19th C. Fire Insurance Broadside
View of Croton Dam, Westchester County, NY

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Croton Fire Insurance Company Advertising Broadside, Croton Dam View
Croton Fire Insurance Company Advertising Broadside, Croton Dam View
Croton Fire Insurance Company Advertising Broadside, Croton Dam View
Croton Fire Insurance Company Advertising Broadside, Croton Dam View
Charles Hart (lithographer)
Croton Fire Insurance Co.
Charles Hart, New York: c. 1863-68
Chromolithograph
21 x 16.5 inches, image
23.75 x 18.75 inches, overall
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Advertising broadside for the Croton Fire Insurance Co. featuring a peaceful landscape view titled "Croton Falls," showing the Croton Dam at the Croton Reservoir in Westchester County, New York.  The view and information about the officers and directors of the company are framed within an elaborate Victorian rococo-revival burnished gold design, and with red coloring to boldly emphasize certain elements.  The combination of bucolic imagery and elegant framing seems calculated to both impress and reassure prospective customers with the financial solidity of the company.  At the bottom is the word "Agent" with a blank space above it, presumably for imprinting an individual agent's name.

The broadside is pictured in a history of the Croton Dam by Christopher R. Tompkins:

With some irony, the erroneously labeled "Croton Falls" were used to advertise the Croton Fire Insurance Company.  After the Great Fire of 1835, it was no wonder that the image of the dam that reduced the ravages of disease and fire would have been used to sell insurance.  For the record, Croton Falls is a stop on the Harlem Line of the Metro-North Railroad and is located in northeast Westchester County (p. 22).

The Croton Fire Insurance Co. was chartered in New York State in 1863 by Andrew Wesson, with $200,000 in capital.  Wesson was president until 1867 or 1868.

Charles Hart was a New York City lithograph firm active from the 1840s to the 1890s.  Hart was associated for a time with Endicott & Co., and provided lithography for a number of New York print publishers.  His son Horace Hart eventually took over day-to-day operations of the firm.  The company's produced genre scenes, landscapes and portraits, but Hart was said to especially enjoy making sporting prints.

Text: Croton Fire Insurance Co.  Office 180 Broadway New York.  Pres't. Andrew Wesson.  Sec'y. John M. Tompkins.  Cash Capital $200,000.  Directors: Henry Young, James Suydam, Fisher Howe, Wm. H. Smith, John Watson, Wm. W. Hurlbut, F.W. Meyer, James Demarest, Wm. G. Read, S.M. Blake, John A. Hadden, J.R. Schuyler, E.L. Corning, Chas. P. Burdett, E.L. Bushnell, James D. Smith, Chas. W. Burton, C.H. Pond.  Directors: John E. Wylie, Seth W. Hale, Ezra M. Frost, Albert Jewett, C.B. Knevals, Chas. W. Blossom, James F. Wenman, Demas Barnes, Edward Todd, Thatcher M. Adams, A.G. Phelps Stokes, J. Nelson Tappan, A.S. Richards, Jas. M. Griggs, C.S. Parsons, Jr., Wm. Walter Phelps, Andrew Wesson, Prest.

Full publication information:  Lith. of Ch's. Hart, 99 Fulton St. N.Y.

References:

Fifth Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Insurance Department of the State of New York.  Albany, New York: Comstock & Cassidy: 1864.  pp. 517-529.

Peters, Harry T.  America on Stone.  U.S.: Doubleday, Doran, 1931.  pp. 204-205.

Tompkins, Christopher R.  The Croton Dams and Aqueduct.  Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2000.  p. 22.  Online at Google Books.  http://books.google.com/books?id=EHDD4G45Qh0C (26 January 2011).