A brief history of the Lewis Templin nurseries at Calla, Mahoning Co., Ohio, is presented.  One of the largest mail-order seed houses in the United States, despite a disastrous 1892 fire, L. Templin & Sons continued after Lewis's death in 1899 until going into receivership in 1907

Murphy, James L., 1941-

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Fresh To You From The Calla Greenhouses l_i, Templin, .ho......n .bO<oe sperting Ihe pe­tn••ch~ _.d. foulldod one of Am.n\::I', '11'\1111 .....I.o.d.r Mttd bto,in_ in OhIO Neslled among the foiling nursery land of northeastern Ohio. the tiny Ma· honing County hamlel of Calla once boasted of one of the largesl mall-order seed houses in the United Slaies. A unique combination of family enterprise, ingenuity and a regard for quality prOducts g8v8 the Templin nurseries of Calia, Ohio a nationwide reputalJon, the rival of Burpee and other famous seed companies LewIs Templin. son of 8 Pennsylvania iron molder, turned to horticulture afler movIng 'Wes'" to OhIo in" 1822. He started hIs nursery in 1845 at Canf'eld In 1866, his four sons (a 'ifth had died at the Battle of Slone River) budt his first greenhouse 81 loveland Station on Ihe Niles and New Lrsbon Reilroed, ten years before Washington Atlee Bur ­pee opened his first store in Philadelphra. As a result. almoSt entirely. of the mail order business of the Templrn company, Loveland Station was granted a flfSt class pOSt office In 1869 Lewis lemplin became the IIrst postmaster, and the appropriate name of " CaHa " was selected to distinguish the town from another Loveland, Ohio. In the years following the Civil War, when seed fraud ai'ld hurnbuggery tn the Midwest was as rampant as quick. grass, it was comparatively easy ­given a certain amount of industry and perseverance - to establish a successful mail order seed business by the 'Imple e)(pediant of providing quality seed and guaranteeing the product. The religiOUS society of Shakers had found it to be so in New York. though they conducted most of Ihe.r sales by Iraveltng S68dsmen, with linle or no advertiS­ing, and so the Templin family was to find it to OhIO. III lact, "Quality" became tha trademark of the L Templin & Sons Seed Company. Their mono: " A pleased cus­tomer is the best advertisement " Caretut seed tesllng and the datrng of each seed packet increased the rehabllity of the Templin product. Aelying enllrely upon the retailttade, the company profiled from the small rndIVldual orders that the larger wholesale establishments rgnored. There also appears to have been an effiCient division of labor, son Mark B, Templin specrallzing in printing "Beautiful Flowers from the Calla Greenhouses" and oth&r cata· logues. Although appro)(rmately 300,O<Xl of the Caffa catalogues were distffbured annually, they are now scarce collec­tor's items. The economies Templrn realized in printing, coupfed w ith the advantage of haVing a poSt oHice and railroad station immooiately at hand, allowed the company to offer an Im _ pressive variety of flower and vegatable seeds and plants, but the company was always reluctant to advertise new varieties unlrl their worth had been proven, (According to their 1896 cata ­logue, another of their monos was '''Go Slow' on Novelties ") Under the conservative and rndustrlOUS management of the Temphn family, the Calla enterpflse had an annual busrness of $75,000 dtmng Its Ic:on"""" 0" PIoII" 81 Echoes April 1978 4 finally '"'''.:'-.~_ !eomillUllo;! bom page 41 Calla peak years. In 1892, however, !necom­pany suffered a disastrous January fire. Plants that escaped the flames quicklV frole. Insurance companies at that time would not insure greenhouses or their contents, and Lewis Templin estimated a loss of $20,000, including the de­sITuclion of his entire spring crop. Although the firm quickly rebuilt on an even larger scale, the sons gradually withdrew from the company. At the founder's death jn Ihe spring of 1899, onlv Richard L and Mark B. Templin continued the operation, In the face of competition end rising COSIS, prices which had remained constant or even been reduced during the 1890s, doubled during the next 15 years. Rich­ard Templin sold out in 1905, and in 1907 the compeny failed, wem inlo receivership, then lumbered along for another decade carrying the nameCaUa Seed before Mark Templin A strict "temperance man," like his father and grandfather before him, Mark Templin was elected mavor of Canfield in 1922. According to his obi­tuary, he "worked with many men prominent in the prohibition raids and assessed heavy fine$ on scores of men." Mark's continued belief in the doctrine of hard work, the value of religion and the institution of the family are r~flect­ad in occasional letters to newspapers. To him, FOR was anathema, and the idea of old age pensions ridiculous, since it clearlv was Ihe dutY of children to care for their aged parents. Continuing to work until well past 80, Templin supervised landscaping of Columbiana's Firestone Park in 1935. If somewhat out at step with the times 8t his death in 1945, 88-year-old Mark Templin retained to the end his belief in the fundamental conservative values which had made the Templin nurseries 8 successful family enterprise of nation­wide repute for more than half a cen­tury. Jamfl/; L Murphy LJbrary D,w$'oll Echoes April 1978 

Fresh To You From the Calla Greenhouses

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Fresh To You From the Calla Greenhouses

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