| Dreamstime.com
Few businesses from American Revolutionary times remain extant in our area, due to the destruction of the so-called “Neutral Ground” of Westchester County and the burning of coastal Fairfield County. Remnants of farms, mills and taverns survive, of course, as local historical sites. But actual businesses from that period that are still operating are virtually nonexistent. An exception is The Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut, which opened in 1776 to accommodate those working on the Patriots’ first warship, the Oliver Cromwell. It remains one of the oldest continuous businesses in the United States.
And if it looks a little familiar, particularly to those of a certain vintage who have never actually visited it, that’s because “The Gris” played the Collinsport Inn on the 1960s vampire soap opera “Dark Shadows,” a cult classic, as well as “roles” in Hallmark’s “Christmas at Pemberley Manor” and Netflix’s “The Noel Diary.”
Here are some other companies that have had a long-running role in shaping our region, either on their own or as ancestors/descendants of prominent businesses:
Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) — Long before there was a United States of America, there was the Hudson’s Bay Co., a Canadian fur trading company founded by royal charter in 1670 that would become a holding company for department stores and commercial properties until its liquidation in 2025.
Its primary claim to fame in the United States was its pivotal acquisition of Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. For Lord & Taylor, the HBC years (2012-19) marked the last chapter of its storied brick-and-mortar history as HBC sold the Manhattan flagship to WeWorks and then the company to Le Tote Inc., which in turn filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 2, 2020 and announced L & T’s liquidation some three weeks later. (New owner Saadia Group, which acquired Lord & Taylor that October for $12 million, then announced that it would run L & T as an online business only. Today, the online retailer is owned by Regal Brands Global, which acquired it in 2024.
Hudson’s Bay bought Saks Fifth Avenue in 2013 and owned it until 2024, placing two of the Saks Off Fifth locations, offering off-price clothing and accessories, in the former Lord & Taylor locations in Eastchester and Stamford. Saks Global Holdings LLC resulted when the American assets of Hudson’s Bay were spun off in November 2024 and expanded with the acquisition of the Neiman Marcus Group a month later. However, that also precipitated Saks’ own Chapter 11 bankruptcy and a restructuring that forced the closure of Saks Off Fifth in Eastchester, White Plains and Stamford and threatened the closure of Neiman Marcus at The Westchester in White Plains.
With Neiman Marcus now the point brand for Saks Global — the tail that wags the dog, as experts put it — Neiman’s remains a fixture at The Westchester, while The Saks Shops at Greenwich are ensconced there.
Meanwhile, Montefiore Health System’s White Plains Hospital has expanded its White Plains Physician Associates locale in Eastchester in what was once Lord & Taylor’s distinctive, curving white Modernist home.
BNY Wealth Management, White Plains and Greenwich — One of the ancestors of BNY was The Bank of New York, which merged with the Mellon Financial Corp. on July 1, 2007, to become The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., refreshed as BNY in 2024. In the wake of the American Revolution, The Bank of New York not only helped resurrect a ruined New York City after the defeated British finally left on Nov. 25, 1783; it would also buoy the financially fragile infant nation.
The bank resulted from a group of businessmen gathering at the Merchants’ Coffee House on Feb. 24, 1784, to discuss plans to recall the city to life. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton wrote a constitution for the bank that called for balanced books, paid dividends and no overdrafts. That call for liquidity, transparency and solvency would establish the bank and New York’s credit. It would also bail out the federal government with a $200,000 loan negotiated by Hamilton two day after his appointment as secretary of the Treasury on Sept. 11, 1789.
The Bank of New York would become the first company to be publicly traded when the New York Stock Exchange was founded in 1792.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMorganChase) — The Bank of New York wasn’t the only one Alexander Hamilton helped found. On Sept. 1, 1799, he and archrival Aaron Burr helped establish a company to bring potable water to New York’s growing population. The charter allowed The Manhattan Co. to use its surplus for banking. The enterprise, however, was soon eclipsed by New York’s second commercial bank, The Bank of The Manhattan Co. In 1804, Hamilton and Burr’s tempestuous relationship would come to a climax in a duel in which Hamilton was mortally wounded. (The bank would acquire the pistols Hamilton used in 1930.)
Meanwhile, banker John Thompson had founded Chase National Bank in Manhattan in 1877, naming it in honor of Salmon P. Chase, the former Treasury secretary under President Abraham Lincoln. In 1955, Chase merged with The Manhattan Co. to form Chase Manhattan Bank and, 45 years later, joined with J.P. Morgan & Co., originally co-founded in 1871 by financier J. Pierpont Morgan, to become JPMorgan Chase & Co. Today, it has more than 40 branches in Westchester and Fairfield counties alone.
Shreve, Crump & Low — With a New England pedigree that was a contemporary of Paul Revere, Shreve, Crump & Low lays claim to the title “America’s jeweler.”
It was established in 1796 by watchmaker and silversmith John McFarlane in Boston, across the street from fellow silversmith Revere, became Shreve’s in the 19th century and then Shreve, Crump & Low after an 1869 merger. Over the years, the business, owned by the Walker family, had various elegant locations in Boston reflecting changing architectural styles. The flagship is at 39 Newbury St. The Greenwich location at 125 Greenwich Ave. opened in 2014.
Along with jewelry, a Watch Salon, home goods and gifts, the jeweler is credited with numerous commissions, including supplying the original Davis Cup trophy for men’s tennis in 1899 and Cy Young Award to honor the namesake Boston Red Sox pitcher in 1908. Today, the Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men’s tennis, while the Cy Young Award is presented to the best pitcher in Major League Baseball’s (MLB) American League and in its National League.
