After serving in the Confederacy, James Remley Brumby, a native of Benton, Mississippi, with a Negro helper named Washington, establishes a tannery and begins making flour barrels by hand on Powder Springs and Goss streets near the Confederate cemetery.
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Tannery flounders but barrel manufacturing grows into the Marietta Barrel Factory to supply flour mills in Marietta, Macon and Augusta.
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James Remley Brumby, after purchasing a lathe on the Courthouse steps at a sheriff's sale for $25, forms partnership with an old friend Major Henry Myers and starts experimenting in chair making. Chairs become the most important product of this combined cooperage, tannery and chair factory as burlap sacks begin replacing wooden barrels for storing and shipping flour.
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James Remley Brumby sends to Mississippi for his younger brother Thomas M. Brumby and establishes Brumby and Brother and manufactures the first Brumby chair.
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Chair company thrives and moves to Kennesaw Avenue just north of the Marietta Square where it continues in business until 1945. Major Myers retires and Thomas M. Brumby moves his wife, Maria Louise Bates, and son Tom Jr. to Marietta. Chair factory is destroyed by fire from cinders from passing locomotives.
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Chair factory rebuilt with red brick produced on Kennesaw Avenue site to withstand sparks from passing trains of The Western and Atlantic Railroad. The Brumby Rocker, the "commodious and comfortable chair," begins continuous production.
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The Brumby Chair Company incorporates with capital of $40,000. J.R. Brumby is president and T.M. Brumby is secretary-treasurer.
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J.R. Brumby, due to back trouble and on the advice of his doctors, sells his interest in Brumby Chair Company to his brother Tom and retires to Dunedin, Florida.
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Brumby Chair expands product line with chairs ranging from "cheap" common cottage kind to upholstered chairs, but caned-backed and caned-bottom No. 9 rocker is most popular of all furniture items.
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J.R. Brumby, his health improved, returns to Marietta and organizes Marietta Chair and Table Company along railroad tracks on Church Street in buildings now known as the warehouses.
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The Brumby Rocker, now becoming famous for its unique design (air and kiln-dried oak and steam-bent back posts) and great comfort, is now selling nationally for $4.50 each, and is found on porches on large private homes throughout the South and hotel verandahs across the country.
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Thomas M. Brumby, Jr., eldest son of Thomas M. Brumby, Sr., founder of the Brumby Chair Company, elected Vice President and General Manager of Brumby Chair Company.
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Thomas M. Brumby, Jr., named President of Brumby Chair Company succeeding his father who retired due to poor health.
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Thomas M. "Pappy" Brumby, Sr., 90, dies March 1 at his Kennesaw Avenue home about a block from the Brumby Chair Company he helped found in 1875. His six sons acted as pallbearers.
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Sarah Blackwell Gober Temple writes in her book The First Hundred Years, "The Brumby Rockers were enjoyed not only, by the older citizens, but by many children who, on pleasant summer nights, have been rocked to sleep in them on wide front porches of Cobb County homes."
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J.R. Brumby, co-founder of the Brumby Chair Company and founder of Marietta Chair and Table Company, dies at his Dunedin, Florida, home six weeks before his 89th birthday.
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Thomas M. Brumby, Jr., president of the Brumby Chair Company, who was serving his fifth term as mayor of Marietta, dies August 20.
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Robert E. Brumby, brother of the late T.M. Brumby, Jr. and one of the six sons of Thomas M. Brumby, Sr., founder of the Brumby Chair Company, is named president of the Brumby Chair Company and moves his family -- Myrtle Palfrey and three daughters, Dorothy, Martha and Roberta -- here from Franklin, Louisiana, where he practiced law. Other officers elected in 1938 were Otis A. Brumby, Sr., publisher of the Cobb County Times, vice president; Remley Brumby, treasurer and T.M. Brumby, III, secretary.
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The Brumby Chair Company's annual catalog is dedicated to its 350 employees and shows 116 items.
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Brumby Chair Company ceases production of rockers due to inability to obtain cane from the Far East and due to labor shortage caused by Bell Aircraft Corporation, locating in Marietta to build B-29 bombers for World War II effort.
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Brumby Chair, manufacturer of over 150 different lines of furniture during its 70-year history, ceases all furniture manufacturing. Factory sold to Marietta Manufacturing Company, a Cinncinnati, Ohio, firm that continues to make chairs until 1950 but is unsuccessful and sells off equipment by about 1950.
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Robert M. Brumby, president of Brumby Chair Company returns to Franklin, Louisiana, to resume the practice of law. Brumby family retains ownership of the name Brumby Chair Company and trademark of Brumby Jumbo Rocker.
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Records of the Brumby Chair Company are donated to the University of Georgia, Hargrett Library special collection, at the Ilah Little Library on old main campus.
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L.M. Blair, former Marietta mayor and prominent attorney, purchases Brumby Chair building and land on Kennesaw Avenue and starts production of aluminum furniture for Metalstand Furniture, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, manufacturer of office furniture.
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Brumby Chair Company licenses Frank H. Melson, d/b/a/ Accepted Products, lnc., to manufacture and market the Brumby Jumbo Rocker.
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Frank H. Melson, director of the Marietta Housing Authority's urban renewal program and wood working enthusiast, dies at 38 of a heart attack before production of the Brumby Rocker can begin.
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Carole H. Melson fulfills her late husband's dream and manufactures the first Brumby Rocker since World War II.
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President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalyn Carter order five Brumby Jumbo Rockers for the Truman Balcony overlooking the ellipse at the White House.
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United States Commission of Patents and Trademarks issues Brumby family trademark for the "Brumby" Rocker for 20 years (No. 1217603).
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The Atlanta High Museum of Art accepts a Brumby Rocker for its, permanent collection as an authentic example of Georgia made furniture.
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Carole H. Melson announces plans to discontinue production of the Brumby Rocker due to shortage of Red Oak. However, her announcement to cease production of the Brumby Rocker receives national television coverage that results in a large number of last-minute orders for the Brumby Rocker and production continues.
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Buildings that formerly housed the Brumby Chair Company -- for years Marietta's principal industry -- are put up for sale. Philadelphia-based Matier Manufacturing Co., maker of aluminum chairs and desks and successor to Blair Manufacturing Co., closes Kennesaw Avenue plant containing 150,000 square feet of floor space on eight acres of land along the CSX Railroad tracks.
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Carole H. Melson, licensee of the Brumby Rocker since 1967, ceases production of the Brumby Rocker at her plant on White Circle near Kennesaw Mountain.
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Otis A. Brumby, Jr., a Georgia newspaperman and a grandson of Thomas M. Brumby, founder of the Brumby Chair Company, becomes the licensee for the Brumby Rocker and reopens the Brumby Chair Company for manufacturing of the Brumby Jumbo with a showroom and workshop on the historic Marietta Square.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Helen Spain Brumby is a great-granddaughter of Thomas M. Brumby, founder of the Brumby Chair Company of Marietta, Georgia, in 1875. A native of Marietta, she is a graduate of Marietta High School and a Broadcast/Journalism Major at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. She is the oldest of five children of Otis and Martha Lee Brumby of Marietta.
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