JOHN JACOB LAWRENCE

John Jacob Lawrence
March 7, 1827 – March 27, 1898

John Jacob Lawrence was born on March 7, 1827 in Washington County, Pennsylvania, the son of Congressman Joseph B. Lawrence and his second wife, Sarah (AKA Marie) Bucher. (More about Congressman Joseph B. Lawrence: In 1838 he was a candidate for Congress, defeated by seventeen votes, but elected in 1840. He died in Washington, D. C., April 7, 1842.).

John Jacob Lawrence served during the Civil War, to whit: JOHN JACOB LAWRENCE Captain 125th Penna. Infantry Aug. 15, 1862; Major Aug. 16, 1862; honorably mustered out May 18, 1863. Colonel 46th Penna. Militia Infantry.

John Jacob Lawrence was involved with paint and color manufacturing and was for a time a partner of Moses B. Suydam. The parent factory was located on Rebecca (Reedsdale) Street. Originally engaged in the manufacture of Dutch-processed white lead, other products of the paint industry gradually were added as the firm expanded under a series of reorganizations. Successively it became W. G. Stockton and Company; Suydam, Lawrence and Company (1878); M. B. Suydam and Company (1885), and the M. B. Suydam Company (1900). Each company in turn prospered and each served as the spring-board from which the next was formed. The paint products of the M B Suydam company were used by many of the largest bridge building firms in Western Pennsylvania, including, Carnegie Steel and Jones and Laughlin Steel.

John Jacob Lawrence was a director of the Masonic Bank, along with SFF&HC members Robert Pitcairn, E. A. Myers, Aaron French and John Caldwell.

At the time of the Flood, Colonel J. J. Lawrence, was Vice-President of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.

John J. Lawrence married Anna E. ?

Here is their Allegheny PA household in 1880…(the enumerator misspells the last name as “Laurence”)…

Household:

J J Lawrence – age 53 – Lead and Oil Manufacturer (born 1827)

Anna E. Lawrence – age 50 – Keeping House (born 1830)

W. W. Lawrence – age 21 – Clk Manufacturer

Teresa M. Lawrence – age 19 (born 1861)

Anna M. Lawrence – age 16 (born 1864)

J. J. Lawrence Jr. – age 14 (born 1866)

Mary S. Lawrence – age 12 (born 1868)

* * * * *

John Jacob Lawrence, Jr. married Louise Andrews.

Their children include:

Louise Lawrence ()

John Jacob Lawrence III ()

William Watson Lawrence ()

Miriam Lawrence ()

Their home in Sewickley was called “Glen Osborne”.

John J. Lawrence was involved with railroads. On Feb 20, 1870, the Allegheny Valley Railroad was opened to Oil City proper. And two years later extensive terminal facilities were acquired. In 1873, Colonel William Phillips was still president of the road, and J. J. Lawrence was its general manager.

He was also listed as a general superintendent of the Erie and Pittsburgh Railroad. President-W. L. Scott. General Superintendent--John J. Lawrence. General Ticket Agent--J: A. Burch. General Business Office-Erie, Pa.

* * *

William Watson Lawrence...

Q. When was the Paint and Varnish building at the foot of the Duquesne Incline abandoned, and what's the plan for it? -- Dennis Bateman, Corliss

A. At the turn of the century, William Watson Lawrence was probably Pittsburgh's most respected paint manufacturer. But today he is remembered not for the buildings his paint protected and beautified, but for the building he left behind -- a once-handsome structure whose badly weathered exterior is now perhaps the worst advertisement imaginable for "W. W. Lawrence & Company Paints and Varnishes."

There's a lesson for us all in this little irony. Lawrence founded his company in 1884, and enjoyed considerable success: A 19th-century advertisement boasted that in addition to various military contracts, "Last spring by order of the Secretary of the Treasury every Light House on the Atlantic coast was painted with The Lawrence Paints."

By the late 1800s, Lawrence was himself a beacon of Pittsburgh business. He expanded his operations into a massive South Side factory, which was completed in 1902. Topped by a white wooden tower containing water tanks for the paint and the building's sprinkler system, the facility boasted six floors and 100,000 feet of floor space. Those floors were some 10 inches thick, supported by oaken columns each more than three feet square. Such heavy construction was necessary to support the massive vats needed to mix and store the paint -- which in those days contained large amounts of lead.

The paint factory closed in 1973, and at first developers were anxious to renovate it. The site, after all, is ideal: Its view of the Point makes it perfect for luxury apartments or offices, while its proximity to the Duquesne Incline makes it a natural site for a restaurant or tourist attraction such as a museum or urban mall. The interior offers exciting possibilities as well. Developers wistfully spoke of the "forest of wood" inside the building. In a 1988 treatise on the factory kept on file by the Heinz Regional History Center, Carnegie Mellon student Natalie Gillespie observed that its interior was dominated by "massive oak pillars and high balconies or mezzanines with circular openings for paint vats" -- gaps that "could be incorporated in the building design for dramatic effect."

So far, however, what's been most dramatic about the building are the failures of those who've tried to renovate it. It's as if once they set foot inside, they contract the lethargy that comes from snacking on too many lead paint chips. Plans to turn the building into luxury condominiums, office space, a history museum, and shopping destination for tourists have all languished, largely because the sheer mass of its wooden floors and beams have made it too costly to renovate .

Nor has there been much progress since Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises acquired the factory along with the Station Square complex in 1994. The company did once tell the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette it hoped to decide what to do with the building "soon" ... but that was in 1995. "We really haven't even addressed it yet," confirms Eve Bursic, Forest City's Station Square general manager. She does say there are no plans to tear it down -- which, given the building's history and appealing facade, would be a terrible loss -- but beyond that, "nothing has been decided."
So for now, at least, the future of the W. W. Lawrence Paint factory looks to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. Or, in this case, fade. -- Chris Potter, "You Had To Ask";

Source: http://incline.pghfree.net/asklawrencepaint.htm