The Phillips Packing Company Premier

Phillips Packing Company envelope with a "fantasized" drawing of the layout-out of the company - there wasn't any water located next to the plant - this is definitely using the "artistic license"  (my personal collection)

Although the original railroad built by the Dorchester & Delaware Railroad back in the 1860's had more to do with connecting Cambridge, MD to the outside world, one major customer that can't be overlooked in Cambridge was the Phillips Packing Company.

Not only was it the largest employer at one time (only to be outclassed by the maritime & farming industry), but it was known for "making Cambridge famous" for 55 years.

Of course, with any organization that gets as large as the Phillips Packing Company did, it did have its problems (more on another post about that later - the year of 1937 will be discussed), no one can say that Phillips didn't change the face of the town of Cambridge.

I've got a lot of this information from various sources (one being the Cambridge, MD page on the Choptank River Historic Sites), so I'm going to share what I have here.

Colonel Albanus Phillips (1871-1949) one of the founders of Phillips Packing Company

Here's a little background on Colonel Albanus Phillips & his Brother Levi Phillips from by Harold W. Hurst's August 2006, article "The Canning Industry in Delmarva":

"Colonel Albanus Phillips (1871-1949), Cambridge’s “king of the canners,” may serve as a typical representative of this new industrial elite. Active in Masonic activities and an ardent supporter of the Republican Party, he also served on the staff of Governor Phillip Lee Goldsborough and the board of directors of Washington College in Chestertown. For many years he was on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Albanus’ brother, Levi B., was another “mover and shaker” in Cambridge. He was president of the National Bank and an active member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Zion Methodist Church. Levi stepped onto the national stage when he became director of the Richmond District of the Federal Reserve Bank.

The sons of Colonel Phillips, Albanus, Jr. and Theodore, continued the family interest in community affairs and voluntary associations. William G. Winterbottom, a partner in the Phillips organization, was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1908."

Colonel Phillips, Levi Phillips, and W. Grason Winterbottom formed the Phillips Packing Company on March 10, 1902. Each partner would share a third of the costs & the profits. The partnership would take the tomatoes & cans from the Woolford Packing Company & package them under their company's name.

The Colonel would also start the Phillips Hardware Company in 1904 & the A. Phillips & Company oyster and fruit packers firm in 1907.

In 1914 the partners organized the Phillips Can Company on the property of the Phillips Packing Company to can the products themselves. 

These companies (minus the Hardware Company) formed the largest fruit and packing firms in the Eastern part of the United States and the largest oyster packing firm in the United States. The tomato and catsup/ketchup business became one of the largest food processing companies in the nation.

Phillips Delicious Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup label (from 1946)

In the 1920's canned tomatoes and sweet potatoes were marketed throughout the United States as “Phillips Delicious.” 

During World War I, Phillips canned a large share of the rations for the U.S. Army. Phillips supplied canned food for the 1930's Byrd Antarctic Expeditions. Colonel Phillips became a close friend of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, who named a mountain range and glacier after the Colonel. 

During World War II, the Phillips plants produced both the “C” and “K” rations for the armed forces. The company was proud of the four awards for excellence that it received from the Army and Navy during this period.

Phillips Canning went through many changes & enjoyed highs & lows in the canning industry, but why doesn't it exist today (& why did they stop shipping by rail)? I'll refer to the excellent article (again), by Mr. Hurst's "The Canning Industry in Delmarva" article. He summed-up the ending of the canning industry on Maryland's Eastern Shore (& I can tell you after having worked for the Delaware Coast Line Railroad in the early 1980's-to-early 1990's & taking care of one of the last canning companies in Sussex County, Delaware: Draper King Cole Company in Milton, DE, this sums up the canning industry on the ENTIRE Eastern Shore):

"The number of canneries declined after World War II. By 1980, there were only about 20 canning factories left in the eight counties of Eastern Shore Maryland. Why did this once thriving industry fade away? After 1945, lavish wartime government contracts ceased. High labor costs due to unionization and the introduction of the minimum wage reduced profits, causing many canners to sell out.

Competition from the frozen food industry and increasing rivalry from California fruit canners contributed to a further decline of Delmarva operations. The opening of the Bay Bridge in the early 1950's resulted in the diversification of the Peninsula economy and the establishment of new enterprises offering a wide variety of fresh employment and business opportunities.

An era passed away as cannery after cannery closed their doors and Delmarva farmers converted their tomato fields and fruit orchards into lands planted with corn, wheat and soybeans. The failure of the industry marked the end of another epoch in Delmarva history."

So, what happened to Phillips? Well, the company was sold to Consolidated Foods in 1957. In 1960, the factory was sold again to the Coastal Foods Company. In 1965, Factory B and a number of other buildings burned, leaving only a small administrative office that still stands today and is occupied by the Coastal Gunite Construction Company at 16 Washington Street (across the street from where Wawa stands today).

And yes, the modern-day Phillips Seafood Inc. was founded by descendants of Colonel Phillips (& yes, a shameless plug, I do like & use Phillips Seafood's products - just wanted to get that out there).

The entrance to Phillips Seafood restaurant in 2011, at Baltimore, MD's Inner Harbor (Phillips Food Inc. collection)

I'll be posting more photos of Phillips in other posts because I do have a lot of information on this operation.