Hill & Markes to celebrate 100 sweet years
Amsterdam business seeking historical facts for ’06 event
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 6-18-05
Amos Hill of Amsterdam spent $34.09 for chocolate chips, nut fudge, gum and assorted candies according to a 1906 bill of sale from Albany confectioner Jacob Kreischer. Kreischer’s bill noted that nut goods were perishable and sold at the customer’s risk.
Hill and his partner Charlie Markes must have sold the candy purchased that month. Delivery was August 1 and the bill was paid August 20.
Four years earlier, the two entrepreneurs had started selling ice cream. Apparently in 1906, they added candy to their wares at a store called Hill & Markes on Brookside Avenue. They began making deliveries by horse and buggy in the Amsterdam area. Family members made the ice cream and ice cream cones. In the winter, they made trips to sell their wares in Broadalbin by horse and sleigh but had to spend the night.
Hill & Markes lives on today and the current owners—members of the Finkle and Packer family--are looking for historical information for a centennial observance in 2006.
In 1927, Hill & Markes sold their ice cream operation to concentrate on the wholesale candy and paper business. The partners purchased a multi-story building at Grove and Chuctanunda Streets. Bob Markes of Saratoga Springs said it was in that building that he worked for his Uncle Charlie, who then resided on Arnold Avenue. “My uncle had me help him count everything,” Markes said.
In 1947, Harry and Harriet Finkle of Fulton County purchased Hill & Markes and expanded the product lines to include school supplies, paper products, rental dishes and cutlery. In the 1970s, Neal Packer, Andrea Finkle Packer, and Jeffrey Finkle joined the family business and continue to operate it today.
The Grove Street structure fell to urban renewal and the business relocated to Park Street and Second Avenue in a building shared with Ward Products. Hill & Markes moved to its present location, a former Price Chopper facility in the Edson Street Industrial Park, in 1978.
Andrea Finkle Packer, vice president for marketing, said her father, Harry Finkle, started selling candy on a pushcart. Before buying Hill & Markes, Harry, his mother and twin brother started Finkle Candy Company, now Finkle Distributors, operated by Packer’s cousins in Johnstown.
“My father had such a following of friends they all loved to have him come by because he was the candy man and if he went to see them, they got candy, they got a bag of candy,” Packer said. “If they were accounts receivable or payable or the purchasing agent they all got candy.”
Packer said her late father was the ultimate salesperson who presided over a period of expansion at Hill & Markes from the 1940s to the 1970s. Since then, Neal Packer has led the team that has made the business grow.
Andrea Packer has a zest for wholesale distribution and proudly shows off the clean floors, orderly stacks and speedy lift trucks that make it possible for the company to deliver the goods.
In recent years, warehouse space has expanded, modern truck docks have been installed and an office remodeling is planned. You can still buy candy, ice cream cones and toppings from Hill & Markes, but you can also buy products ranging from bubble wrap, and tape to paper towels and floor cleaning machines. Other businesses have been purchased, such as Dairy Concepts of Syracuse and Mitchell Paper of Fonda.
“And instead of one horse and buggy we now have 15 trucks and they’re on the road all the time,” Packer said. The business employs 100 people.
If you have information on the history of Hill & Markes, email Andrea Packer at apacker@hillnmarkes.com
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