Bergstrom Paper Co. - American Bank Note Company Specimen Check

Specimen Check printed by American Bank Note Company. Neenah, Wisconsin. Havilah Babcock (September 8, 1837 – April 21, 1905) was an American manufacturing executive and a joint founder of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Born in Franklin, Vermont, Babcock moved with his family to Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1846. In 1849 they moved again to Neenah, Wisconsin, his father had gotten a contract to excavate and construct the Neenah portion of the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. At age 12 he became a child laborer in his father's project, thus bringing an end to Babcock's education. Following his mother's death in 1851 and the completion of the waterway project in 1852, Babcock found work as a box boy at a local dry goods store where he also slept at night, as his widowed father had begun farming with a new wife six miles from town. At age 16 Babcock was promoted to clerk, in which he achieved notable success selling dress goods to women. In 1857 due to his success in sales, the wealthy father of his friend John A. Kimberly set the two young men up as equal partners in the Kimberly & Babcock Dry Goods Store, providing them with $5,000 in new goods. The business was an immediate success, and while still only in their teens, the partnership was quickly recognized as a formidable teaming of talent, leading to directorships with the newly organized First National Bank of Neenah (what is today Associated Banc-Corp), and to the construction in 1869 of the Reliance Mill, the largest flour mill constructed in Neenah, which helped make it the second largest flour milling center in the state behind Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1876 Babcock became a financial partner in the founding of the Bergstrom Brothers Stove Works under the direction of D. W. Bergstrom, a former clerk at Kimberly & Babcock. At the time of his death Babcock was planning to be a partner in the founding of the Bergstrom Paper Company. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havilah_Babcock

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