John Hasbrouck Gosman

Was President of the Sterling Surgical Manufacturing Co. of Brooklyn and Northport, N.Y. when he passed away. He lost most of his hair in the late years of his life --- there was no baldness, just a noticeable thinness. In his early years there was a thickness of hair generally tousled which Lillian Briggs thought somewhat becoming to him and he was more or less indifferent to what the public thought of his appearance, but always he was immaculately clean. He was a well built man about 5'11" in height and weighed approximately 165 or so. He was somewhat strangely reticent --- uncommunicative to the point of making one uncomfortable sometimes when with him. His deep set eyes, dark brown were seemingly penetrative but his secretly charitable heart was a real redeeming asset. At the age of about 10 yeras he was bound out (as was the trend of that time) to a family in Iowa where he remained until about the age of 22 years. His father had passed away previous to the time he had left New York City and when he returned home to his mother his brothers were married and his mother living alone in Brooklyn, NY. It was not long before he succumed to the charm of his mother's young visitor Sarah Jane Bolstridge, and in less than three years he married her. He always anticipated returning west but he never did keep the promise he had made to himself to make Iowa his permanent home on this earth. Shortly after marriage he attended The Student's Art League in N.Y.C. His leaning toward art was strong but his training was of short duration tho he painted animals and landscapes in fine detail. However, painting was never more than a hobby for him. To meet family objligations the surgical work in which he made his bread and butter took most of his time and about 1904-5 he and his wife Sarah went into partnership with one Mr. John Douglass and founded the Sterling Surgical Manufacturing Company in Brooklyn. About 1910 with their son Clarence they moved to Northport, N.Y., on Long Island and here Clarence was started as a cutter for the firm which carried on the business in the Gosman home. Soon came World War 1 and a great demand for surgical supplies -- it required a dozen or more sewers and other workers also a small factory building and during the War years John Hasbrouck Gosman amassed a goodly sum of money. About 1918 he financed the birth of the Suffolk County Canning Company of Northport, N.Y. for his older son, John Hasbrouck Gosman Jr., in which he became president until his demise in 1920. Then because of insufficient funds the Company became solvent. !Census 1900: 372 E. 32nd St.Brooklyn Ward 29, Kings Co., NY, enum 11 Jun 1900: Gosman, John N.[sic], head, b. Dec 1860 age 39, m. 15y, b. NY/NY/NY, painter --, Sarah, wife, b. Dec 1864 age 35, m. 15y, 4 ch / 2 living, b. NY/Eng/Eng --, Hasbrouck, son, b. Oct 1889 age 10, NY/NY/NY, at school --, Clarence, son, May 1895 age 5, NY/NY/NY Bolstridge, George, brother-in-law, b. Sept 1866 age 33, single, NY/Eng/Eng, painter