Business is at times an
adventure. Charles Hugon arrived in Port of Spain by accident in about 1803. He
had sailed from the French port of Bordeaux, where he and his brother Luc had
run the family business, a lot of import and some export.
From an old journal of his, most
of which had been eaten by worms by the time it came into my hands, we read:
“We were crossing the Atlantic at
our tremendous best, averaging 330 knots a day. Captain Vigo ordered the main,
royal, the fore and mizzen, top gallant sails taken in so as to preserve his
shrouds and yards. The seas were enormous, waves that kept the decks constantly
awash rushing along the decks and exploding forward against the capstans. There
is a great beauty and a marvellous fascination in the experience of a ship
under sail, driven to her greates speeds in a pounding gale of wind...”
This storm, perhaps it was a
mid-Atlantic hurricane of the sort we see on the weather report on television,
drove Captain Vigo’s ship south to Trinidad and Charles Hugon, who had intended
to go to Canada, found himself in a noisy, muddy, badly built, little more than
a fishing village, place that was described as Port of Spain. He hadn’t
intended to stay, but his effects such as they were, were put ashore and
Captain Vigo sailed with the tide, taking the remous straight through the
Dragon’s Mouth.
Hugon did well in Port of Spain.
First, he rented aplace around where Chacon Street would later appear on maps.
It was more or less bush, naked Caribs camped at his door. Governor Picton was
ahning or decapitating African slaves in public at an alarming rate. A German
soldier received 1500 lashes for rape one Sunday morning while respectable
people were going to church.
Hugon minded his business, slept
in it to deter thieves and so that the Caribs did not move in. He got to like
the place, bought a little house on Queen Street and followed the advice of
another young Frenchman, Jean Boissière, and stayed off the rum. A frew years
later, he married a pretty girl with an aristocratic sounding name, made a bit
of money and put on some weight. His business was a ship chandlery and a
hardware store.
This story really begins in 1812
with Madame Hugon going on holiday to Europe. Traveling by coach through the
German countryside, near to the village of Eschau in the duchy of
Hessen-Darmstadt, an unfortunate accident occured. Her coach capsided in the
snow and she suffered several injuries. The alderman of Eschau called Gerold
took her in and Mrs. Gerold looked after Mrs. Hugon.
During this period, Europe was at
war. Napoleon Bonaparte was in the process of re-arranging the status quo. The
Gerold’s eldest son was already fighting in Russia. After having been in th
hospitality of the Gerolds for three months, Mme. Hugon offered on leaving to
take their other sons, Chritian and Anslem, to the West Indies to as to save
them from being conscripted into Napoleon’s army.
Three years later, the eldest
Gerold had been killed in battle, and Gerold senr. was also dead at the hands
of Cassock marauders. Christian and Anslem took up on the offer, went out to
Trinidad and worked for Charles Hugon in Port of Spain.
The Hugons had no children, and
upon their retirement in 1828, the firm passed to the young men. It was renamed
C. & A. Gerold. Over the years, they brought their nephews over from
Hessen-Darmstadt to work with them: Wuppermann, Feez, Urich and Zürcher.
Many Germans travelled to South
America in the 1820s. The Gerolds opened a branch at Angostura, now Ciudad
Bolivar, with Henry Dick under the name Dick & Wupperman. Adolph Wupperman
married a Ganteaume woman from Mayaro. They came to know Dr. J.G.B. Siegert, the
concoctor of the world-famous bitters. It was through this connection that the
Angostura Aromatic Bitters of Dr. Siegert were taken to the world.
In 1839, Adoph’s son, George, came
out to Trinidad and in 1870 married Josephine Hancox in New York. Two years
later, the House of Gerold and Urich failed. The business, however, was
revivied by Joseph Hancox, Josephine’s father, who came to Trinidad the same
year with his second daughter and her husband John Neilson Harriman to see what
could be done to rescue the position of his daughter.
As a result an accommodation was
made whereby the business was restarted under the name of J.N. Harriman and
Company, his son-in-law’s name, in trust for his daughter, Josephine Wupperman.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth Harriman, Josephine’s sister, died in Trinidad, and
Harriman returned to the United States shortly after, leafing George and
Josephine Wupperman to carry on their former company’s business in the name of
J.N. Harriman & Co.
In 1875, the business of J.G.B.
Siegert & Sons removed to Port of Spain; three years later, Carlos D.
Siegert, Dr. Siegert’s son, approached George Wupperman, and together they set
up an agency in New York for the sale of Angostura Bitters. The Siegerts and
the Wuppermans were close friends, and Carlos was the godfatehr to George and
Josephine’s son.
This company later became known
as Angostura, Wupperman & Co. and was the sole agent in the United States
for the sale and distribution of Angostura Bitters. On their departure, the
Wuppermans left a fellow countryman, Karl Boos, in charge of J.N. Harriman
& compan. Boos had come to Trinidad in 1873, also from Hessen-Darmstadt,
and was initially employed by Fritz Zurcher. He left Zurcher and joined J.N.
Harriman & CO in 1875/76, and by 1878 had risen to the post of head clerk.
As time passed, the New York
operation diverted the interest of the Wuppermans and in 1885 the company was
sold to Dr. J.G.B. Siegert & Sons. Within a matter of weeks, the Siegerts
sold it to Karl Boos for the same sum. Carlos Siegert extended the credit to
Boos for the purchase of the company and as part of this contract an annuity of
$2,000 per annum for 20 years was payable for the goodwill. J.N. Harriman &
Company, it is to be remembered, had the world trade rights for Angostura for
life, but this was to change. Boos established his independence by repaying
htis debt early, but when years later, in 1892, in a desperate effort to obtain
further finance to complete the purchase of two cocoa estates, he approached Carlos
again for financial assistance, the condition of that loan was the termination
of the existing world agency rights to one at will and for Trinidad only.
In 1896, the company moved from
their premises at 2 South Quay to the present location at 61 Marine (now
Independence) Square. In the same year, Carl August Boos joined his father as
cashier and in 1900 was taken into partnership. The father and son partnership
continued for 21 years, weathering several financial storms, until 1921 when
the partnership was dissolved and the son purchased his father’s interest in
the business.
In 1900, Karl Boos left Trinidad
with his family to reside in New York where he opened the firm of Boos & Co. as
a branch of J.N. Harriman & Co.
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