Beckwith, the former star salesman. My father would take the Cigar Box Lumber end of the business, retaining the name "Wm.E.Uptegrove & Bro.", and erect a complete manufacturing plant at water's edge on the Greenpoint side of the East River. These plans were carried out, and it was in the Greenoint office that I started my business career in the summer of 1906. But it was not to last long. In the Fall of 1907 came "the Panic". Money tightened overnight, and Banks suspended their usual "accommodations". This caught my father, who was financing a business in Tennessee for the purpose of protecting the American Cigar Box Lumber Company from the inventor of the slicing machines. Although this man had sold the patents to my father he nevertheless built and sold some similar machines to competitors. Instead of resorting to law, my father yielded to blackmail and enabled that man to start up another business. From an original outlay of $5,000. It grew to $400,000. By the time of the Panic, and this necessitated asking for a Receivership for Wm. E. Uptegrove & Bro. Thus, at an age of 55, my father lost everything tangible except our home in Brooklyn and country place in New Canaan, Conn. But the intangibles he did not lose. He retained the goodwill of his customers, the respect of his competitors, and the confidence of his former suppliers. In effect they said "let us know when you are ready to start again". He had never closed a business because of indebtedness to him, but on the contrary he had helped the owners to get back on their feet and out of debt. He had also furnished the capital necessary for three young furniture salesmen to start in business for themselves. They prospered and by this time had become the leading furniture manufacturers in Grand Rapids, which then was the center of the industry. They now came forward without being asked and said "Count on us, W.E. for anything you need". They financed the equipment of a new Mill, and purchased for him at auction the stock of the American Cigar Box Lumber Company when it was offered for sale by the Receivers of Wm.E.Uptegrove & Bro. All moneys supplied by these men were treated as loans which were later repaid in full. Thus at age 55 he began a new career from scratch.

The American Cigar Box Lumber Co., which manufactured cigar box lumber from Yellow Poplar at Johnson City, Tenn. Was unaffected by the Receivership, although the mahogany stock was owned by the Corporation, Wm.E.Uptegrove & Bro. To obtain the necessary Poplar extensive purchases of timberlands had been made, on which Poplar was only one of many varieties of hardwood timber. These other hardwoods were manufactured into lumber and marketed by Wm.W.Uptegrove & Bro. In a separate department headed by my brother Edgar until his death in 1906. Thereupon