Daniel Fawcett Tiemann “The Paint King Of New York,” From The Village Of Harlem

Once upon a time there was a village called Manhattanville, a small, originally Quaker community that planted itself between a bustling but still bucolic section of Bloomingdale Road (later Broadway) and the Hudson River. A remnant of the old village remains in the small neighborhood that shares its name today, north of Morningside Heights between 122nd and 135th streets on the west side.

Founded in 1806 the village grew due to its proximity to a major artery that led to the city of New York, but its fortunes really multiplied due to a developing port industry along the water. Together with its sister village Harlem, they grew into healthy rural communities.

D. F. Teimann & Co., was started by Anthony Tiemann who was born in Carlshafen, in Cassel, Germany, in 1779.   In order to avoid conscription, he left for England in 1796 at the age of 17 and then went to America in 1798.  He settled in New York and married Mary Newell, who was originally from Massachusetts.  Tiemann started laboratory experiments in colors in 1804.  He then entered the commercial production of pigments and paints in which he was associated with his brother Julius W. Tiemann and Nicholas Stippel. 

His son Daniel Fawcett Tiemann, known as the paint king of New York (January 9, 1805 – June 29, 1899) , in the 1850′s, working in the original Tiemann paint factory at 23rd and 4th Avenue (today’s Madison Square park). He and his brother Julius eventually inherited the family business and moved it into the rural pastures of Manhattanville purchased by in 1832 a tract of land was purchased in Manhattanville where a new factory was built.  A spring near Broadway and 125th Street provided ample water for the production operations.  The Tiemanns brought with them about 50 German workmen and their families. Daniel and his family lived nearby.  This marked the beginning of the industrial development of the Manhattanville community and the presence of a large German population.  Later industries included a worsted mill and a brewery.. Soon D.F. Tiemann & Company Color Works took up a dozen buildings and dominated the industrial character of the village (see photo above from the 1890′s).

In December 1840 a fire destroyed one-half of the factory, leaving Daniel with a debt of $30,000.  His good friend and neighbor Robert Pettigrew loaned
him the money to rebuild. The factory now covered 40 lots and employed 120 men.  The company was the first manufacturer of ready mixed paints in 1852.

About 1857 the company was the first in America to produce carmine from cochineal.  Other natural raw materials included oak bark from Virginia, for brown and yellow, and logwood from the West Indies for black and brown.  About 1860 the firm introduced a soluble laundry blue and vermilion (mercuric sulfide). Vermilion production in the U.S. was controlled by a syndicate of four New York companies:  D.F. Tiemann & Co., C.T. Reynolds & Co., Sondheim, Alsberg & Co., and A.B. Ansbacher & Co.  These companies made a total of 600,000 pounds in 1885.  The process was difficult and hazardous to workmen due to the use of the highly toxic mercury.  Mercury, sulfur and aqueous caustic potash were mixed in a revolving drum and heated to 115 deg. F.  When the color
changed from brownish to the fiery red of vermilion, the reaction was done and the mixture quenched in water.   About 85 pounds of mercury yielded 100
pounds of vermilion.

Over the years, the business of D.F. Tiemann & Co. expanded from a line of five products to more than 100 different pigments and paints.  Customers were
located throughout the country, with exports to Mexico and South America.

The factory was plagued by fires throughout its history due to the presence of flammable raw materials.  A fire in 1879 caused $60,000 in damage.  Another
fire in 1881, which originated in the top floor mill room of a four-story brick building where paints were ground, resulted in $6,000 damage.

Tiemann had his eyes quite literally set on City Hall even at an early age (was the mayor of New York from 1858 to 1860). “I saw them building the present City Hall and we all thought that it was too far away from the business centre,” he once recollected. Young Tiemann frequently reminisced of his glorious youth, skating on Collect Pond and later fishing in the newly dug canal. The principal event during his administration was the laying of the Atlantic telegraph cable and on that occasion he sent a congratulatory message to the mayor of London.

He was educated in a private seminary and at age thirteen began an apprenticeship in the drugstore of H.M. Schiefflin & Co., on Pearl Street, until 1824, when he joined his father’s company. He became a partner in the company in 1826.

The Tiemann laboratory and factory was originally located on 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue in New York City, near Madison Square Park, later relocating  to Manhattanville in Harlem around 1832.

His paternal uncle, Julius William Tiemann, was one of the founding partners in the D.F. Tiemann company, and father of Hermann Newell Tiemann (1863–1957), who was a commercial photographer in New York City.

D.F. Tiemann was nephew-in-law of Peter Cooper, the American industrialist and inventor. In 1826, he had married Martha Clowes, Cooper’s niece, and they had three sons and three daughters, and his father retired from the business in 1839.

Tiemann retired from his business at the age of 90 in 1895 and died in 1899.  The Tiemann property was sold in 1902.  The six-story Tiemann Hall apartment
house was built on the site of the old Tiemann homestead in 1920.  The street is now called Tiemann Place.

The Tiemanns built a new dyes and chemicals plant in Stamford, Connecticut in 1907.  There were 15 brick and frame structures of varying sizes located on
a 5-acre tract.  The plant cost $175,000 but closed in 1913, ironically just before the World War I dye famine created a serious shortage of dyes in the U.S.

Tiemann Place was named after Mayor Daniel Sawyer Tiemann’s death at 95 years of age. Tiemann Place is located at Broadway (between Tiemann & 125th).

Photo credits: 1) Daniel Sawyer Tiemann portrait; 2) Picture of his home in Harlem; 3) a D. F. Teimann print Co., ad from the 1840′s.