William Demuth Company: Difference between revisions

'''William Demuth'''. (Wilhelm C. DeMuth, 1835-1911), a native of Germany, entered the United States at the age of 16 as a penniless immigrant. After a series of odd jobs he found work as a clerk in the import business of a tobacco tradesman in New York City. In 1862 William established his own company. The '''William Demuth Company''' specialized in pipes, smoker's requisites, cigar-store figures, canes and other carved objects.

The Demuth Company is probably well known for the famous trademark, WDC in an inverted equilateral triangle. William commissioned the figurative meerschaum Presidential series, 29 precision-carved likenesses of John Adams, the second president of the United States (1797-1801) to Herbert Hoover, the 30th president (1929-1933), and "Columbus Landing in America," a 32-inch-long centennial meerschaum masterpiece that took two years to complete and was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

The Presidential series was the result of Demuth's friendship with President James A. Garfield, a connoisseur of meerschaum pipes. Demuth presented two pipes to Garfield at his inauguration in 1881, one in his likeness, the other in the likeness of the President's wife. Later, Demuth arranged for another figurative matching the others to be added to the collection as each new president acceded to the White House, terminating with President Hoover.  

'''''Note: This information originally appeared on pages 22-23 of ''Collecting Antique Meerschaums'' (Schiffer Publishing Ltd.,1999), by Ben Rapaport. It was used without permission in the article written by Maureen Timm, As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, July, 2005, [http://antiqueshoppefl.com/archives/mtimm/meerschaum.htm] but is used here by permission of the original author.'''''