Newark Manufacturer, stricken in June, Was Seventy-three Years Old

Frederick C. J. Wiss, president and treasurer of J. Wiss & Sons Co., cutlery manufacturers, died early this morning in his home at 39 South Munn avenue, East Orange. Mr. Wiss, who was seventy-three, suffered a stroke last October but continued active in business until stricken by a heart attack in June at his summer home in Avon.

Business Started by Father.

Mr. Wiss spent his entire life in the cutlery business of which he was head, following ideals established by his father, Jacob Wiss, more than eighty years ago in Newark.

Jacob Wiss's cutlery manufacturing shop had been in operation ten years when Frederick was born in 1858. Soon after his son was old enough to go to school the elder Wiss began to prepare him for taking over the business.

He taught him many of the operations. When Frederick was attending the old Newark High School in Washington street he rose at 6 o'clock every morning and fired the factory boiler in Bank street so stream would be up for the manufacturing operations that started at 7 o'clock. At one time, when employees numbered only three, a St. Bernard dog, harnessed to a treadmill, furnished the power.

Gradually Mr. Wiss activities were extended and in 1875, when he was only seventeen, Frederick took over the management of the factory. By 1887 the business was ready to expand and the first unit of the present factory in Littleton avenue was built, only the retail store being left in Bank street.

The next year the Prudential Insurance Company bought all Bank street property near Broad street and the Wiss store was moved to 755 Broad street, near the Four Corners.

Within two years the business was divided into three companies. The J. Wiss & Sons Co. became the manufacturing division and Frederick Wiss was made president and treasurer. Jerome B. Wiss, a cousin, took charge of Wiss Sons, Inc., the retail store, and the Wiss Realty Corporation was formed with Frederick as president and treasurer. Later Jerome took over the presidency.

The business built up mainly by Frederick Wiss now manufactures 2,000,000 pairs of scissors and shears annually and employees several hundred men and women.

Mr. Wiss was one of the founders of the New Jersey Manufacturers' Association, a director of the Employers' Association of New Jersey, a member of the Newark Athletic Club and of the Forest Hill Golf Club, the Spring Lake Golf Club and the Recreation Bowling Club. He was also a director of the Anchor Building Loan Association. He was active many years in the old Board of Trade and a former director of the New Jersey Manufacturers' Casualty Insurance Company.

Mr. Wiss was married in 1886 to Charlotte S. Lange of this city, who survives him. He also leaves two sons, Robert and Norman Wiss, and a daughter, Mrs. Denton Taylor, all of Newark; two sisters, Mrs. May Ungrich, of New York, and Mrs. Robert Sinclair, of Erie, Pa., and nine grandchildren.