Author: American Historical Society

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 776

ISBN-13: 9781330634172

Excerpt from Encyclopedia of Massachusetts, Biographical Genealogical Andrew B.Andrew B. Wallace was born in Newburg, Fifeshire, Scotland, March 27, 1842, son of David and Christina (Brabner) Wallace, the former named a representative of an ancient and honorable Scotch family. He was a dealer in wood, a member of the Town Council, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a man of influence in his town. He died in 1894. Andrew B. Wallace attended school in his native town until the age of fifteen years, then was apprenticed to a dry goods merchant for a term of four years. When that term expired, in 1862, he left home and went to Stirling, going thence to Glasgow, remaining in those two cities until 1867, when he came to the United States, locating in Boston, Massachusetts. Being an experienced dry goods clerk, and before coming over, well known, he was hired by a Boston firm, Hogg, Brown Taylor, while in Glasgow. From Boston Mr. Wallace went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where for four years he was a member of the firm of Smith Wallace. That firm continued in business until 1874, when Mr. Wallace withdrew and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, there founding the dry goods firm of Forbes Wallace. That firm has prospered and has become the leading dry goods house in Western Massachusetts, a large business having been developed. They erected, in 1920, a building in place of their present store at Numbers 392-94-96-98 Main Street, which when completed gave them a unified eight-story and basement store with the present Main Street front and extending down Vernon Street. The building is of the most modern type of steel frame and fireproof construction. The outside is faced with gray brick and Indian limestone, corresponding with the present Vernon and Pynchon Street buildings. One of the conspicuous features of the new store is a vestibule entrance at the center front, faced with Vermont marble and bronze, the entrance being banked with display windows and cases. Large show windows occupy the entire Main street front, and also extend two hundred feet on the Vermont Street side of the store. The store extension adds four additional floors to the space already in use, with a total of forty thousand square feet of floor space, which makes possible extensive expansion for many departments. A spacious new waiting-room, rest-room, and art gallery on the fifth floor is one of the new attractions. On the fourth floor the added space gives room for a necessary enlargement of the store's private fur storage plant. Main offices are on the second floor, stockrooms on the third and seventh floors, and the first floor includes a lady's hair-dressing and manicuring department, and specialty shop for children's hair-cutting. Mr. Wallace was also head of a syndicate known as the Consolidated Dry Goods Company, with stores in Pittsfield, Northampton and North Adams, Massachusetts, and Schenectady and Poughkeepsie, New York - five stores. In addition to these Mr. Wallace was interested in a number of Springfield corporations, including the Warwick Bicycle Company, the Springfield Knitting Company, the Pettis Dry Goods Company of Indianapolis, the Springfield Electric Light Company, the Denholm & McKay Dry Goods Company, of Worcester; the Springfield Loan and Trust Company, of which he was an incorporator and director, and the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, of which he was also sf director. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com