THE UNION SULEHUR COMPANY OF NEW JERSEY
THE UNION SULEHUR COMPANY OF NEW JERSEY
ONE of the most important enterprises in the world in connection with the production and marketing of crude sulphur is the Union Sulphur Company of New Jersey, founded by Herman Frasch, and incorporated in 1896.
It was some time before that that Anthony F. Lucas, an engineer afterward famous as the discoverer of the noted Lucas well at Spindletop, near Beaumont, Texas, was employed to uncover in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, what has since proved to be the largest and finest deposit of crude sulphur in the world. These deposits are found in one of the salt mounts which have proven to be such extensive depositories of petroleum and sulphur throughout the States bordering on the Mexican Gulf. The development of these extensive sulphur mines has turned out to be one of the greatest of the industries of the Gulf region, employing very large forces of workers, with improved machinery. The plant is the largest indi-vidual user of crude oil for fuel oil in the world.
The officers of the company are Henry Whiton, president and director; Erskine Hewitt, vice-president and director; C. A. Snider, secretary, treasurer and director; John L. Severance, director; and Hall Park McCullough, director.
In addition to the crude sulphur business, the company have refineries at Marseilles and Bordeaux, France, organized under the corporate name of Raffineries Internationales de Soufre, and the other subsidiaries are the Brimstone Railroad and Canal Company, New York City, and the Union Navigation Company, Ltd., of New York City, owners of the steamships "Frieda," "Hewitt" and "Severance," and they are also now building two 8,000-ton deadweight steamers at the yard of the Newburgh Shipbuilding Company, Newburgh, New York.
The company have a loading plant at Sabine Pass, Texas, and warehouses, docks and agencies, etc., at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland and Baltimore.
The company has enjoyed continuous development from its inception, has introduced and utilized the most improved and modern methods for the production and marketing of crude sulphur, and has become the most representative enterprise of this country, in fact, in the world, in the sulphur industry. During the progress of the World War the company was a principal source of supply for this very important material, so largely used in the manufacture of explosives which were used in the World War. There is, of course, outside of this feature, a large number of uses for sulphur, and the company has established a most complete and perfect organization for the distribution and marketing of its product.
Henry Devereux Whiton, the president of the company, who has been a leading factor in the ex-pansion and success of the enterprise, is a native of Piermont, Rockland County, New York, his parents being E. N. and Mary (Devereux) Whiton. The Whiton family belongs with the early settlers of America, his first ancestor having come from England to this country in 1635. Ever since completing his education Mr. Whiton has been engaged in commercial life and has remained for several years at the head of this company, with headquarters in New York City.
He has actively developed a very large business in supplying the domestic demand for crude sulphur, in which the company is the largest single factor in the United States, as well as the development of an export business carried on by the company's own ships and including export to all great commercial countries.
Mr. Whiton is a member of the Down-town As-sociation, the New York Yacht Club, Larchmont Yacht Club, Eastern Yacht Club, Sleepy-Hollow Country Club and Rockaway Hunting Club.
The company's sulphur property in Louisiana is widely famous because of its exceptional yield, and the character of its deposits makes it a matter of great interest to geologists. It is no less famous from an industrial standpoint of equipment, which puts it first among the sulphur-producing enterprises of the world.
The location of the mines, now known as Sulphur Mines, La., are near Lake Charles, in Cal- calien Parish, La. In its developments it has been shown to be the most productive sulphur property in the world, so important, in fact, that it has been computed by leading statistical authorities that its output amounts to eighty per cent of the world's supply of sulphur. Not only is it famed for its large production but also for the way it has been organized for effective work, the scientific processes by which its product is procured and purified and by the perfection of detail in the organization of the mining, transportation, storage and sales operations.
The founder of the company, Herman Frasch, was a scientist of high repute for his technical knowledge, especially in connection with the sulphur industry, and for his invention of processes of desulphurization and other achievements in chemical engineering. Indirectly the discovery of the sulphur deposits of this company was the cause of the great oil discoveries of the Texas and Louisiana Coastal Plain, for Captain Lucas was seeking sulphur rather than oil when he bored the Lucas well near Beaumont, Texas, at Spindle Top. From the sulphur mines of Calcasien Parish and the Spindle Top gusher of 1901 (then the largest producer in the world's history) was deduced the now generally accepted "Mound Theory," now applied to oil and sulphur developments in the Louisiana and Texas littoral.
The sulphur produced and refined by this company is the purest and best ever made, many of the processes used being original with this company, and just as the mining and manufacturing processes have been improved, the transportation and sales arrangements have been perfected.
The shipping and land transportation equipment of the company is widely known for its completeness. The Brimstone Railroad and Canal Company, Inc., of Louisiana, was incorporated May 27, 1905, to build a railroad from Sulphur Mines, La., to the Sabine and Calcasien Rivers. Its road extends from sulphur mines to Lockport and Brimstone Junction, La., 7.39 miles, with endings 0.87 miles in length. The road connects with the Southern Pacific Railway at Brimstone Junction and with the Kansas City, Southern Railway at Lockport Junction and is equipped with three locomotives and 106 cars. This company also owns the Sabine River Canal, which gives the mines a direct connection with the channel through Sabine River and lake to Sabine, Texas, where the company has a loading plant where ships can be
loaded for transportation to any port in the world.
The value to the Union Sulphur Company to this subsidiary is that through its use the company is in direct touch with the most complete transportation facilities in land and water shipments. The officers of the Brimstone Railroad and Canal Company are J. L. Henning, president and J. Toniette, first vice-president (Sulphur Mines, La.) Henry Whiton, treasurer and general manager; J. R. Gordon, traffic manager and general freight agent;; and H. S. Craig, auditor (New York). The Board of Directors is composed of Henry Whiton and C. A. Snider, New York, and J. H. Henning, S. W. Maxwell and J. Toniette, Sulphur Mines, La.
The Union Navigation Company of New York is the steamship subsidiary of the Union Sulphur Company, and the fleet composed of the "Frieda," "Hewitt" and "Severance," with the two larger steamers now building furnish the Union Sulphur Company with the equipment for water transportation required by the greatly expanded needs of the company. The fleet of this company is under the direction of Mr. J. R. Gordon, to whose years of efficient direction of all of the transportation interests of the Union Sulphur Company the success of that department is mainly to be attributed, and Mr. Gordon has had a long and intimate connection with transportation problems and has given his best organizing efforts to the perfecting of the work of loading and transporting cargoes and trainloads of the Company's products to domestic and foreign markets, by sea and land.
The Union Sulphur Company is a unique or-ganization, with policies planned and carried out by practical men upon an exact scale of production and distribution. It has sought success by the conservative methods of mining and distribution. There is neither water in its capitalization nor any sensational methods in its dealings. It is as miners, manufacturers and merchants that the success of the company has been won by persistent work and perfect organization. Men of expert and practical knowledge of the industry are lo-cated at the mines and refineries, the railroad and fleets. The general management is directed from the main offices at 17 Battery Place, New York.
