Silas Clark Herring

Background

Silas Clark Herring was born in 1803 in Salisbury, Vermont, United States in 1803, the son of Otis and Mary (Olds) Herring who were married at Brookfield, Massachusetts.

Career

At sixteen Silas Herring went to work in an uncle’s grocery store at Albany, New York, and continued there for six years. Later he engaged in the business of selling lottery tickets, with his uncle. Becoming interested in military matters he was appointed paymaster and colonel of the 5th Regiment of New York Artillery. He removed to New York City in 1834 and had just embarked in a wholesale grocery business when his goods and prospects were wiped out by the great fire of 1835. After he had made a new start the financial crisis of 1837 dealt him another severe blow, from which he recovered with difficulty.

At that low stage of his fortunes Herring met, by the merest chance it would seem, one Enos Wilder, who held a patent on an invention of a plaster-of-Paris lining for metallic safes. At that time (1840) no steel safe had been built which had stood the fire test with its contents unimpaired. Wood was the material commonly used for lining, and safe-manufacturers were still looking for a satisfactory non-conductor of heat to take its place. Herring was convinced that in plaster-of-Paris Wilder had that substance. He bought the manufacturing rights, paying Wilder a royalty of one cent a pound, and began to build the “Salamander” safe on a small scale.

One factor in the rapid expansion of his business was advertising. In this Herring was aided by providence. New York in those days was the scene of many destructive fires. Whenever a Salamander safe emerged from one of these tests with its contents untouched by flame Herring lost no time in apprising the public of the fact, and he was continually challenging rival safe-manufacturers to a test of their products. His safe survived the Tribune building fire of 1845 triumphantly, the only one which did. The Wilder patent expired in 1852, having made both the patentee and Herring rich men for that day, but in the meantime Herring had added improvements with a view to making his product burglar-proof as well as fireproof. Although his safes have long since been superseded, for years they enabled the manufacturer to hold his own in competition.

Achievements

• Silas Herring was famous for making a fortune by producing and selling of burglar-proof as well as fireproof safes.

Connections

Herring married Mary A. Draper, of Brookfield, in 1831. She died six years later, and on May 9, 1843, he was married to Caroline S. Tarbell of Brimfield, Massachusetts. One of his sons, Francis Otis, in after years succeeded to his father’s business.

Father:

Otis Herring

Mother:

Mary (Olds) Herring

Spouse:

Caroline S. (Tarbell) Herring

Spouse:

Mary A. (Draper) Herring

Son:

Francis Otis Herring