Thomas Florian Krajewski collection, 1873-1916 (majority within 1888-1906)

Summary

Creator:

Krajewski, Thomas Florian, 1851-1913 and Krajewski-Pesant Corporation

Abstract:

This collection is made up of a letterbook, mechanical drawings, project records, and order books kept largely by Thomas F. Krajewski, a mechanical engineer, and, later his co-partnered firm Krajewski-Pesant Corp. in New York City, between 1888 and 1906. Krajewski designed custom machine parts, particularly projects for clients purchasing new or re-outfitting old sugar cane processing machinery with his patented improved rolls and boiler pans. The collection includes records of client orders—many of them to sugar estates in Cuba and the greater Caribbean—and retained letterpress copies of his mechanical drawings. The earliest volume begins with letterpress copies of the 1873-1875 business correspondence of John T. Dunkin, who ran a machine shop on West 27th Street, and the latest volumes are order books of Krajewski-Pasant, continuing past Krajewski's death in 1913.

Extent:

5 volumes

Language:

English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Cheney J. Szopieraj, May 2025

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection is made up of a letterbook, mechanical drawings, project records, and order books kept largely by Thomas F. Krajewski, a mechanical engineer, and, later his co-partnered firm Krajewski-Pasant Corp. in New York City, between 1888 and 1906. Krajewski designed custom machine parts, particularly projects for clients purchasing new or re-outfitting old sugar cane processing machinery with his patented improved rolls and boiler pans. The collection includes records of client orders—many of them to sugar estates in Cuba and the greater Caribbean—and retained letterpress copies of his mechanical drawings. The earliest volume begins with letterpress copies of the 1873-1875 business correspondence of John T. Dunkin, who ran a machine shop on West 27th Street, and the latest volumes are order books of Krajewski-Pasant, continuing past Krajewski's death in 1913.

Descriptions of each volume:

Volume 1: John T. Dunkin Letterbook, 1873-1875 and 1880s, and Thomas F. Krajewski Sketch Book A, 1888. Pages 1-266 and 614-616. Outgoing correspondence of Jno. T. Dunkin of the J. T. Dunkin steam engine firm (offices at 556 W. 27th Street) to customers, giving updates on their orders for engines, boilers, other machinery (such as a liquor aging machine, a 100-ton hydraulic press), parts, alterations, and services. A few of Dunkin's customers included Paulding Kemble & Co. in Cold Spring, N.Y.; T. F. Rowland of Greenpoint, Long Island; Park Brother & Co. in Pittsburgh; Diggs Brothers in Baltimore; Metropolitan Gas Light Co.; E. G. Goddard of Worcester, Mass.; Watte Campbell and Co. of Newark, N.J.; Kattenhorn Hopke Offerman & Co. of Hastings, N.Y.; J. Adams of Palatka, Florida; and I. R. Pickering of Portland, Connecticut. Other business-related correspondence is present, including a series of letters on bill arbitration between T. Dunkin Paret of The Tanite Company of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, and John T. Dunkin in the spring/summer of 1875.

Volume 1: Thomas F. Krajewski Sketch Book A, Jan. 7-Nov. 17, 1888 (pages 268-581); and Volume 2: Thomas F. Krajewski Sketch Book B : 1888-1891 (pages 1-513, plus alphabetic index). Each page of the onion-skin "sketch book" volumes has the name of the project/part(s), the mechanical/engineering design drawings, the estate or client name, and the date it was accomplished. The index is arranged by type of machinery, an order number, and "Estate" (i.e. client). For example, the first page of the index is for "Boilers" and on it are orders for piping, cast iron fittings, steam pipes, damper details, anchor bolts, plates for boiler lugs, connections for boiler fronts, rods and bolts for chimney, valves, and other parts. According to the index, on page 17 is "Piping for old boilers," order number 139, "Estate" Ramona. Page 17 includes mechanical drafts and dimensions for four different pipes for Jno Ramona, Order 139, November 7, 1888. A small selection of entries in the alphabetic index include parts for Cane Carrier Work and Cane Cutters (contracted by Caracas, St. Lucia, Caridad, Narcisa, St. Croix, "Alcancia," San Pedro, etc.); Car Work (with HRR Co. and Sagua Railway Company, etc.), Condensers, Crown Wheels, Defecators & Classifiers, Dumping Machines, Engines, Mills, Pipes, Platforms, Pumps, Steampipes, Tanks, "Triturators," Tools, Vacuum Pans, and Vapor Pipes.

Volume 3: Thomas F. Krajewski and Krajewski-Pesant Project Record Book, 1893-1901 (118 pages). [NB: This volume is a record book and does not contain mechanical drawings].

• Pages 2-99: January 3, 1898-September 4, 1901. Project numbers 3001-4814. Each entry contains the project number, a description of the project, dates, estate owner, order number and date, pencil draft start and end dates, tracing start and end dates, and "Sig."
• Pages 101-111: "Drawings from Havana Office," February 26, 1899-June 12, 1901. Drawing numbers 1-366 (though most numbers do not have any entries associated with them). The filled-in entries contain a drawing number, title of drawing, date, order number, and estate or owner. A few examples include (entry two) "Plan of Regla shops of K.P. Co."; (entry 77) "Pier for Regla Shop," March 25, 1899; and (entry 79) "Railing for Gen. Ludlow's Garden," April 1, 1899. Most entries relate to mills, mill parts, crushers, cranks, shafts, rolls for grinders, regulators, engines, bearings, knives and bars for grinding mills, crown wheels, support bars, a new shaft for an old Bagasse roll, a rudder for a tugboat, crystalizers, pipes, pans and valves for crystalizers, and work for Central Tirguan, Ingo. S. Ignacio, and Ingo. Jesús.
• Pages 127-129: "Havana Sketches," October 6, 1899-1900.
• Page 135: "Regla Sketches," undated.
• Pages 151-154: "Drawings from Mexico," 1896-1901. These entries pertain to estates Alamada, Atencingo, Cuahuistla, A.H. Wright, San Francisco, San Marcos, El Modelo, San Nicolas, San Cristobal, Tenextepango, Sta. Ines, Sta. Clara, et al. Among the projects were a "juice outlet for mill," pulleys and shafts for centrifugals, wheels, plates, boilers, Bagasse burners, bevel gears, a blower and engine, vacuum pan, vulcanized rubber rings for an air pump piston, a general plan of a sugar mill and gearing, position of juice heater and condenser, a plan of Bagasse Carriers, a Sugar Manufactory, and Boiler Plant.
• Pages 171-172: "Drawings from Louisiana" June 14, 1893-November 1, 1900. Estates Adeline, Maria Terre Haute, Ashland, Oaklawn, Raceland, Belle Alliance, McCall Bros., Justine, Elm Hall, Slargeress, Bush Grove, Myrtle Grove, Vanfrey, Segura Sugar Co., Gramercy Co., and others.
• Page 181: "Porto Rico" no dates, by P.R. 1-19. Rolls, shafts, wheels, arrangement of a mill, a tug boat boiler for Ponce Lighter Co., a Bagasse carrier, and a sugar house.

Volume 4: Krajewski-Pesant Corp. Order Book, December 17, 1904-March 15, 1906 (internally, marked in pencil "Book No 7"). 90 pages plus index. Stamped numbers 2640-2958. Each entry in this volume includes stamped date and number, handwritten numbers referencing other record books, the name of the client and their geographical location, a description of the order, and notes about urgency and shipping. A large portion of these accounts are with people and companies in Cuba.

Volume 5: Krajewski-Pesant Corp. Order Book, February 3, 1913-June 7, 1916 (internally, marked in pen "Order Book #14"). 142 pages. Stamped numbers 4193-4631. Each entry in this volume includes stamped date and number, handwritten numbers referencing other record books, the name of the client and their geographical location, a description of the order, and notes about urgency and shipping.

Biographical / Historical:

Tomasz Florian Krajewski was born in Warsaw, Poland, on May 21, 1851, to parents Wojciech and Urzula Szymańska. In the post-January Uprising of 1863, the teenage Tomasz crossed his Russian teacher, was expelled from school, arrested, and put on a train bound for a Siberia. He escaped in transit and made his way to Zurich, where he enrolled in the Zurich Polytechnikum in October 1868. After three years of study in mechanical engineering, he immigrated to the United States, departing Havre on October 10, 1871, aboard the Ville de Paris.

Thomas F. Krajewski settled in Paterson, New Jersey, and became a naturalized United States citizen on February 2, 1878. He worked at locomotive works at Paterson, and in the office of the Railroad Gazette. In 1876, he was "appointed purchasing agent of an association of Russian farmers who are introducing American agricultural machinery." According to the Railroad Gazette, "Krajewski was bred a farmer, and this fact, coupled with his knowledge of machine construction, gives him unusual qualifications for [the] position." He authored a series of articles in the Railroad Gazette, including descriptions of the Hall automatic signal system (October 24, 31; November 7, 1879) and explanations of track circuits, clockwork signals, switch controllers, and crossing signals (March 12, 19, 26; April 2, 1880).

Krajewski married Rose (or Rosa) Schnell on August 7, 1880. Rose was one of several children of Klemens and Peterina Schnell, who ran a profitable wine saloon in Paterson. Thomas and Rose had at least one child, Leonida Krajewski.

During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Thomas Krajewski lived part of the time in Paterson, New Jersey, and worked in New York City. In the late 1870s, he was an engineer at the Diamond State Iron Company offices at 71 Broadway. Krajewski was an innovative designer, who secured multiple patents for his improvements to sugarcane processing and refining machinery. One example is his patent for an "Evaporating Pan," which he received on September 16, 1885 (Patent No. 326,299). His greatest success was an improved mechanism for crushing sugarcane to extract more cane juice from harvested cane. With his September 21, 1886, patent for a "Machine for Breaking and Cutting Cane" (Patent No. 349,503), Krajewski entered a partnership with Alphonso Pesant (a salesman with extensive contacts in Cuba) and James L. Cochrane (shop superintendent) in the Erie Basin Iron Works on January 2, 1887. Their offices were situated on 35 Broadway.

Thomas Florian Krajewski died in New York City at age 62, on November 28, 1913, and was buried in Cedar Lawn Cemetery in Paterson, New Jersey.

Acquisition Information:

2025. M-8471 .

Arrangement:

The five volumes are arranged roughly chronologically, by the earliest date in each item.

Rules or Conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Related

Additional Descriptive Data:

Bibliography

Fudakowski/Ford, George C. "Thomas Florian Kajewski" accessed May 12, 2025. https://www.fudakowski-krajewski.family/cgi-bin/public.cgi?thomas_krajewski

Index to Signal Literature, vol. I: Bethlehem, Pa.: Railway Signal Association (October 1910): 46 and 49.

"Personal," Railroad Gazette. New York: Railroad Gazette (September 1, 1876): 385.

The Sugar Cane, vol. 17, no. 196 (November 2, 1885): 609.

Thomas Krajewski passport application, April 10, 1896. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.

Trow's City New York City Directory, vol. 92. N.Y.: The Trow City Directory Company (1878): 802.

Trow's City Directory Co.'s Directory of New York City. N.Y.: The Trow City Directory Company (March 1888): 66 and 117.

U.S. Patent Office. Specifications and Drawings of Patents issued from the United States Patent Office for September, 1886, part 2. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1886: 346.

Subjects

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Subjects:

Mechanical engineers--United States.
Polish Americans.
Sugar--Manufacture and refining--Cuba.
Sugar--Manufacture and refining--Louisiana.
Sugar--Manufacture and refining--Mexico.
Sugar--Manufacture and refining--Puerto Rico.
Sugar--Manufacture and refining--Technological innovations.
Sugarcane industry.
Sugarcane--Processing--Equipment and supplies.

Formats:

Business records.
Mechanical drawings (tool-aided drawings)
Purchase orders.

Names:

Dunkin, John T.

Places:

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
New York (N.Y.)