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Today, as in 1856, TILDEN-THURBER is a Rhode Island name that signifies quality and beauty, in diamonds, fine jewelry, sterling silver, china, crystal and objets d'art. And today, TILDEN-THURBER enters its second century of service to the Rhode Island community with an optimistic outlook for the future; and, understandably, with a grateful nostalgia towards the persons and forces of the past which have helped to pave the store's road of progress to this present day. The Tilden-Thurber building is now the gallery of the Stanley Weiss Collection and the focal point of the revolutionary internet project: www.stanleyweiss.com |
THE roots of- TILDEN-THURBER, go deep into the history and business development of the state, for it was in 1856, five years before the Civil War began, that the doors of the new firm opened at 60 Westminster Street next to the Arcade building. The sign above the window read GORHAM CO. AND BROWN, and Gorham Thurber, grandfather of today's president, was listed as one of the officers |
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| It was an uncertain time for the launching of a business. The
national controversy and sectional strife which was to erupt five years later was already
brewing. In that year, the fanatic, John Brown, whose name was to be remembered in a
popular Civil War marching song, staged a massacre of pro-slavery settlers. News of
the massacre may have shocked some Rhode Islanders, but they probably were more interested
in reading their Providence Daily Journals of 1856--how the young bloods of these
Plantations were endangering life and limb racing sleighs along the Pawtucket Turnpike on
winter afternoons. These were the times and scenes as young Mr. Gorham Thurber
became associated in a firm which was later to bear his name. Gorham Thurber was an unusually active man in business and in the community. His leadership and his early relationship with the jewelry industry was well known throughout the country. Needless to say, he was one of the leading contributors towards the present success of the store as we know it today. Aside from his interest in GORHAM CO. AND BROWN, he formed a co-partnership with John Gorham, forming the firm of GORHAM & THURBER, which in time became the important concern known today as the GORHAM MANUFACTURING Co. Mr. Thurber was elected the first treasurer, and at every meeting until the year of his death was re-elected In 1878, while gas arc lights were beginning to appear in some American cities and
horse-drawn trolley cars cranked through Providence streets, GORHAM CO, AND BROWN, the
forebear of TILDEN-THURBER moved across Westminster Street from its original location and
changed the name to HENRY T. BROWN & Co. Members of the board were Mr. Brown, Henry
Tilden and Gorham Thurber. The firm remained there until 1895 when it moved into the
present Tilden-Thurber building at Westminster . . . |
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