Davis Collamore & Co. was a high-end

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

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 Black, Starr & Frost, previously known as Marquand and Co, is an American jewelry company. Founded in 1810 as Marquand and Co., the company is the oldest continuously operating jewelry firm in the United States. The company has acted as a retai ...

, 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 De ...

, and

Villeroy & Boch Villeroy & Boch (, ) is a 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 up a potte ...

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 moulding, but the original technique of cutting glass on an abrasive wheel is still u ...

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 heyday ...

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

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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 Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

before taking two storeys of showrooms in The Wilbraham, a fashionable block of bachelor flats at

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

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 & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...

'', 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 an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...

. 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

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of May 1849. In 1864 he purchased seventy acres at

Orange, New Jersey The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 30,134, reflecting a decline of 2,734 (−8.3%) from the 32,868 counted in 2000. Orange was original ...

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 ano ...

Notes

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