[LM241293], Letter from Walter Seeley Mallory to National Coal Tar Co, October 13th, 1900
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/LM241293
Transcription
October 13th, 1900 The National Coal Tar Company 100 William Street, New York City Dear Sirs:- When he had the pleasure of an interview last week with your Mr. Beau, we stated to him that we were unable to market our product owing to the present condition of the Iron Ore business. The Eastern Furnaces have very large stocks of iron ore already on hand and more coming in under contracts made in January last, in the height of the boom. We have had difficulty all season in selling our product and accumulated quite a large stock of concentrates, which we have been putting in the form of briquettes and storing. This past Thursday we had quite an accident at our Bricking plant, owing to a driving rope catching, and we have decided to suspend operations in that plant, also keeping the concentrates in our stock house until such time as the market conditions grow better. This leaves us no hand in cars unloaded, 186 barrels of pitch and 20 barrels of tar, and in our stock house 340 barrels of pitch and 35 barrels of tar. We, of course, can carry this until we start up, which will probably not be until February or March, the condition of the iron trade changes materially before that time. From our understanding of the matter, you have made us a very low price on this material, and we, of course, would think of offering to for sale in competition with you; at the same time, we would like to dispose of it, provided we could get back our money and not be out more than $1.00 per ton on the freight. So if you can dispose of this for us, we will greatly appreciate it, and the proceeds you can credit to our account. Of course, if you cannot do this, we will carry the material until next Spring. We also beg to acknowledge the receipt of prices made us of $9.00 per ton f.o.b. Everett, Mass, and $10.00 per ton, f.o.b. Jersey City for both pitch and tar; these prices being given us last week by Mr. Beau. We have changed bills for all shipments rendered on this basis. We greatly regret that we cannot continue receiving supplies from you, but from the experiences we have had from your material, we believe we are safe is stating we will use very considerable quantities of it when we next start in operation, as it is our intention (if the market will warrant it), to run our plant both night and day, using more than twice the quantities you have already shipped us. Trusting you will be able to help us out with the material on hand, we are, W.S. Mallory V.P.