice to the trade." This was virtually a surrender of all domestic control, giving to one not of "kith or kin" absolute guardianship of the boy. The habits and morals of the "'prentice" were often a secondary consideration, if not wholly neglected.
Thus, as a class, the journeyman hatters often developed into loose, shiftless, migratory characters, spending their liberal wages freely, with no ambition beyond that of daily support; and the surprise is that from such a source came notably honorable men, whose lives seemed to contradict the whole theory of the influence of early training. To these worthy pioneers belongs the credit of laying a secure foundation for a trade that from humble beginnings has developed into one of the most prominent industries of the country, requiring extensive capital, liberal business capacity, and one that gives employment to a large, intelligent and skillful class of people.
Among those conducting the hatting business in Baltimore at the opening of the present century, Mr. Jacob Rogers, from his long and successful business career, as well as from being the only one through whom it has been possible to connect this special industry as it existed before the Revolution, with that of the present time, ranks most prominently.
What year Mr. Rogers commenced business cannot be ascertained, but as early as 1796, being nearly 30 years of age, he is found established at the corner of South and Second streets, and in the year 1844 (almost the middle of another century), after the lapse of nearly fifty years, and while actively engaged in business pursuits, his life was suddenly ended; his funeral taking place from his residence, at South and Second streets, his home for more than half a century.