West Haven Fat Rendering

COLLECTION HISTORY

The people behind the place.

The strongest documented match for this collection is the Connecticut Fat Rendering and Fertilizing Corporation, whose original advertisements put its office and works on Front Avenue in Allingtown. Its 1908 advertisement sought suet, fat, bones, hides and skins; its 1911 advertisement also identified beef scraps, tallow and glue among its products. [FR-003]

The printed records agree on incorporation in 1902, but disagree about the month: the 1911 directory gives November and a 1918 biography gives October. An OCR version misreads the latter year as 1903; the acquired page image reads 1902. The original filing remains the next source for resolving the month. [FR-004]

Jacob Winchell Everett’s 1918 biography identifies him as president and describes the Allingtown plant as a cooperative industry. Read with the advertisements, it documents a business that recovered commercial products from animal materials. The 1911 directory separately names New Haven Rendering Company and L. T. Frisbie Company; their Washington Avenue addresses should not be assigned to the Front Avenue corporation. [FR-005]

The advertisements’ lists of purchased materials and sold products reveal the plant’s place in a wider economy. Fat, bones, hides and skins entered one side of the business; tallow, glue and other products appeared in its commercial offering. These records permit a material story without inventing undocumented machinery or working conditions. The Front Avenue address anchors the Connecticut corporation in Allingtown and distinguishes it from Washington Avenue firms. Later survey photographs must likewise retain the exact property identification. The disagreement between October and November 1902 concerns incorporation, not an established factory opening day. Original corporate and municipal records are the next evidence needed to connect the business chronology with the development of its physical works. [FR-003] [FR-004] [FR-005]