Kilmer House

In my last post, I mentioned Scientific Director Fred Kilmer’s Opera House Pharmacy, which was “very likely” on the on the corner of George and Albany Streets.  Here’s direct confirmation that his pharmacy was in fact on that corner, which is the corner of George and Albany that is across Albany Street from the 410 George Street Building.  Kilmer’s pharmacy was on the ground floor of the old Victorian-style Masonic Hall, whose main tenant was the New Brunswick Opera House.  This photo, which is reproduced here and also linked from Rutgers University’s Old New Brunswick site, clearly shows the sign for Dr. Kilmer’s pharmacy at the bottom left of the photo.

Masonic Hall, 1800s.  Photo courtesy of Rutgers University’s Old New Brunswick Site.

Here’s a close-up of Kilmer’s Opera House pharmacy from the Johnson & Johnson archives.  The distinctive box-like sign identifying the pharmacy is clearly visible in the larger photo, as are architectural details from the bottom of the Masonic Hall.

The Opera House Pharmacy

It was at this pharmacy that Fred Kilmer spent hours talking to Thomas Alva Edison, who bought supplies from Kilmer to make his incandescent light, and it was here in 1887 that Kilmer first met Robert Wood Johnson the first, who enlisted Kilmer’s help on Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment in 1888, and finally persuaded him to join             Johnson & Johnson in October of 1889. 

 Ad for Kilmer’s Pharmacy from the Home News Almanac, 1888

Johnson, who liked to stroll down George Street, had made frequent stops at the pharmacy – a potential customer of his new business – and found a kindred spirit in Fred Kilmer, although their personalities were very different.

Robert Wood Johnson the first (L) and Fred Kilmer (R) 

Fred Kilmer brought his scientific background, his writing ability and his experience as a retail pharmacist to the new company.  One of Kilmer’s innovations was the RED CROSS MESSENGER, a journal published by Johnson & Johnson for retail pharmacists. 

Cover of a RED CROSS MESSENGER from 1912

The RED CROSS MESSENGER had articles about concerns of the day; explanations of the scientific background behind products sold in pharmacies; tips for pharmacists on how to serve customers, display products and increase sales; and numerous pictures from around the world.  Articles about the Company, its products and its people were interspersed between practical tips for pharmacists about running their businesses.  The RED CROSS MESSENGER was widely-read, and the pharmacists and store clerks who read it for its practical information also received a thorough education about Johnson & Johnson directly from the Company.  Here’s an excerpt from a RED CROSS MESSENGER from October of 1912 written by Fred Kilmer, about the importance of window displays:

 “We have talked, we have shouted, we have almost screeched, we have preached, we have pleaded, at times we have scolded, sometimes we have suggested, and at all times we have urged the importance of proper attention to the drug store windows, and we are going to keep it up.  In fact, we are going to do more of it.  From now on, THE MESSENGER will give more and more attention to the drug store window – for this we offer no apology.  The value of the show window as a factor in the business is firmly settled…It can be made a force to teach the great public of its needs.”   (RED CROSS MESSENGER October 1912, V.5 No. 6, p. 182)

Naturally, the MESSENGERS contained ads for the Company’s products, such as this one:

Once a New Brunswick landmark, the imposing building that housed Fred Kilmer’s pharmacy is long gone.  But that former site of Kilmer’s Opera House Pharmacy is, by a strange twist of fate, directly across George Street from a small park…which is named Joyce Kilmer Park, in memory of Fred’s son.

In the earliest days of the Company, Johnson & Johnson was centered in the city of New Brunswick, where it still is headquartered today.  Although the research labs were located across the river in Highland Park, the plaster making facilities, warehouses, cotton mill, shipping and other facilities were located close to the river in New Brunswick.  Besides the Company’s World Headquarters (which still occupies roughly the same site at which the Company started), New Brunswick is home to other sites of historical significance to Johnson & Johnson.  Like most of their employees, the Johnson family lived in New Brunswick.  Robert Wood Johnson the first and his family lived in a Victorian house called Gray Terrace on the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street, and James Wood Johnson and his family lived on Union Street, allowing the Johnson brothers to walk to work. 

Gray Terrace, corner of College and Easton Avenues

Robert Wood Johnson married in 1892, and he and his wife Evangeline had three children:  Robert Wood Johnson the second, born in 1893, John Seward Johnson, born in 1895 and Evangeline Brewster Johnson, born in 1897.  They were joined at Gray Terrace by Johnson’s daughter Roberta from his first marriage. 

Robert Wood Johnson the First 

Every afternoon, Johnson walked the few blocks from               Johnson & Johnson to Gray Terrace to have his main meal of the day with his family.  (Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, p. 67)

The children of Robert Wood Johnson, from left:  Robert, Evangeline and Seward. 

Johnson’s house had three libraries filled with books, as well as greenhouses where Johnson and his gardeners grew a wide variety of flowers, including rare orchids.  Once a New Brunswick landmark, Robert Wood Johnson’s house is no longer standing.  Toward the end of its history, it became a Rutgers University fraternity house and the site is now a Rutgers University parking lot. 

Site of Gray Terrace Today

The house may be gone, but the low stone wall that surrounded it, topped by a short wrought-iron fence, is still there.
 

Scientific Director Fred Kilmer’s house, at 17 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, is an historic site.  The street was called Codwise Avenue when the Kilmers lived there from approximately 1886 to 1892; its name was changed to commemorate Fred Kilmer’s son Alfred Joyce Kilmer, the well-known poet who was killed in World War I.   Joyce was born in that house in New Brunswick in 1886, the same year Johnson & Johnson was founded.  Here’s a link to a website by Joyce’s granddaughter (and Fred Kilmer’s great-granddaughter), with more information about Joyce Kilmer.  Both Joyce Kilmer and Robert Wood Johnson’s eldest son Robert (who would later become known as General Johnson) attended Rutgers Preparatory School on Easton Avenue, another local landmark with connections to Johnson & Johnson. 

Here’s a section from an old map of New Brunswick in May of 1886.  If you look closely at the big building on the corner of George and Albany Streets, in front of the section marked “Opera House,” the subdivision on the right is marked “Drugs,” which means that it very likely shows the location of Fred Kilmer’s Opera House Pharmacy (shown below), which he owned before joining Johnson & Johnson. 

If so, then that makes the corner of Albany and George Streets (across Albany Street from the 410 George Street building) another New Brunswick landmark with connections to the Company.