Joseph Fareira

Men used to wear hats whenever they went outside. Throughout the 1800s, broadly speaking, everyone, including children, wore hats in all seasons. Until the mid-20th century, a hat was part of getting dressed, complete with proper etiquette for men about when to take it off. Joseph Fareira  (pronounced feh-RARE-ruh) rode that wave of popularity, and for one brief period of time he was the top manufacturer of hats in Philadelphia.

Boston actually led the nation in the hat business until after the Civil War. That’s when John B. Stetson came to Philadelphia and eventually was crowned the world’s largest hat maker for decades. In the early 1900s, his 5400 employees were producing 3 million hats every year.

In the early 1800s, another man named John, whose last name was Fareira, came to Philly from Portugal to become a hatter. (That term described someone who specifically made men’s hats; a milliner made women’s hats.) When he started, there were a hundred other hatters in the city just like him, craftsmen who made one at a time, usually from a workspace in their homes. 

John did well enough to operate a separate location in 1823, hiring four others to help him fill orders. Some historians point to that event as the start of assembly-line hat making in the city. He brought in his oldest son, Joseph, in 1832 to manage the growth. Joseph’s younger siblings were Mary and John Jr.

Shortly after becoming the boss in his early 20s, Joseph married Ann Eliza Henderson. Their first child was born in 1836, their last in 1852, and seven others were between them. Only two of the nine were girls and they both died in infancy.

John died in 1851 and by that time the business had two locations. A four-story factory at 1024 Lombard Street specialized in making water-resistant felt out of furs and molding the body of the hat. The liner, sweatband, and trimmings were added at a finishing operation on the second floor of 25 North 4th Street. 

These illustrations adorned an actual invoice for hats ordered in 1864. The bill heading reads “Bought of Jas. G. Fareira, Wholesale Hat Manufacturer,”  referring to oldest son James who was in charge of daily operations at the time.  The family’s home was at 507 South 11th Street, just around the corner from the Lombard Street factory.

Another son, John, followed his brother James in their father’s business. Two others followed their uncle John who became a furrier. Arch Street was the hub of the fur trade; an 1861 city directory shows that 20 of the 35 fur dealers in the city were located on that street. John’s store is prominent in this photo from that era. His two nephews were successful but not like he was.

During the rebellion in the South in the early 1860s, the three oldest boys were eligible to serve in the military but they never did. Joseph was wealthy enough to pay $300 to make them exempt, but whether he had to is unknown.

On Christmas Eve of 1863, Joseph’s son John died, followed just three months later by Eliza. He remarried a year after that. 

The business reached its peak around that time, employing 80 workers and prompting the family to move to 1409 North 15th Street. The boys still lived with their father and step-mother, assisted by two domestic servants.

Another son died in 1869, and two more both died of tuberculosis in 1874. By that time the business, known as Joseph Fareira & Sons, dropped to fourth place among the city’s largest hat manufacturers.

By the early 1880s Joseph decided to retire, as did Joe Jr. from his furrier business. The only son to ever get married was Frank in 1883. After Joseph died in 1892 and his wife died in 1899, the house at 1409 North 15th Street was still the home of the three surviving sons: Joe Jr., Fred, and Frank and his wife.

Joseph Sr. had invested his wealth in the Germantown Passenger Railway Company and sat on the board of directors for many years. He was also on the board of managers of the Mount Moriah Cemetery Association for a few years before he died. About two-thirds of his $30,000 estate (equivalent to $1.1 million today) was in the railway company’s stock. His name was added to this gravestone for his first wife which sits beside the large memorial stone shown above.

Joe Jr. died in 1900, leaving $13,000 in railway stock to Fred, who spent much of it before leaving gifts to friends. Frank moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey where he died in 1916. He was the only one of the nine children not buried here.