Mr. A. E. Pelton lived in Chagrin Falls, a picturesque village that grew up around a series of waterfalls on the Chagrin River in northeastern Ohio.
Today, Chagrin Falls is a suburb of Cleveland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagrin_Falls,_Ohio
It appears that Mr. Pelton placed an order with the H. J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, PA.
(I considered that he might be a shopkeeper or grocer, but he does not appear on any business listings in Chagrin Falls during the early 20th century.)
Pittsburgh, the industrial powerhouse on the Oho River of western Pennsylvania, is about 116 miles southeast of Chagrin Falls.
In July of 1901, Mr. Pelton received a postcard acknowledgement of his order and of his payment by check in the amount of $9.71.
The H. J. Heinz Company was established in 1869.
The founder was the son of German immigrants, and he had several failed partnerships selling foodstuffs before founding his own company in Pittsburgh.
From humble beginnings, selling homemade horseradish from his father-in-law’s basement, Heinz gradually built a food empire that is now included in one of the largest food companies in the world.
Berkshire Hathaway is the majority owner of the Kraft Heinz food conglomerate that was created in 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz
The “Pure Foods” label was not a merchandising ploy.
Heinz was a fervent disciple of the health food movement and pioneered science-based practices in preparing and packaging foods.
In 1906, H. J. Heinz undertook a personal lobbying campaign to persuade Theodore Roosevelt to support the federal Pure Food and Drug Act.
During the great Depression, the company pioneered soups and other prepared foods that became enormously popular.
Heinz still dominates the market for ketchup, it’s “57 Varieties” is one of the most recognized slogans in the English-speaking world.
We do not know what “pickles or pure foods” were ordered by Mr. Pelton, but we hope that he was satisfied by the product.
Note:
A. E. Pelton can be found in several archive data bases – he was an early member of the “Sons of Temperance” (in the 1870’s) before it was folded into the Women’s Christian Temperance League.
In 1894 and 1895 he is listed in the Annual Report of the Ohio Secretary of State as a Justice of the Peace in Chagrin Falls.
Alas, I cannot find him definitively in any genealogical database.
It would help if I knew the names represented by “A. E. “
A “Mrs. Pelton” is acknowledged as a founder of the Library in Chagrin Falls; she went door-to-door soliciting subscriptions for the village’s first library.
Again, I cannot be sure that this is a relative of A. E. Pelton.
