Albaugh-Babylon Grocery Company
Albaugh-Babylon Grocery Company
One of Westminstor's Monuments of Thrift and Energy
Democratic Advocate, October 8, 1898
It is with some misgivings that we attempt a review of the
large wholesale grocery business of the Albaugh-Babylon Company for publication to the
country in our industrial edition. The standing of this house and the high character
of the firm's personnel in business and financial circles, make this enterprise second
only to the milling and packing establishments as a contributor to our reputation abroad
both as trade and manaufacturing centre. Both members of this firm are natives of
Carroll county. Mr. George W. Albaugh (whose biography appears elsewhere in the
ADVOCATE) having been born on Washington's birthday, February 22, 1857, and his partner,
Mr. F. Thomas Babylon, on July 22, 1857, at Frizellburg. It will be noticed that
there is some similarity in the dates of their birth, just as you find it in their expert
business methods.
A glance at the career of the gentlemen especially since 1894,
when their grocery here was established, is quite interesting. As will be seen from
Mr. Albaugh's biography in another a column, his grocery business at Westminster dates
from 1894, or and the present partnership commenced a year later when he became head of
the Company, and Mr. Babylon the secretary and treasurer. By reason of his great
activity and business capacity, the latter has since continued the "executive
manager."
The premises which they own and occupy on East Main street, a
large and handsome brick structure, dimensions 60 x 198 feet, stands in close proximity to
the railroad station, and could not, in fact, be better located. Here they conduct a
wholesale traffic in groceries, notions, tobacco, cigars, confectionary and grocers'
sundries, for the firm represent leading manufacturers in this line all over Western
Maryland, where their trade indeed extends, as well as over much of Pennsylvania.
Thus the grain of "mustard seed" which Mr. Albaugh planted at Westminster a
decade of years since, has gradually expanded and fructified, until now under the green
branches of "a stately" tree, the firm reap a just recompense for their
labor.
Influential figures in our city's development for many years;
identified by sympathy and aid with every material concern tending to promote our public
welfare, Albaugh and Babylon long ago secured the good-will and respect of our
inhabitants, as their life-records so clearly show. As regards to the latter
gentleman, he was trained to habits of industry in the schools of Carroll county, where he
had filled clerical posts at several stores before joining the Babylon & Gilbert
Hardware business and Mr. Albaugh here,, and he shares the fame of his partner as a man
whose heart is wrapped up in the prosperity of this city - a man ever keenly alive to its
best interests and mindful of its necessities. Like Mr. Albaugh, too, he fills some
positions of trust, being a director of the Westminster Savings' Bank; a director of the
Ice and Cold Storage Co., and an officer in several other corporations. Both have
happy firesides; Mr. Babylon having married Miss Ella Snider, whose father he succeeded as
a director of the Savings' Bank in 1891.
Mr. Babylon recently erected an elegant business block on West
Main street, which everybody views with pleasure. It is of beautiful design, the
building buff-colored brick, three- stories high and basement, 43 x 100 feet. Too
much can not be said of this prosperous firm, who command the confidence of our people - a
confidence won by steadfast interest in their welfare and an honorable business course.
(Submitted by Sue Billings)