James Betelle, Where Are You?

The only private residence Guilbert & Betelle designed (that I know of) was the Franklin Murphy House in Newark, New Jersey. Franklin Murphy had quite a life; born in 1846, he fought in the Civil War as a teenager, seeing action at Gettysburg. He went on to found the Murphy Varnish Company in Newark, and [...]

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I’ve come across many ads for contractors and building equipment suppliers that all specifically mention Guilbert & Betelle, so I thought it would be fun to show them all together. Wallace & Tiernan’s “Chlorine Control Apparatus” (left) appeared in the January 1928 issue of American School Board Journal, not-so-coincidentally the same issue featuring the artice on [...]

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Today I ventured over to the Boston Public Library (I’m up in Massachussets this week on vacation), to try and get some odds-and-ends info on Betelle. Having gotten hold of the text of his Time Magazine article a few weeks ago, I wondered if there might have been a photograph to accompany it. After marveling at [...]

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This is a group photo of the staff of Cope & Stewardson, circa 1899, where JOB served as draftsman. Is one of these fine moustachioed gentlemen our James? Edit: The photo actually has a caption, buried on another page: From Left to Right: Alfred Morton Githens, William Charles Hays, Walter Cope, John A. MacMahon, James O. Betelle, [...]

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My partner in detective work recently contacted the Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society, knowing that JOB lived in Short Hills for a period. The Betelle cult grows stronger; a member of the Society responded with some great new information, having done considerable detective work:

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