Sheffield Farms

The Sheffield Farms–Slawson–Decker Company, known as Sheffield Farms, pasteurized, bottled, and delivered milk in New York City in the first half of the 20th century, becoming one of the largest dairy companies in the world, and selling 20% of the city's milk. The company played a major part in transforming commercial milk from a dirty, disease-spreading product into a clean and healthy one.

L. B. Halsey, a lawyer who married Sarah Frances Sheffield, (daughter of the late John H and Anne Maria Sheffield) became interested in the dairy business when called upon to help deliver his widowed mother-in-law’s butter. Through careful selection and breeding the Sheffield herd of Mahwah, New Jersey, produced superior milk, which in turn made fine butter. He began marketing the butter in his spare time in the city and by 1880 had given up the law to devote himself to the dairy trade. His first innovation was to design a covered milk wagon that protected fluid milk from dust. Halsey trained other farmers to improve the quality of their milk and bought milk only from the best herds.

In 1892, he installed the first pasteurizing machine in the United States, imported from Germany, at Sheffield Farms’ Bloomville, New York, plant. The following year, pasteurization was demonstrated at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Commercial milk pasteurization was introduced in Baltimore in 1893 but Cincinnati is credited with the first large scale pasteurization program in America. New York City followed in 1898, although pasteurization was not yet required for some years.

Slawson Brothers entered the milk distribution business in 1866. Loton H. Horton (April 22, 1852 – December 15, 1926), a Slawson on his mother’s side, began driving a milk wagon for his uncle when he was 16. He quickly rose to lead the company, becoming a partner at the age of 21 and principal owner in 1898. When the company merged with T. W. Decker and Sheffield Farms, he became the new firm’s president, a post he held until his death in 1926. At that time, Sheffield Farms Co. (the name was eventually shortened from Sheffield Farms–Slawson–Decker) was the largest dairy products company in the world with nearly 2,000 retail routes and over 300 stores, mostly in New York City.

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