Fillmore Condit

Fillmore Condit
Fillmore Condit with Ida in Long Beach circa 1920
Personal details
BornSeptember 4, 1855
Roseland, New Jersey, US
DiedJanuary 6, 1939(1939-01-06) (aged 83)
Long Beach, California, US

Fillmore Condit (September 4, 1855 – January 6, 1939) was an American inventor, temperance activist and local politician serving New Jersey and later Long Beach, California.

Early life

Condit was born in Roseland, New Jersey on September 4, 1855, the son of Stephen J. and Catherine Tappan Condit.[1][2] At the age of 24, in 1879 he invented and manufactured a refrigerator door fastener for use in meat markets.[3] According to his own biography, he met his wife Ida Rafter as a customer in his store, and married her in 1881.[4]

Later life

The couple moved to Verona, New Jersey, where Fillmore soon participated in local politics, serving on the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders.[5][6] The family moved to California in 1899 for one year, where Fillmore became interested in the oil industry. When they returned to New Jersey in 1901, he was placed in charge of the Eastern District of the Union Oil Company of California.[7] In the 1890s, Condit acquired a large plot of land and built a home for his family in Verona. He created building lots for homes to be constructed on the periphery of his property, but kept a large, central plot of greenspace around the home where his family could spend time outdoors, particularly his son Everett, who had tuberculosis. Condit deeded the land to the township after his son's death in 1911 and the property became the site of Everett Park.[8]

In July 1912, his wife, Ida Francis (Rafter) Condit, purchased a property next to theirs in Essex Fells, New Jersey, to keep Black purchasers from buying the property, with Mrs. Condit saying that she "knew all of our homes would be ruined, especially mine, which is just next door."[9]

Participation in social movements

He also participated in the temperance and suffrage movements. He was briefly the executive chairman of the Anti-Saloon League of America.[10] One of his most popular tracts was called "The Relation of Saloons to Insanity," published by the American Issue Publishing Company in 1910.[11] He spoke at the National Suffrage Day open-air meeting in Montclair,[12] and was one of the speakers during the tour of the "Torch of Victory," circulated under the auspices of the Women's Political Union.[13] Condit was put up by the Anti-Saloon League as a candidate for governor of New Jersey in 1919,[14] but for personal reasons decided to withdraw, obtaining concessions from the Republican Party that they would support prohibition.[15]

Condit's testimony in 1913 for a grand jury investigating former Syracuse mayor and Tammany boss James Kennedy McGuire, was successful in obtaining McGuire's indictment on charges of soliciting a campaign contribution from a corporation.[16]

City politics

Condit and his family decided to return to California and settled in Long Beach, California, where he soon entered into city politics, serving as a councilman and mayor, and succeeded in founding a city hospital there.[17] An article analyzing his hospital policies appeared in the journal California and Western Medicine.[18] After Ida died in 1921, Fillmore married Helen Mackinnon on December 5, 1922.[19] Condit died in Long Beach January 6, 1939.[20][21]

See also

References

  1. ^ Williams, Robert L. "Remembering the legacy of Fillmore Condit", Verona-Cedar Grove Times, February 8, 2007. Accessed December 29, 2025, via Newspapers.com. "One of the movers and shakers of our town during the turn of the century was a man by the name of Fillmore Condit. He had humble beginnings and was born in 1855 on a small farm in Centreville, later renamed Roseland."
  2. ^ "Fillmore Condit & Ida Frances Rafter". www.condit-family.com. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  3. ^ Scannell's New Jersey's First Citizens and State Guide, J. J. Scannell, 1919, page 94.
  4. ^ "My Wife and I," Fillmore Condit, Long Beach, Calif., June, 1921, page 6.
  5. ^ Scannell, page 94.
  6. ^ Williams, Robert J. "Remembering the legacy of Fillmore Condit (last of a series)", Verona-Cedar Grove Times, February 15, 2007. Accessed December 29, 2025, via Newspapers.com. "Unfortunately, the improvement was short lived, and Everett had a relapse in July which resulted in the family moving to Santa Paula, where they resided until 1901, when they returned to Verona.... Tragedy struck the Condit family in March 1911, shortly after the family moved to Essex Fells."
  7. ^ "The Political Graveyard: Condit family of Orange, New Jersey". politicalgraveyard.com. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  8. ^ Everett Park Site Improvements, Verona Environmental Commission, November 16, 2023. Accessed December 29, 2025. "Everett Field, and the entire surrounding site was purchased by Fillmore Condit circa 1890. Seeking a more pastoral lifestyle for his family, he built their country home on Elmwood Road and began subdividing the lots surrounding this parkland for other families’ homes. The Condit’s son, Everett, suffered from tuberculosis and in an effort to improve his condition, Mrs. Condit created a health retreat on what they called, 'The Great Lawn,' where Everett, family members, and other children would camp for weeks at a time to escape the pollution from the growing industrial complex in more developed areas. This rehabilitation was thought to have helped Everett and even extend his life."
  9. ^ "Buys Mansion to Bar Out Negroes", The Star-Ledger, July 27, 1912. Accessed December 29, 2025, via Newspapers.com. "Residents of fashionable Essex Fells gave a sigh of relief today, when Mrs. Fillmore Condit announced that she had bought the residence of Mrs. Adelaide Phyfe to prevent it being converted into a negro sanitarium. The Phyfe residence adjoins the $50,000 residence of Mr. and Mrs. Condit, and when, a short time ago, it became known that members of a colony of New York negroes were negotiating for its purchase, Mrs. Condit immediately had her agent begin negotiations, which resulted so successfully that the deal has been closed."
  10. ^ Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (1924). Standard encyclopedia of the alcohol problem. Vol II. Buckingham-Dow;. Substance Abuse Librarians and Information Specialists (SALIS). Westerville, O. [American Issue Pub. Co.]
  11. ^ "The Relation of Saloons to Insanity | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  12. ^ "Will Address Suffrage Meeting," The Montclair Times, April 18, 1914, page 3,
  13. ^ "Suffrage Torch to Jersey Today", The New York Times, August 7, 1915, page 7. Accessed December 29, 2025
  14. ^ "Runyon Seeks Nomination" (PDF). The New York Times. June 13, 1919. p. 17.
  15. ^ "Prohibitionists Looking to Lane," Asbury Park Press, October 14, 1919, page 2.
  16. ^ "MGuire Indicted When Jerseyman Tells of Graft," New Evening Star, November 24, 1913, page 1.
  17. ^ "City Hospital Realization of Fillmore Condit's Dream," The Long Beach Telegram and The Long Beach Daily News, July 31, 1924, page 12.
  18. ^ "Long Beach "Community" Hospital". Cal West Med. 22: 460–1. 1924. PMC 1654459. PMID 18739417.
  19. ^ "Wedding Bells to Chime for City Official," The Long Beach Telegram and The Long Beach Daily News, Monday, December 4, 1922, section 2, page 1.
  20. ^ "Death Takes Fillmore Condit, Oil Company Founder and Ex-Long Beach Mayor Passes at 83", Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1939, page 21. Accessed December 29, 2025, via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "Fillmore Condit; Prohibitionist Candidate for New Jersey Governor in 1919". The New York Times. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
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