S. Frazer & Co.

S. Frazer & Co. — company profile

Company overview. S. Frazer & Co. was a 19th-century American partnership, not a presently operating business. It was organized in November 1883 in Galena, Illinois, to manufacture axle grease, with officers including president Jacob Fawcett, secretary/general superintendent George S. Avery, and Samuel Frazer as foreman of works (Galena Daily Gazette, 1 November 1883; City of Galena historical files). No incorporation date, employee count, revenue, ticker, or parent ownership is verifiable — the firm was a private local partnership, and no modern corporate record exists for it. After the litigation described below, the Galena operation continued under a new corporate name, Galena Axle Grease Co.

Products / operations. The firm manufactured a single principal product: "Superior Axle Grease," an artificial lubricant compounded from rosin oil, lime, sal-soda, palm oil, and water, based on Samuel Frazer's 1880 patented rosin-oil distillation process. It built a factory on the Illinois Central tracks in Galena (a two-story building roughly 75 x 40 feet, plus a renovated grain warehouse), with initial employment reported at about twelve workers.

Litigation posture. Two tracked cases, both as defendant and none as plaintiff — consistent with a small operating manufacturer being sued, not a patent assertion entity. Both suits were brought by The Frazer Lubricator Company, the Chicago corporation that had acquired Samuel Frazer's 1870 patent rights and the "Frazer's Axle Grease" trade name. The claims were trade-mark/trade-dress in nature (unfair imitation of labels and use of the "Frazer" name), though the rights at issue derived from assignments of letters patent.

Notable cases. The Frazer Lubricator Company v. Samuel Frazer et al. began as a bill filed 30 August 1884 in the Superior Court of Cook County, was affirmed by the Appellate Court for the First District, and reached the Supreme Court of Illinois (121 Ill. 147, decided 1887), which held that Frazer could continue making his improved grease but could not use his own name in connection with it. The Frazer Lubricator Company v. S. Frazer & Co. et al. (23 F. 305, C.C.D. Minn., April 1885) was a companion trade-mark case against the firm and its St. Paul agents, Yanz & Howes; the court denied a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction based on the Minnesota defendants' citizenship.