Davis Collamore & Co. was a high-end

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

importer of porcelain and glass, headed by Davis Collamore (7 October 1820 — 13 August 1887). The firm, rivals to Tiffany & Co. and Black, Starr & Frost, commissioned designs from Copeland Spode and Thomas Minton Sons, that featured hand-painted details over transfer-printed outlines and often rich gilding. Porcelain by Haviland,

Royal Worcester Royal Worcester is a porcelain brand based in Worcester, England. It was established in 1751 and is believed to be the oldest or second oldest remaining English porcelain brand still in existence today, although this is disputed by Royal Crown ...

, and

Villeroy & Boch Villeroy & Boch (, ) is a French-German manufacturer of ceramics, with the company headquarters located in Mettlach, Saarland. History The company began in the tiny Lorraine village of Audun le Tiche, where the iron master François Boch set ...

also appear with the firm's stamped underglaze marks integrated with the manufacturer's. Davis Collamore was among the first to recognize the beauty and value of American-made

cut glass Cut glass or cut-glass is a technique and a style of decorating glass. For some time the style has often been produced by other techniques such as the use of Molding (process), moulding, but the original technique of cutting glass on an abrasiv ...

and also offered

Rookwood Pottery Rookwood Pottery is an American ceramics company that was founded in 1880 and closed in 1967, before being revived in 2004. It was initially located in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has now returned there. In its heyda ...

, for which they were the representatives at the Exposition Universelle, Paris 1889. Davis Collamore, born in

Scituate, Massachusetts Scituate () is a seacoast town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on the South Shore, midway between Boston and Plymouth. The population was 19,063 at the 2020 census. History The Wampanoag and their neighbors inhabited the ar ...

to a family that had been settled there since 1639, was the youngest of twelve children. At the age of sixteen he moved to

to be employed by his brother Ebenezer, an importer of glass and china, at 171 Broadway, with a residence near St. John's Park. In 1842 he established his own business, at 595 Broadway. His brother Gilman Collamore (1834—1888) came to join him in 1854. Gilman established his own business in 1861. Gilman Collamore & Co., in premises at 731 Broadway in 1861, then occupied premises in Union Square before taking two storeys of showrooms in

The Wilbraham The Wilbraham is an apartment building at 282–284 Fifth Avenue and 1 West 30th Street in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The nine-story structure was designed by David and John Jardine in the Romanesque Revival ...

, a fashionable block of bachelor flats at

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

and 30th Street, that opened in 1890; about 1920 new premises were constructed for the firm at 15 East 56th Street Davis Collamore & Co.'s premises also matched the moves uptown of fashionable New Yorkers. An ad for tea and dinner services advertised from the firm's early premises, at 479 Broadway, just below Broome Street, appeared in ''

Harper's Weekly ''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper (publisher), Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many su ...

'', 25 April 1863. Retail shops were opened at Broadway and 21st Street, then on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 37th Street, and then, in 1911, at 48th and Fifth Avenue and finally at 7 and 9 East 52nd Street. There was a branch at the fashionable resort of

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...

. On November 7, 1842, he married Hannah Augusta Fiske of Boston; they had four children, two of whom died in infancy. Mrs Collamore died on November 13, 1882. As a member of the New York 7th Regiment he was present at the Astor Place Riot of May 1849. In 1864 he purchased seventy acres at

Orange, New Jersey The City of Orange (known simply as Orange) is a Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 34,447, an increase o ...

and retired to the country house, "Belhurst", he built there on the mountain's slope, to a design by his nephew George Hathorne.Whittemore 1896. Hathorne's best-known structure is the

Long Island City Courthouse The Long Island City Courthouse is located at 25-10 Court Square in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. It formerly housed Criminal Court, County Court, the District Attorney staff, and the county sheriff's office. Today the Courthouse is a ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collamore, Davis American businesspeople in retailing Shops in New York City Commercial buildings in Manhattan