Info on Jan. 1863 "M&R" Contractor?

[GreencoatCross]

Does anyone have any information on a contractor with the initials "M. & R." who held a contract for trousers in January 1863? Full contractor name, location, and number of trousers contracted for would be a huge help!

Thanks for your assistance!

Brian White
Wambaugh, White, & Co.
www.wwandcompany.com

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

Nope..
The closest possibility might be Roderick McCleod and William Remmy of "McCleod & Remmy" of New York City who were listed as tailors to 1862 and then from 1865 on, with a note that they made uniforms in addition to their other clothing and tailoring.
It is interesting that 1863 and 1864 are not listed...

Nothing else seems to pan out at the moment. I will see if i can find any 1863 trouser contracts and go backwards to names...

Curt

[FranklinGuardsNYSM]

Closest I can find is William Remmy and Roderick McLeod of New York. Remmy had previously worked for McLeod, but became a partner in January, 1861, and by November they were operating under the heading "McLeod and Remmy." They were located at 229 Broadway, taking up residence there in 1856, two years after a deadly fire wrecked the adjacent Jennings Department Store, where 10 firefighters were killed in a major collapse.

No numbers or specific products are listed, just that they dabbled in military items as a supplement to their regularly scheduled clothing and tailoring.

They dissolved their partnership in 1874, but the business carried on until 1879.

[GreencoatCross]

Thanks guys! Remmy and McLeod sound like the guys I'm looking for. There is an "M&R Jan. 15 1863" stamp on the inside of a very neat pair of Federal issue trousers...the inclusion of a date on the stamp leads me to believe that they held a contract with the government. Perhaps they did indeed hold a contract and the information has since been lost?

Brian White
Wambaugh, White, & Co.
www.wwandcompany.com

[Calico Boys]

Guys,

Speaking about trouser contracts, I am surprised no one has taken on putting together a list like that of the sack coat contracts. This would be interesting as there were many contracts for trousers, and it seems that more and more questions as to contractors are poping up ( Marc, maybe you could put up a somewhat limited list). A list of the contractor name, date and numbers produced would be nice. A small sampling of contracts ( just names of the ones I have seen)

John T. Martin 785,000 Pair between Aug, 1862-1863

Howard F. Harkness- Another contract for 1863 under the name of Harkness Brothers, but havnt seen an original pair under this contract. 1 large contract dated Oct. 10th 1864 for 120,000 pair of trousers

Anspach & Stanton
R&W

William Deering 55,000 pair between 1861-1865

And of course those produced by the Schuylkill Arsenal, Numbers unknown but from what I gather from the originals surviving quite a few pair, probably more than any other trouser maker. I am sure there were many other contracts. But it would be nice just to list those contracts above with the amounts produced and dates.

[ScottCross]

Unfortunately, the Quartermaster Contracts in the Congessional Record start in December 1863. Sorry, no help here.

Casey,

I would love to sit down and reorganize the Quartermaster Contracts for the various uniforms and equipment in the Congressional Report. The darn thing is 131 pages long! I'll start working on it when I can aford to retire...in 2031!:cry_smile

[Calico Boys]

Scott,

I would sure like to see a copy of that. I would be more interested in just seeing the info on trouser contracts from the few original contract trousers I have seen such as: JT Martin, Howard F. Harkness, William Deering, Anspach and Stanton, R&W.

[CSchneider]

Sorry to hijack the thread for my own purposes, but I'll post since its on the same topic. Right now I'm looking at an overcoat with a "W BLAKE" contractor stamp in it. It has a N.Y. inspector stamp, but the name is pretty much unreadable. Does anybody know anything about them? I checked the Bazelon and McGuinn book with no luck. Closest name I could find was an I. W. Blake from Cleveland who was contracted to make sails.

The coat was manufactured with a neat interior pocket too.

-Craig Schneider

[ScottCross]

Craig,

I couldn't find a contract with "Blake" in New York in 1864 or 1865.

Casey,

Go to your nearest Federal Repository Library (usually located on a university campus) and look for:

38th Congress, 2d Session
Executive Document No. 84
"Contracts Made by the Quartermaster's Department/Letter from the Secretary of War/Transmitting/An Abstract of cetain contracts made by the Quartermasater's Department." March 3, 1865

I stood at the copy machine at SEMU in 1995 for about two hours copying the whole darned thing. It was well worth it.