Gaddess photograph and ephemera collection

The Gaddess Brothers Steam Marble Works was a stone working operation specializing in cemetery work, producing marble and granite statuary, monuments, tablets, and vases. In 1884, the proprietors were brothers Charles W. (d. 1897), Thomas S., and Virginius Gaddess. These men took over the business in 1864 from their father, Alexander Gaddess, Jr. (1799-1873), who learned the stone working craft in apprenticeship to Thomas Towson on New Church St. ca. 1817. Alexander Gaddess joined Towson and another man in the the firm Towson, Anderson, Gaddess in the 1820s, with quarters at the corner of New Church and South Streets. Before long, Gaddess operated independently, and during the 1850s his business was called The Phoenix Marble Works, at the corner of Sharp and German Streets in Baltimore. By 1884, the Baltimore Directory shows the address of the Gaddess Brothers Steam Marble Works as 110 S. Charles St. for the workshop, and 21 N. Charles St. for the office and showroom.