J. A. Folger

J. A. Folger
J. A. Folger
Born	James Athearn Folger; June 17, 1835; Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	June 26, 1889 (aged 54)
Nationality	American
Other names	Jim Folger
Occupation	Founder of Folgers Coffee
Spouse(s)	Eleanor Laughran
Children	4

James "Jim" Athearn ("J. A.") Folger, Sr. (June 17, 1835 – June 26, 1889) was an American businessman and the founder of the Folgers Coffee Company.

Early years

Folger was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Brown Folger (born October 21, 1795) and wife Nancy Hiller (born September 30, 1798). His father was a master blacksmith who had invested in a tryworks and bought two ships. They had nine children of which James was the second youngest. The Folger family roots can be traced back to England.[1] On July 13, 1846, a 33-acre (130,000 m²) fire broke out in Nantucket's business section and burned the works and ship and 11 year old James helped in the reconstruction.

San Francisco

After the discovery of gold in California, James (age 14), along with his brothers Henry (age 16) and Edward (age 20) set out in the autumn of 1849 on a ship bound for the Isthmus of Panama. After a raft and hiking journey across the Isthmus, the brothers waited at Panama City for quite a while before catching the Pacific mail steamer Isthmus on April 10, 1850. They entered the Golden Gate on May 5, 1850.

James decided to stay in San Francisco instead of heading to the gold fields as a result of the high wages being offered. He helped reconstruct after one of San Francisco's many fires, similar to how he had in Nantucket. He helped build a spice-and-coffee mill for a man named William H. Bovee.[2]

In 1860, he founded the San Francisco coffee firm, known as the J. A. Folger Coffee Company, known today simply as Folgers Coffee.[2]

Death and legacy

J. A. Folger married Eleanor Laughran (born October 17, 1837) and was the father of James Athearn Folger, Jr. (1864–1921), who married Clare Luning. James and Eleanor had three other children; John Athearn m. Nancy Try (née Slaughter), Ernest Randolph, and Elizabeth. He is the paternal grandfather of Peter Folger, and the great-grandfather of Abigail Folger. Abigail was murdered in 1969, by members of the Manson family, along with her friend, actress Sharon Tate among others. He is also the uncle of Henry Clay Folger, founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

He died June 26, 1889 at the age of 54 and is buried in the Folger family plot at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.

gollark: I'm not sure how specific it is to deep learning stuff though.

gollark: Have you heard of Triton? It's apparently a nice abstraction over CUDA.

gollark: I see.

gollark: No, it has floats in it.

gollark: What's it doing?

References

Remarks on the Origin and Genealogy of the Franklin Family.
"Histories of Associate Members". California Historical Society Quarterly. University of California Press in association with the California Historical Society. 43 (2): 177. June 1964. Retrieved August 30, 2016.

External links

The Official Website of Folgers Coffee
The Folger Way – Coffee Pioneering Since 1850, Ruth Waldo Newhall (1961) (no ISBN number)
"The Nantucket Coffee Connection", by Robert F. Mooney. Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol 48, no. 3 (Summer 1999), p. 24.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] Remarks on the Origin and Genealogy of the Franklin Family.

[calhistsoc-2] "Histories of Associate Members". California Historical Society Quarterly. University of California Press in association with the California Historical Society. 43 (2): 177. June 1964. Retrieved August 30, 2016.