Copyright The Kennedy Family 2008
Editors Note: As we share our homes with you, so we share our histories.
“In 1840 my great, great grandfather, Artemus Kennedy established a cracker baking company in Cambridgeport, MA.
The first oven was set up in a small building on what is now Massachusetts Avenue. There employees rolled each cracker by hand and pitched them into the oven one by one.
They used four barrels of flour per day to make the crackers.
Artemus Kennedy had only one child, a son, Frank Artemus Kennedy, born in 1841 in Cambridge, MA. When Frank was only 20 years old, his father died unexpectedly. This obliged him to take over his family’s business rather than attend college as he had hoped to do. Despite his young age, he proceeded to manage the company with imagination, vigor and far-sightedness.
At the time, there were only three types of crackers being produced in the Kennedy company: a soda, a butter and a sugar one.
Within a few years, F. A. Kennedy had made numerous innovations. The most important one was the introduction of a so-called reel oven. Traditionally, baking had always been done in stationary ovens, one batch at a time. The reel oven he introduced, ran like what we know today as a Ferris wheel (The first Ferris wheel was introduced at the World Columbian Exposition in 1893, so it had not yet been invented.)
This new way of baking dramatically increased production and within a few years it was necessary to construct a larger factory on Green Street to handle national demand of all the wonderful cookies and such. Today, over 120 years later, this brick building still stands. One can read the faded white writing on the top of the building: ‘KENNEDY BISCUIT COMPANY.’
The factory, at one point late in the last century, was scheduled for demolition. Fortunately, it was decided instead to save and renovate the historic old building. It was turned into what was appropriately named ‘THE KENNEDY BISCUIT LOFTS’ at University Park at M.I.T. The Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and received a 1990 Preservation Award from the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Today it has 142 apartments, artist lofts and a day care center. It has retained exposed masonry and framing, oversized windows, brick vaults and arches and skylights. Some of the original brick baking ovens were kept and incorporated as alcoves into some of the apartments and corridors. A reel oven was rescued and can now be viewed in the lobby. Recently, I brought my youngest grandchild to visit where his great, great, great grandfather had baked Fig Newton cookies, it was a great moment for both of us.
I’m proud that my great grandfather, F. A. Kennedy, was the first to introduce a New England favorite – sealed tins of Boston Baked Beans – shipped around the world, and especially the most famous remainders of his original factory FIG NEWTONS and SOCIAL TEA BISCUITS.
The Fig Newton cookie was created in 1891 by Joshua Josephson of the Kennedy Biscuit Company. The company named many of its products after surrounding communities. This one was named after the town of Newton.
Indeed, I am fortunate to own the original hand-written recipe booklet for these cookies, a very wonderful artifact of family history!
In May of 1890, the F. A. Kennedy Company sold out to the New York Biscuit Company (and became the National Biscuit Company – NABISCO.)
When the merger was complete, the Kennedy plant had a capacity of two hundred and fifty barrels of flour, six hundred eggs, fourteen hundred pounds of butter per day! A huge leap from the mere four barrels of flour a day when the company was first established!
Written November 21, 2008 – on the occasion of my grandson’s 10th birthday.”
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