Growing up in Batavia, I remember walking down Ellicott Street and passing an impressive building covered with ivy. It seemed to be part of Batavia’s scenery. The building had belonged to Edwin Newton Rowell.
Mr. Rowell came to Batavia from Utica, NY, in 1888 with W.T. Palmer, a business partner. Together they started a small box factory business on the third floor at 66 Main St. called the Palmer and Rowell Company. Mr. Rowell suspected his wife was unfaithful to him with a gentleman named Johnston L. Lynch. He dissolved the partnership with Palmer and took a job as a salesman to keep an eye on his wife. Edwin seemed correct with this suspicion because he went home early and found Mr. Lynch with his wife one day. In a passionate frenzy, he shot Mr. Lynch three times. The shooting was considered a crime of passion and made headlines in The Daily News. Not serving any jail time, he divorced his wife and went back to being the head of his own company at 66 Main Street under the name of The E.N. Rowell Company.
His company made medicine boxes exclusively for several years and later added cosmetic boxes.
Rowell bought a brick factory building in 1896 on Ellicott Street at the junction of West Main Street. It formerly housed the D. Armstrong Shoe Company. In 1912 Rowell had a fourth-floor building on the Ellicott Street site. In 1919 he bought buildings on Jefferson Ave. from K.B. Mathes to start making a line of cosmetic boxes. This building was referred to as Factory Number 2. He purchased land south of the main factory and built a separate power plant on the creek bank. Later he bought the former St. James Rectory from the Elks for a print shop and storage area. Rowell’s boxes were sold around the world.
E. N. Rowell died in 1929. May Emke Rowell, his second wife, and former secretary became president of the firm. She was a great businesswoman and was in control of the business until she died in 1971. In 1980 the Rowell factory building was for sale, and the factory closed permanently in 1981.
The Kastenbaum’s are the current owners of E.N. Rowell’s former beautiful home. E.N. Rowell’s unique monument at Grand View Cemetery has the same brickwork as his home.
Visit the Holland Land Office Museum to see samples of his boxes.
Photos are courtesy of the Holland Land Office except where noted.
Photo by Howard Owens from 2012
