H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

Hartford-Empire Co.

Hartford, Connecticut. Patent-pool master of the U.S. glass-container industry through the 1920s and 1930s — owner of the patents on the machinery by which glass containers could be most economically produced, leasing the machinery on a royalty basis to individual glass manufacturers and stipulating in license terms what type of container each licensee may produce and, in some cases, how many. The company also reserved the right to decide whether new manufacturers could enter the business at all.

Lead defendant in the January 1946 $1,350,000 anti-trust suit filed in U.S. District Court (San Antonio) by former Three Rivers Glass shareholders Charles R. Tips, W. L. Moody III, and Harry R. Rogers alleging Sherman/Clayton Act violations that caused TRG’s January 1937 dissolution. Co-defendants: Ball Bros. (Muncie, IN) and Owens-Illinois Glass (Toledo, OH). The Texas filing was voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff in November 1947 so it could refile in U.S. District Court Indianapolis under Indiana’s 15-year anti-trust statute of limitations; the Indiana disposition is undocumented — see 1947 dismissal/refile event.

U.S. Supreme Court anti-trust decree (1945)

United States v. Hartford-Empire Co., 323 U.S. 386 (1945) — the federal anti-trust decision that found Hartford-Empire and its co-defendants (including Ball Bros. and Owens-Illinois) had monopolized the glass-machinery industry through the patent pool. Per Tips’s November 1947 court statement covered in the 1947-11-02 SA Light “Damage Suit Off”, the Supreme Court decree included an order directing the defendants to sell the Three Rivers glass plant, which Tips alleged the defendants had taken physical possession of in 1937 but had not operated since. Whether the sale ever happened, and to whom, is undocumented on this site.

TNEC monopoly committee testimony (December 1938)

In Senate Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC, the “monopoly committee”) hearings chaired by Sen. Joseph C. O’Mahoney on 12–13 December 1938, Hartford-Empire president F. G. Smith testifies through a full day of questioning by Hugh Cox of the U.S. Department of Justice. Smith defends the patent-licensing model and declines to “unqualifiedly” deny that price control falls within Hartford-Empire’s power.

Hartford-Empire secretary and counsel R. T. Bufford Jr. reads aloud from an internal Hartford-Empire memorandum explicitly naming Three Rivers Glass Company as “a perpetual thorn in the side of all the manufacturing companies” of the patent pool, and confirms that Hartford-Empire physically removed its machinery from the Three Rivers factory when the Texas firm couldn’t pay — the upstream causal chain that connects Hartford-Empire’s licensing practices to TRG’s 1932 receivership and 1937 dissolution.

See 1938 TNEC Hartford-Empire testimony event.

Relationship to H&H

Hartford-Empire is not a direct H&H supplier or vendor. Its relevance to this site is upstream — as the patent-pool master whose licensing practices shaped the entire 1920s–1940s glass-container industry that produced H&H’s Crystalvac jars (via Three Rivers Glass, Ball, and Owens-Illinois). The 1932 H&H Crystalvac launch with its 250,000-jar initial order from Three Rivers Glass was, structurally, an order placed at a TRG that was simultaneously entering receivership in part because of Hartford-Empire’s machinery-removal action.

Open questions

  • United States v. Hartford-Empire Co. (1945) — local press coverage and decree-enforcement record. The federal anti-trust decision against the patent pool predates the 1946 TRG shareholders’ suit by a year. Period San Antonio coverage of the US v. Hartford-Empire decision is undocumented on this site, as is the post-1945 decree-enforcement record (which Tips claimed in November 1947 included a Supreme Court order to sell the Three Rivers plant).
  • 1946 anti-trust suit — Texas disposition documented (Nov 1, 1947 dismissal); Indiana refiling disposition open. S.D. Indiana federal court records 1947–1962 and Indianapolis Star / News coverage would resolve.
  • “Ball clause” exception. Period press references a “Ball clause” carving Ball Brothers out of the Hartford-Empire patent license structure — not yet anchored to a primary source on this site.
  • R. T. Bufford Jr. — biographical record. Hartford-Empire secretary and counsel; the period press identifies him as the witness who read the “perpetual thorn” memorandum. Otherwise undocumented here.

See also