💥💥 Need help at Boston Library for historical billiard facts 💥💥

Paul_#_

Paul_#_

Active member
I need help researching when a manufacturer of pool tables and cues was in business. Those facts will show unequivocally the period the company’s pool tables and cues were made. O.L. Briggs was a competitor to Brunswick in, at least, the late 1800s and early 1900s. I don’t know, however, when the business closed. There are many Briggs pool tables still around. I have four Briggs house cues that might be a hundred years old.

I can determine the years the company was in business by reading the yearly Boston Directory and its list of businesses and advertisements. The directories are online, however, only for years older than 1916. I need to know when the Briggs company was no longer in the Boston Directory to reliably state that was when the Briggs company was no longer in business.

Can anyone visit the Boston Public Library and view the directories to determine when the Briggs company closed? That is, find in the company's last year of existence, an entry in the directory's alphabetical listing Briggs, Oliver L. & Son, billiard tables and a lack of an entry the following year. Make copies like that I made for the other years and that are attached here & post on AZBilliards. Etiquette-guru Garczar figured Briggs closed around 1929.

The Boston Directory published by Sampson & Murdock should be in the Boston Public Library’s Special Collections Reading Room with call number RARE BKS H.98.10. and in microfiche. Make an appointment at least two days in advance to view them. Visit the library’s website https://www.bpl.org/

See attached Boston Directories for
1869, 1870 (O.L. Briggs started business in 1870),
1900, 1901 (O.L. Briggs becomes O.L. Briggs & Son in 1901; Briggs ad claims it had been in business since 1866), and
1916 (last year of the directories that I have and that Briggs was an entry).

For the incomplete set of digital Boston Directory, find the 1916 Boston Directory at The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/bostonmassachuse1916112samp/page/336/mode/2up

Find earlier ones at The Boston Athenaeum at
catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=288020
 

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Paul_#_ said:
I need help researching when a manufacturer of pool tables and cues was in business. Those facts will show unequivocally the period the company’s pool tables and cues were made. O.L. Briggs was a competitor to Brunswick in, at least, the late 1800s and early 1900s. I don’t know, however, when the business closed. There are many Briggs pool tables still around. I have four Briggs house cues that might be a hundred years old.

I can determine the years the company was in business by reading the yearly Boston Directory and its list of businesses and advertisements. The directories are online, however, only for years older than 1916. I need to know when the Briggs company was no longer in the Boston Directory to reliably state that was when the Briggs company was no longer in business.

Can anyone visit the Boston Public Library and view the directories to determine when the Briggs company closed? That is, find in the company's last year of existence, an entry in the directory's alphabetical listing Briggs, Oliver L. & Son, billiard tables and a lack of an entry the following year. Make copies like that I made for the other years and that are attached here & post on AZBilliards. Etiquette-guru Garczar figured Briggs closed around 1929.

The Boston Directory published by Sampson & Murdock should be in the Boston Public Library’s Special Collections Reading Room with call number RARE BKS H.98.10. and in microfiche. Make an appointment at least two days in advance to view them. Visit the library’s website https://www.bpl.org/

See attached Boston Directories for
1869, 1870 (O.L. Briggs started business in 1870),
1900, 1901 (O.L. Briggs becomes O.L. Briggs & Son in 1901; Briggs ad claims it had been in business since 1866), and
1916 (last year of the directories that I have and that Briggs was an entry).

For the incomplete set of digital Boston Directory, find the 1916 Boston Directory at The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/bostonmassachuse1916112samp/page/336/mode/2up

Find earlier ones at The Boston Athenaeum at
catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=288020
Click to expand...

I suggest calling the Boston Library to see if one their librarians will help with this search.
 
kling&allen said:
calling the Boston Library to see if one their librarians will help with this searc
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The librarian would help find directories and provide search tips but I want a year-by-year search of directories across several years. Also, I need photographs of several pages from several directories, and to post them to me or AZBilliards. If no helpful Boston-based AZBilliardsanian, the librarian could suggest to me a local researcher who could search for a fee (or I go north).
 
From the City of Boston Archivist
"Hi Paul,

I was not able to definitively confirm the date that Oliver L. Briggs and Son went out of business, but I believe it was around 1929. My first attempt to confirm was to check the atlases to see if their ownership of the property changed to give an idea of the year that they closed, but I found that they did not own the properties that they operated out of. I found several addresses for the company including 61 Essex Street in 1901,
970 Washington Street according to their Rules of Billiards/ catalogue, and on the corner of Washington Street and Avery Street according to the ads from the late 1920s that are attached to this email.

I also checked historical copies of the Boston Globe to see if they advertised, and more importantly stopped advertising, at some point. According to one of the ads (which is attached to this email), the business was in operation for 57 years in April 1929. This was also the last ad I was able to find to the business so it is my best guess for when they stopped operating.


Best,

Kylie "
 
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Kylie:
thepavlos said:
I was not able to definitively confirm the date that Oliver L. Briggs and Son went out of business, but I believe it was around 1929.
Click to expand...
I did not get any attachments to your post! I need them!

Your information is very useful (and aligns with the guess by The Etiquette Guru). Briggs in its April 1929 Boston Globe advertisement claimed it had been in business since 1872 (in business 57 years). That is in the ballpark for the first year the business appeared as a pool-table maker in the 1870 Boston Directory (it appeared as a bookseller & stationer before). Briggs claimed in a 1901 advertisement that it had been in business since 1866 (35 years in business the ad states).

As far as the lack of an advertisement as proof of the business end? It could be or could be because the company cut expenses during the Depression. Your work is helpful but more proof is needed. The Boston Directory does not have advertisements for every business and very likely does not require businesses to buy an advertisement to have an entry.

Need to examine the 1929 and 1930 Boston Directories. Will there be a Briggs-business entry for 1929 but not 1930? See Boston Public Library at RARE BKS H.98.10. A respected seller and restorer of antique pool tables guesses otherwise. See below.

garczar said:
you need to talk to Derrick at Billiard Restoration or Ken at ClassicBilliards
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Derrick didn't know business-date end. Ken Hash thought he'd remembered seeing a Briggs catalog from the 1940s (and might be lost somewhere on his property).
 
Newspapers.com allows an online search of lots of newspapers. From the Dec 8, 1893 Boston Globe:

1718992104102.png


From 1936:
1718992559349.png
 
Bob Jewett said:
Newspapers.com allows an online search of lots of newspapers. From the Dec 8, 1893 Boston Globe:
Click to expand...
Bob Jewett said:
From 1936:
Click to expand...
Oliver L. Briggs' son, Frederick, was thirty-five when he became part of the business name in 1901, Oliver L. Briggs & Son. If he immediately became the business president, he continued as president until 1927. If true, he was a business president and a bank president for three years between 1924 and 1927. He continued as bank president until his death in 1936.

As far as the Depression? Pool-table maker and bank-president Frederick was in a bank that survived the 1929 crash. Oliver L. Briggs & Son was in a good position to have survived the 1929 crash.
 
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