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While attending the International Society of Appraisers Conference “Assets 2003” I had the opportunity to meet with and interview “Beau” Freeman (Samuel M. Freeman II) the sixth generation owner in preparation for writing this article. I shared with Beau many of the original catalogs, flyers, correspondence and broadsides related to his firm that Sue and I have in our collection. At that time, I also met Beau’s son, Jonathan, representing the seventh generation, who is the manager of client services at Freemans. I appreciated their warm hospitality. They were both gracious gentleman that shared their valuable time answering my questions regarding their rich history. We met on one of the upper floors of their building located at 1808 Chestnut Street in Downtown Philadelphia. Incidentally, we met just two days after a major Antiques and Fine Art auction. During the Preview and Auction, Freeman’s proudly displayed their auction flag/banner over the sidewalk. This tradition has been carried forward from the earliest “Vendues” in America.
Officially, the history of Freeman’s Auctions started on November 26, 1805 with an Auction at the “Merchants’ Coffee House” of textiles and fine cloth. The auctioneer was Tristram Bampflylde Freeman an immigrant and former engravers apprentice and printer who arrived on American soil in Philadelphia from London, England in 1792. He became an American citizen in 1801. While in England he was a printer to King George III before going bankrupt. Once in Philadelphia, he kept up the occupation of printer. He soon expanded into the field of Auctioneering. He sold personal property and real estate operating out of the Merchant’s Coffee House.
Tristram was fortunate to acquire a charter as the first, and only city Auctioneer from the state governor, Thomas McKean, on November 12, 1805. While visiting the Board Room at Freeman’s in 2003, Beau showed me the original framed 1805 document on display with the large framed oil on canvas portraits of significant 19th Century family business leaders. It would be seventeen years before any other Auctioneers were allowed to open shop in the city to compete with the Freedman family Auctioneering business.
Freeman’s was diverse in their offerings, selling everything from dry goods and household items to commercial liquidations, Sheriff Sales and real estate. Over time, they had a number of addresses from “No. 8 South Third St.”, “”1519-21 Chestnut St.” on to “Market St.” then “Walnut Street” and finally back to “1808 Chestnut St.” in 1924. For the past eighty-one years they have been in the same location at 1808 Chestnut Street.
Although a family owned business, the name has evolved over time. An 1829 Auction Broadside advertising a Real Estate Auction boasts the name “T.B. Freeman & Son, Auctioneers”, later to become “Samuel T. Freeman & Co.”, “Freeman Fine Art” reverting back to “Samuel T Freeman”, and today, according to their website, “Freeman’s200.”
The Freeman family of Auctioneers has sold everything from the complete contents of early 19th Century merchant sloops to the Post WWI battleships moored in Philadelphia (1924), known as the “Moth-Ball Fleet.” They hammered down single parcels of real estate “on-site” as well as conducted weekly cataloged auctions of “Real Estate & Stocks” every Wednesday commencing at 12 Noon at their “Salesroom” located at 103 S. Fifteenth Street (1905) and at the “Real Estate Auction Rooms” located at 1519-21 Chestnut Street. (1909). They boast many record sale prices for real estate, commercial and fine art Auctions over their many years in business.
According to Beau, Edmond B. Brickley was credited with starting the Fine Art Auction Sales at Freemans in 1902. In addition, Hiram Parkes, of the famous “Parke Bernet” purchased by Sotheby’s in the 1960’s, worked at Freemans for a short time. Further, the famous cataloger, Stan V. Henkels, cataloged many auctions for Freeman’s as he did for his own Auction firm and other Auction firms in Philadelphia. Henkels will make a great study of an “Auction Commission Merchant & Auctioneer” in a future column story.
Freeman purchased and consolidated other Auction firms over the years including “M. Thomas & Sons” of the “Philadelphia Exchange”, a competing real estate Auction company.
In the early Twentieth Century, Freeman expanded into Massachusetts with major textile and industrial auctions under the supervision of Addison B. Freeman who returned from the Great War without a position available to him in Philadelphia. Addison was best known as “B.” He had an office at “80 Federal Street Boston, Mass. One of the slogans found on one of his 1928 catalogs was “Creators of the Best Immediate Market.”
The business in Boston tapered off when “B”, who loved to fly, was killed in a plane crash on October 1st 1960 when a flock of starlings flew into his turbo prop engine on the “Electra” plane. The airplane went down in Boston Harbor.
I look forward to getting a copy of the book to add to our library that will furnish us with a much more comprehensive story on this amazing 200 year old prestigious Auction Company. I believe the key to their success has been to adapt to the changing economic times and to utilize the strengths and talents of each family member to the benefit of the organization. If you study their organization close enough you will see that they surrounded themselves with key, talented individuals that enhanced and contributed to the success of “Freeman’s200” by complimenting the strengths of the family member/owners. By studying the success of this 200 year old, thriving Auction Company we can learn how to best build of our own fledgling Auction businesses and successfully navigate our companies through the ever-changing hazards and pitfalls brought on by the rapid economic changes of our time.
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