Burrell Brothers

Pioneer Wagon & Carriage Manufacturers

The wagon makers, wheelwrights, cartwrights, and blacksmiths who worked for Warren, George, David, and Edwin Burrell were among Kalamazoo’s earliest craftsmen manufacturers. The Burrell company made and repaired horse-drawn wagons, carriages, and sleighs for nearly 60 years. They earned an excellent reputation for their award-winning work and received statewide recognition.

In 1830, Warren Burrell (1789-1864) and Polly Schellenger Burrell (1793-1864) joined the mass migration of early settlers through upstate New York and moved their family from the village of Sheffield in southern Massachusetts, to Rochester, New York, which by then had become a western “boomtown” with the opening of the Erie Canal. After three years in Rochester, the Burrells followed the canal westward to the village of Lockport, New York, near Buffalo, where their eldest son, Myron Burrell (1816-1901), began to study law. Leaving Myron to pursue his education in Lockport, the remaining family members moved on to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and the village of Skaneateles. Enticed by New York’s booming wagon and carriage industry, their second son, George S. Burrell (1818-1896), settled in nearby Auburn, where he began to learn the carriage building trade.

After a year in Skaneateles, Warren and Polly Burrell continued westward into Michigan with their third son David Burrell (1822-1901) and daughter Jeanette Phoebe Burrell Knerr (1820-1893), finally arriving in the village of Bronson (later Kalamazoo) in November 1835.

Hogeboom & Burrell (1843-1867)

In 1837, George Burrell joined his family in Kalamazoo, where he and his father, a wheelwright by trade, established the first carriage manufacturing and repair business in the village on Academy Street, just east of West Street (Westnedge). As the business grew, a blacksmith from West Troy, New York, named Barent Hogeboom (1817-1867) arrived in Kalamazoo during the fall of 1843 and entered into partnership with George Burrell as Hogeboom & Burrell, manufacturers of carriages, buggies, and wagons. Soon after, Hogeboom & Burrell bought a pair of lots from C.E. Stuart at the northwest corner of Main (Michigan Avenue) and Park streets, where they built a substantial new workshop. Over the years, Burrell and Hogeboom received numerous awards at the Kalamazoo County Agricultural Fair for their work. Burrell’s democrat (farm) wagons became especially well known throughout the area.

George Burrell and Barent Hogeboom continued as partners off and on over the course of the following decade. But a rift between the two evidently came about when Hogeboom left the firm in 1853 and partnered with J.B. Cornell, a former Burrell worker who had by then become a competing carriage manufacturer. In December 1856, David Burrell purchased half of the Main Street property from his brother and became a full partner in the business.

Burrell Brothers (1867-1877)

After four years as partners, Barent Hogeboom severed his ties with Cornell in September 1856 and soon thereafter began a new partnership with the Burrell firm, only this time Hogeboom would instead partner with David Burrell as Hogeboom, Burrell & Co. The Hogeboom & (David) Burrell partnership continued until Hogeboom’s death in March 1867, after which George and David Burrell carried on as equal partners. Frederick Root Burrell (1823-1898), a fellow wagon maker and likely a relative, was employed at the shop, as well. By then, the firm had become known as Burrell Brothers.

“The average number of hands employed is eighteen, there is no similar establishment in the West, that has a better reputation for thorough and perfect work. Vehicles of their construction, are in use in every part of this and adjoining states.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 18 April 1868

D. Burrell & Son (1877-1898)

George Burrell retired in 1877 after more than 35 years in the trade and dissolved the partnership with his brother. David Burrell then brought his son Edwin R. Burrell into the firm, and continued the wagon and buggy manufacturing business as D. Burrell & Son. But competition was stiff by then. According to the 1880 city directory, there were no less than 10 wagon and buggy manufacturers in Kalamazoo at that time. To remain competitive, the Burrells made extensive improvements in their operation during the years that followed, adding new buildings with steam heat and several new machines. By 1888, the firm employed 25 hands and occupied four large two-story buildings, along with lumber yards, and multiple warehouses. Annual production that year included 400 wagons, 150 sleighs, and 75 buggies.

“D. Burrell & Son make 10 wagons a week and cannot then supply the demand.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 27 April 1882

“The St. John Plow company has just received 24 new wagons from D. Burrell & Son, making 65 which they will have on the road the coming season. They are all two horse wagons and are patented by Mr. G.B. St. John.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 28 March 1890

George Burrell passed away in 1896. David Burrell served two terms as a member of the Kalamazoo city council and was a First Presbyterian Church trustee while continuing in the wagon-making business with his son Edwin until 1898.

With the development of Kalamazoo’s prestigious Mansion Row along West Main Street, the old Burrell wagon shop nearby was seen as an eyesore by some local residents. One writer recalled it as “long a disgrace to West Main street.” Still, as longstanding pioneer manufacturers, the Burrell brothers were held in high regard as some of Kalamazoo’s earliest settlers and “for the high grade of their respective products” (Gazette).

Following David Burrell’s death in February 1901, the Burrell factory building, one of the oldest manufacturing buildings in the city, was torn down in 1902 to make way for a new Merchants’ Publishing Company factory building. The Federal Building and former post office, opened in 1939, occupies the corner today.

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, May 2024.