Frank Stanley Beveridge - "The Stanley Man"

Searching on the internet for Frank Stanley Beveridge can be conducted several ways. There is a simple Google search or one could see what Ancestry.com has to offer. In my search to know more about this man, I stumbled upon a wonderful newspaper article that offers so many intricate details about Mr. Beveridge, that I decided that it would be best not to summarize, but to offer the article in whole. Read on to discover more about the Stanley Man...

The Madison County Times of Chittenango 

Madison County, NY Article Published in the Column of "My Daze" by Laddie Milmoe

August 27, 1964

"Most everyone in the Oneida and Northern Madison County area has heard of Stanley Home Products and numerous housewives have attended Stanley parties at one time or another when the hundreds of Stanley items are purchased direct from the company with no middlemen involved to increase the selling costs... But few people realize that Frank Stanley Beveridge, founder of the company, a native of Novia Scotia, lived in Oneida 56 years ago, in fact, began his business career here by selling Fuller Brush products while a student at Colgate University... The story of Frank Stanley Beveridge, millionaire industrialist, who gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars for education is well known by a life long friend, Miss Edith Lawrence, now a resident of the Old Ladies Home in Oneida.

Frank Stanley Beveridge, who is thought to be the originator of the idea of having home parties to sell cosmetics, home products, and household utilities, came to the boarding house of Mrs. Alice Gilbert on Almond Street to spend the summer while a student at Colgate University about 1908. Before registering into Colgate as an undergraduate, Frank had been through Mt. Hermon Preparatory School at Mt. Hermon, Mass., probably under the guidance of the famed Educator-Theologian of that day, Dwight L. Moody, and perhaps it was Dr. Moody who sent Frank to Colgate. At any rate during his summers, just like college students of today, Frank sought summer work to enhance this income and he picked Oneida as a starting out place to peddle Fuller Brushes from door to door. In the same boarding house in Oneida where he met Miss Lawrence, Frank met his future wife, Miss Theresa Burdick of Port Byron, who survives him and still lives in Westfield.

The Misses Burdick and Lawrence were young ladies engaged in making burial robes in the local casket company when they stayed at the Almond Street boarding house of Mrs. Gilbert. Miss Lawrence recently recalled that Miss Burdick had a sister, Mrs. Harry Cole in Durhamville who learned and practiced the cigar making trade and lived in this area until her death 7 yeas ago... Speaking of Mr. Beveridge, she said that he only spent a year at Colgate University but did spend his first 7 or 8 years of house to house selling in the Oneida area, making his headquarters here. Though he spent several years of selling and eventually became an executive of the Fuller Brush Company, Frank never entirely approved of their methods and finally decided that he could improve upon it so went in business for himself. His wife, a devout Christian, discouraged him from using the name of the Beveridge Products Company, so it was decided to use his middle name of Stanley and call the firm the Stanley Home Products Co.

First home of the company was a little tobacco house in Westfield, Mass., which served as general headquarters for the firm which then sold brushes, mops and several other household products. Little did Westfield, Mass. realize at the time how this business was going to expand and boom the economy of the quiet but attractive little residential town. Frank had all kinds of selling experience, having handled Stereoscopes as well as Fuller brushes in his earlier years and had also operated concessions at carnivals, county fairs and just about everything and anything wherever a crowd had gathered. He possessed a persuasive manner and the rapid expansion in which the Stanley products boomed seemed perfectly natural to all who knew Frank. He liked everyone he met, and everyone seemed to like him too.

He got off an O. and W. train over at Kenwood one morning coming down the line from the other end of the county and though it was only 7am made his first sales call that morning on the late Oneida Limited Boar Chairman Col. P.B. Noyes when he was just a rising young executive of the Oneida Silversmiths. Colonel and Mrs. Noyes invited him not only for coffee but also to stay on for a hearty breakfast and as you may have guessed by now he sold the Noyes couple some Fuller brushes, because this was before he had launched his own company... A friendship then developed between him and the Colonel, which led later to the Stanley Company buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of silver from Oneida Limited, to be used as premiums for the Stanley products. 

Living alongside of the Stanley Park in Westfield, Mass., a beautiful public gathering place covering many acres in the home city of Frank Beveridge is Mrs. Laura Campbell, widow of the late Madison County Judge, Albert E. Campbell who really put us next to the fact that Frank Beveridge spent some of his early life in our home town. Mrs. Campbell's home overlooks the park which is one of the finest man made beauties of all New England, replete with flowers, shrubs, trees and other features, many of which have been contributed not by the company itself which built the Park, but by the dealers themselves or area managers.

One of the nearby semi-retired dealers is Mrs. Maurice Deeley of Durhamville, who has had many trips to Westfield meetings, picnics, outings and gala parties financed by the company for which she about 15 years. She hasn't been too active over the past 5 years selling Stanley products... The amazing fact least known about Frank Stanley Beveridge, the one time Madison County boy who made good in the big outside world is that he has quietly passed along hundreds of thousands of dollars to private schools and colleges and our own nearby Colgate which he attended for one year over 50 years ago is one of the beneficiaries... Before his death a few years ago Mr. Beveridge was awarded an honorary degree by Colgate."

This account provides a wonderful glimpse into Frank Stanley Beveridge. The telling of the history of this man, his company, and the thousands that he employed has only begun....