Brocton: In the Heart of the Grape Belt
By John Thomas Slater
An Ephraim Bull broadside promotion for Concord grapes, ca. 1859, with labels from two “private label” brands (one unsweetened and the other with sugar added) that were offered to customers of the National Grape Corporation in the 1930s.Credit- Lake Erie Grape Belt Historical Archive
When Deacon Elijah Fay planted the first grape vines in Chautauqua County near his log home in Salem X-Roads, now the Village of Brocton, Town of Portland, in 1818, he set in motion agricultural and subsequent commercial development that would ultimately establish the oldest and largest Concord grape growing region in the world. The vision and perseverance of three generations of the Fay family would help identify Brocton as center of the local grape culture by the end of the 19th century.
Elijah’s initial attempts to grow native Fox, Miller’s Borgunda, Sweetwater and Hamburg varieties of grapes were unsuccessful. Undaunted, in 1824, he obtained cuttings of Isabella and Catawba vines from third-generation Long Island nurseryman William Prince. From these he was able to press the region’s first small batch of wine in 1830. This initial 10 gallons of medicinal and sacramental wine would ultimately grow to production of several hundred gallons per year.
At about the same time, Elijah Fay’s nephew, Lincoln, began selling grape vines to local settlers who started planting and cultivating their own small vineyards. It was Lincoln Fay who first introduced the Concord grape to the area in the early 1850s, but it was Elijah’s son Joseph Belknap Fay, who in concert with another early Town of Portland settler, Hiram A. Burton, established the first major Concord vineyard in 1857.
Two years later, Joseph B. Fay, in partnership with Elijah’s grandson, Garrett E. Ryckman, and Rufus Haywood, took local wine manufacturing to a much higher level when they established the Brocton Wine Cellars on property acquired from Elijah Fay. Their initial production of 2,000 gallons in 1859 would increase to 16,000 gallons in only 15 years.
While Deacon Fay might best be known for his contributions to the region’s grape culture, he was also instrumental in the development of the Town of Portland and the hamlet of Salem X-Roads. He and fellow settlers cleared land for the planting of orchards and the construction of early roads in the town. Those same orchards provided the fruit for Fay’s cider mill, which began operation in 1830. The pre-Civil War period saw growth of population and small businesses. In his history of Portland, Dr. Horace Taylor chronicled 21 taverns, 16 sawmills, four tanneries and several grist mills that had operated in the Town prior to 1860.
The Brotherhood of the New Life
While the Civil War impeded growth of the wine business established by Fay, Ryckman and Day in 1863, by 1865, Garrett Ryckman was the sole owner of the Brocton Wine Cellars and was soon joined by Ralph Fuller and Thomas Fuller in the local production of wine from Ralph’s Empire Vineyards. Ryckman had also expanded his property ownership in and around Brocton, and had begun taking an active role in local community affairs. With a vision for the future growth of Brocton and Portland’s grape culture, he began discussions with James A. Requa, a representative of Thomas Lake Harris, spiritual leader of the Brotherhood of the New Life, then located in Amenia, NY. Looking for an opportunity to expand the manufacture and distribution of the Brotherhood’s own wine, Harris quickly began the process of acquiring 2,000 acres of prime farmland in the Town of Portland. He and his acolytes immediately focused on hay production while setting out acres of grape vineyards, with Salem the initial variety of choice for the Brotherhood’s wine production.
This 1869 map of the Town of Portland shows the significant holdings of Harris’ Brotherhood of the New Life, particularly surrounding the rail station. [Inset] Thomas Lake Harris, leader of the Brotherhood of the New Life.Credit- Author’s collection and Sonoma State University collection
Thomas Lake Harris was a former Universalist preacher, a Spiritualist, poet, guru and, in the later opinion of his detractors, a charlatan. From the activities he directed at Salem-on-Erie, the community that he and the Brotherhood established around the Union Station of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and Buffalo, Oil Creek & Cross Cut railroads, it quickly became apparent that Harris was also an entrepreneur, expert property developer and skilled marketer.
The Brotherhood quickly developed markets for the sale of hay grown on its property, using the profits to develop businesses in Salem-on-Erie that appealed to travelers using the railroads. These included a tavern, hotel/boarding house, wine shop, farm market and an extensive greenhouse. As the vineyards matured, the production of their Lake Erie & Missouri Wine Company increased, necessitating the construction of a large hillside wine cellar, remnants of which still exist. Cases of Brotherhood brand wine with names like South Shore Port, Norton Claret, Iona, Zinfandel and Old Golden Delaware were shipped by rail to Horatio Foster, the Brotherhood’s wine distributor at 60 Vesey Street in New York City, increasing profits even more.
From its inception by Thomas Lake Harris, the Brotherhood of the New Life operated under a communal structure, with members turning over their personal assets and providing labor to the community, but not sharing in the profits of their enterprise. Those profits, above and beyond the expenses incurred to generate them, went to their spiritual leader, Thomas Lake Harris, through an account over which he had complete control. This was apparently the same model Harris established for the Brotherhood as early as 1863 in Amenia, where Harris operated a successful mill and bank on behalf of his followers. The accumulation of wealth helped Harris purchase the 2,000 acres of farm land in the Town of Portland when he moved the community there in 1867, and again in 1875 when he abruptly left Brocton and moved his center of operations to his new Utopian community and winery at Fountaingrove in Santa Rosa, CA.
During the eight years that Harris was in Portland, wine production and the planting of new vineyards expanded, while Salem-on-Erie became a center of commerce that rivaled any other hamlet or village along Lake Erie’s south shore. In reply to the growing objections of teetotalers, Harris insisted his wine and brandy had “divine and miraculous powers” so that any noxious influences were neutralized. Not satisfied with simply marketing his products to visitors at Brocton Station, he began shipping hay, wine and plants to distant buyers. In 1872, cut hay shipments outside the local area amounted to 850 tons out of a total of 1,250 tons.
Even before the arrival of Harris and the Brotherhood, the railroads were having a positive impact on the development of the Town of Portland. When the Buffalo & State Line (predecessor of the Buffalo & North East and Lake Shore & Michigan Southern) opened on January 1, 1852, it did not stop in Brocton, opting instead to establish a station in Centerville, approximately one mile west (later re-named Portland). This would change with the opening of the Buffalo & Oil Creek Cross Cut Railroad in 1867 and construction of the Brocton Station. Since it served both the B&NE and the B&OCCC, it became known as the Brocton Union Station, soon serving as many as 20,000 passengers annually. Historically, the importance of the line between Corry, PA, Mayville and Brocton cannot be overstated. It would survive numerous corporate incarnations before being leased by the Pennsylvania Railroad on July 31, 1900, and would subsequently survive the Pennsylvania/New York Central (Penn Central) merger and bankruptcy while providing freight service into the Conrail era. The last train from Corry to Brocton operated on December 29, 1978.
With his property acquisitions literally surrounding the new Brocton Station, Harris established the hamlet of Salem-on-Erie to exploit the opportunities provided to the Brotherhood by the two railroads and the passengers they carried. Seeing potential growth for local viticulture, Garrett Ryckman had encouraged Harris to bring his wine production operation to the Brocton/Portland area and provided ongoing support to the commercial development of Salem-on-Erie. When the Brotherhood’s restaurant at Brocton Station was destroyed by fire in July 1874, it was Ryckman who rebuilt it and assisted with its operation. When Thomas Lake Harris decided to move the Brotherhood’s wine production to California, it was Garrett Ryckman who acquired the Brotherhood’s stock of wine, production fixtures and the extensive “Glass House” greenhouse and plant production operation, moving it to property adjacent to his home on West Main Road. In 1878, with fewer than 20 members of the Harris Community left at Brocton, Ryckman also moved quickly to assist the transition of the Brotherhood’s vineyards and farm property back to local ownership. Many new owners, eager to take advantage of “Concord Mania,” began replacing wine grape varieties with the new, winter-hardy grape created by Ephraim Bull. By the waning years of the 1870s, Town of Portland growers were producing a glut of Concord grapes and began looking for new markets.
Shipping Grapes by Rail
When the first carload shipment of Concord grapes was shipped from Brocton Station to Philadelphia in 1877, it launched a table grape shipping business that would bring prominence to Brocton, Portland and the Eastern Lake Erie Grape Belt for the next half century. A year later, the total was eight carloads—four by Jonas Martin and four by Garrett Ryckman. By 1885, regular westbound carload shipments were being made to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver and St. Louis, with carloads heading east to Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Baltimore. In 1889, Ryckman successfully shipped 200 nine-pound baskets of fresh Concord grapes to England, the first-ever to a foreign country. By 1901, in excess of 2,500 carloads were shipped from the various rail sidings in the Town of Portland alone, almost half on the New York, Chicago & St. Louis (the Nickel Plate Road).
Resistance to handling the shipment of perishables by the first two railroads serving Brocton Station changed with the arrival of the Nickel Plate in 1881. Quick to recognize the potential of shipping Concord grapes, the new railroad worked closely with local growers, packers and shipping associations to establish dedicated grape shipping sidings at Brocton Station, Portland and West Portland. This forced the LS&MS and the newly incorporated Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western Railroad (successor to the B&OCCC) to construct their own shipping points at Brocton Station, Prospect Station and Brainard’s Switch in order to compete. By 1903, Brocton and the Town of Portland had 16 grape shipping stations and was being referred to as the “Buckle of the Grape Belt.”
A September 1891 article in the Buffalo Evening News identified the largest fresh grape shippers in Brocton and Portland as: the Chautauqua Grape Growers Association; the independent Brocton Grape Growers’ Company; Dean & Blood Grape Growers’ Shipping Company; Martin & Taylor; C. L. Brainard, Haight & Crandall and Moss & Phillips. Two other large cooperative associations would attempt to mitigate falling prices during the recession of 1893, but neither lasted for more than a few years.
Civic Developments
Garrett Ryckman, buoyed by the financial success of his winery and property investments, soon turned his attention to civic and community affairs. Active in the Portland Grange, he was instrumental in the formation of the Chautauqua Patrons’ Insurance Association in 1877, serving as its first treasurer. With the incorporation of the Village of Brocton on April 17, 1894, G. E. Ryckman was elected its first president (mayor) and subsequently donated land for the village’s first public park and library. In 1901, he would become president of the Chautauqua Grape and Wine Association.
One of the achievements of the Brocton Village Board after incorporation was to rename several important streets. One of these was Railroad Street, which became Central Avenue, connecting downtown Brocton with Salem-on-Erie and Brocton Station. Thus, the cluster of businesses south of the station formerly known as Salem-on-Erie, became, at least informally, Brocton’s Central Avenue Business District. In 1898, the U.S. Postmaster General appointed Charles Kinney Postmaster of the new Grapes, NY, post office, which one month later was re-named Vineyard. Kinney would hold that position until 1904. In the meantime, Kinney was one of several local citizens supporting the construction of the Vineyard Inn, also known as the Hotel Vineyard, on the vacant Harris Community park property on the west side of Central Avenue, just south of the railroad crossing and across from the new Post Office.
Built by F. W. Ross of Conewango, the Hotel Vineyard immediately appealed to travelers and tourists, but its location also made it the headquarters for dozens of grape buyers, brokers and market agents who descended on Brocton during the annual seven-week fall harvest. It was the place where independent growers and representatives of the growers’ associations alike made deals that moved hundreds of carloads of grapes by rail to markets both east and west of Brocton every season.
While a growing number of local wineries helped maintain Brocton’s reputation as the center of Chautauqua County wine production, the growing popularity of unfermented grape juice brought a sea change in Brocton by 1901. G. E. Ryckman & Son was thus joined by C. F. Martin, F. C. Lewis and G. R. Pettit in the local production of this delicious, non-alcoholic beverage. In 1903, Franz Lewis headed a group that incorporated Naboth Vineyards and constructed a large grape and fruit juice processing plant near Brocton Station. Served by the Nickel Plate and Pennsylvania railroads, Naboth shipped their products by rail to East Coast markets and as far west as Chicago and Minneapolis, as well as internationally to England. By 1911, Brocton’s Naboth Vineyards ranked fourth among grape belt juice producers, behind Welch’s and Armour in Westfield and Randall’s of Ripley.
It was the table grape shipping business, however, that brought an array of new, associated businesses to Brocton. An overwhelming need for Climax baskets saw the establishment of several basket manufacturers, with the Crandall Basket Co. (established by J. L. Crandall in 1877) expanding and relocating to become the Crandall Panel Co. adjacent to the Nickel Plate. By 1906, Brocton was promoting itself with postcards and newspaper ads extolling its local manufacturers and businesses. Besides the G. E. Ryckman Wine Co., the Crandall Panel Co. and Naboth Vineyards, the Brocton Furniture Co. and Brocton Fruit Products Co. were added to the list of industries. Brocton also proudly promoted its six local grape shippers, as well as its schools, free public library, the Portland Telephone Co. and the Brocton State Bank. The community was also very proud of its three railroads, with 18 daily passenger trains, 13 mail trains, hourly east and west trolley service and the three express companies that provided local service to the citizens and businesses of Brocton.
By pioneering the combination of viticulture and rail transportation, the Village of Brocton’s population grew from 288 in 1880 to 900 in 1900 and, while crop tonnage and carload shipments had been trending downward during the first three years of the new century, increased prices and continued profitability provided a positive outlook for Brocton’s growth. That positive momentum was interrupted in the early morning hours of February 16, 1905, when the village experienced the most disastrous fire in its history, one that destroyed two entire blocks in the business district and reduced 13 businesses and offices to ashes. Damage estimates were in excess of $63,000, but the efforts of Brocton’s two fire companies, with aid from a Dunkirk hose company, avoided a greater loss.
The memory of that conflagration had barely faded when, on the evening of November 1, 1907, the landmark G. E. Ryckman Wine Company was also destroyed by fire. While immediate aid was provided by both the Dunkirk and Fredonia fire departments, a near gale force wind made saving the historic structure impossible. Fortunately, the cement floor above the west wing storage cellar protected upwards of 250,000 gallons of valuable vintages, some of which were almost 50 years old. Garrett Ryckman, now in his 70s, vowed to rebuild. After that arduous task was accomplished, however, he turned over operations to his son Lawrence and spent most of his time at his winter residence in Melbourne Beach, FL. It was there that he passed away on Sunday, April 18, 1910, after suffering a stroke two days earlier. However, his body was brought back to Chautauqua County and buried in Portland’s Evergreen Cemetery.
Further Development and Expansion
Despite being destroyed in 1907, the history of the original Brocton Wine Cellar would continue to unfold for the next 50 years. After his father’s death, Lawrence Ryckman would eventually lose enthusiasm for the winery, selling it to local businessman, Conrad Green, whose Brocton Fruit Products Company on the site of the former Naboth Vineyards plant had also been destroyed by fire in 1913. The rebuilt and newly-outfitted Ryckman facility was already grinding and pressing apples for Brocton Fruit Products and was an ideal location for Green’s production of cider and vinegar. To ensure continued transportation for his finished product, Green immediately made arrangements with the Pennsylvania Railroad to install a switch and siding at the rear of the building. Unknown to Ryckman, Green was having growing personal and business financial problems, which resulted in Marine Trust Company of Buffalo taking over operation of his business enterprises in 1921. More than seven years of litigation and appeals finally awarded ownership of the facility to David Wright, heir to one of Green’s largest creditors who, in turn, sold it back to Lawrence Ryckman.
In the fall of 1915, former Puritan Foods vice president, Paul DeLaney, left the Fredonia company where he had successfully developed the Red Wing brand to open his own huge state-of-the-art processing facility just east of Brocton Station. Served by the LS&MS, DeLaney’s product line included both grape juice and tomato catsup marketed under the “American Made” brand. Much like the Brocton Fruit Products Co., however, the initial success of the Paul DeLaney Co. in the teens did not sustain itself and a series of judgments brought the company’s finances to a crisis. By May 1924, DeLaney was indicted on four counts of grand larceny and two counts of forgery, subsequently convicted and sentenced to three to six years in Auburn Prison. Company assets and buildings were auctioned and won by the Huntley Manufacturing Company of Silver Creek, who moved their entire operation to Brocton.
Lawrence Ryckman, eager to find a buyer for his former winery acquired from David Wright, had consummated a sale to the Chautauqua & Erie Grape Growers Cooperative Association in 1929 who, with a half-million-dollar loan from the Federal Loan Board, began processing and marketing grape juice under the C&E brand as well as several private labels. That venture, however, was short-lived and, in 1933, the operation was acquired by millionaire New York entrepreneur/businessman, Jacob “Jack” Kaplan who, despite the perilous impact of the Depression, set out to revitalize the juice operations of Brocton and the entire Chautauqua-Erie grape belt through the new C&E Grape Products Corporation. Brocton would become the proving ground for Jack Kaplan’s brand of dynamic leadership.
Leveraging the new refrigerated storage capacity at the Brocton plant, a supply contract with the growers cooperative and the existing private label business, along with a system of brokers, improvements to product quality and a strong new name—National Grape Corporation—Kaplan and his team of dedicated managers not only grew the business and profits beyond expectations, but grasped the opportunity to acquire the nation’s acknowledged leading producer—the Welch’s Grape Juice Company—in 1945.
Thus, Garrett Ryckman’s Brocton Wine Cellars property, enlarged and improved over its century of existence, would become the local home of Welch’s until the latter’s operations were consolidated to Westfield and the old and inefficient facility was closed and abandoned in 1984. When viewed through the prism of history, Brocton’s rise to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th century resulted from a unique combination of viticulture, railroads and dedicated citizens who, despite setbacks and difficulties, worked tirelessly to make Brocton the “Buckle of the Grape Belt.”
[For a visual chronology of the Brocton Wine Cellars facility, see page 42.]
Author’s Bio
To Come
