Charles F. Erhart

German immigrant cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart (1821-1891) founded Pfizer in 1849.

Erhart at that time age twenty-eight together with his cousin Charles Pfizer emigrated from Ludwigsburg, Germany to the United States in 1848.

Unlike many German immigrants at the time who immediately joined the Gold Rush, Erhart and his cousin decided to stay in New York City and make living by taking advantage of the crafts that they learned in Germany. They came from well-to-do families saw America as a land of opportunity.

Charles had learned chemistry as an apothecary’s apprentice and Erhart was confectioner, a trade he learned from his uncle.

With $2,500 borrowed from Pfizer’s father and a $1,000, Erhart and his cousin bought a small brick factory in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, large a German neighborhood. In 1849, their first year in America, they founded a chemical firm Charles Pfizer & Company, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

Their plant turned out additives for food, soft drinks and medicine. The company became the focal point for the mass production of penicillin, the drug that saved the lives and limbs of countless American soldiers of World War II.

Charles Erhart died in 1891 and left his interest in the partnership, worth nearly $250,000 to his son William.
Charles F. Erhart

Edward Robinson Squibb

Edward Robinson Squibb (July 4, 1819 – October 25, 1900) devoted his career to the struggle for purity and consistency in medicines. He was born on 4 July 1819, in Wilmington, Delaware, to James Squibb and Catherine Harrison Bonsall Squibb, who were devout Quakers.

Edward Robinson Squibb

In 1842 Squibb fulfilled his dram of studying medicine, entering Jefferson Medical College. He emerged three years later with an MD. In 1847 Squib became an assistant surgeon with the US Navy. After several years Squib decided to leave nary for private industry.

He formed a pharmaceutical company on Furman Street after witnessing firsthand the poor quality of available drugs while a Brooklyn Navy Yard medical officer. The US army had indicated that it would order the bulk of its drugs from him one he was open for business.

He dedicated Squibb to the production of ‘consistently pure medicines’ a cause that claimed his lifelong interest.

Only two years later he developed the first reliable ether for anesthesia, which the Union Army employed during the Civil War. The company enjoyed respectable growth and the company expanded into South America and Europe.
Edward Robinson Squibb

Charles Pfizer

Charles Pfizer was born in Ludwigsburg as Karl Pfizer on March 22 in 1824. He was a chemist.

Charles Pfizer and his cousins Charles Erhart formed Pfizer in 1849 after they arrived in Brooklyn from Germany. Charles Pfizer and Co was established in Brooklyn in 1849 to meet the need for processing chemicals, such as tartaric acid, used in foods and pharmaceuticals as well as in chemical manufacturing.

At first the venture was a small chemical manufacturer but it achieved early success after developing a way to improve the palatability of treatment for parasitic worms.

Charles Pfizer

Erhart, a confectioner, blended butter tasting santonin with almond-toffee flavoring shaping it into a candy cone for palatability and ‘new santonin’ became a success for the company.

The quality of Pfizer products became synonymous with excellence. The company moved in 1857 to the Wall Street area of Manhattan, where it also used one of the first city telephones.

Charles Pfizer passed away on October 19 in 1906 after two weeks of fall down stairs in which he broke an arm and was otherwise badly injured.
Charles Pfizer