Meritas was a brand of

oilcloth Oilcloth, also known as enameled cloth or American cloth, is close-woven cotton duck or linen cloth with a coating of boiled linseed oil to make it waterproof. Manufacture Boiled linseed oil was prepared by a long boiling of linseed oil with me ...

first produced in 1869 by A. F. Buchanan and Sons at

Montrose, New York Montrose is a hamlet (and census-designated place) within the town of Cortlandt, in the northwestern corner of Westchester County, New York, United States. The hamlet is named after the Montross family, most of whom worked nearby in Buchanan at ...

. The company was taken over by the Standard Soap Cloth Company which then became part of the Standard Textile Products Company. The range of cloths produced under the ''Meritas'' brand was expanded to include composite cloth, leather cloth and slate cloth which were used for a variety of purposes including

upholstery Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something. ''Upholstery'' comes from the Middle English wor ...

and trim for

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

s. In 1909, the company built the Meritas Mills in Columbus to manufacture these cloths.

References

{{reflist Textiles