James Edgar was born in Scotland in 1843 and came to the United States at the age of 22. Arriving in New Brunswick, he took a train to Boston for a job that paid him twelve dollars a week at the Hog Brown and Taylor dry goods store—more than the fifty dollars a year he made previously in Scotland as an apprentice to a cloth merchant.
He worked ten years for Calendar McLaughson and Troop, a firm that operated a wholesale and retail plant using the name of the Boston Store. After marrying and having a daughter, he teamed up with George W. Reynolds and opened the Boston Store, a dry goods store in Brockton, Massachusetts, in 1878.
Edgar and Reynolds each put up fifteen hundred dollars to open the store. On March 16, 1878, the Boston Store was known to be the first to have electric lights as well as cash registers in town. Known as “Uncle Jim” to the kids and “Colonel Gym” to adults, James Edgar was a man of the people and loved to take care of kids.
Several instances of him paying back people and the less fortunate included a unique layaway program where a customer could put money down towards items and earn a four percent interest on their down payments. In other instances, he would throw pennies off the rooftop of his store. He installed a soda fountain in 1895 and at times offered free soda to his customers. He was also the first to install a Bundy time recorder in 1897.
Edgar was known for taking good care of his employees. He paid them well, and many of his employees wanted to stay working for him—and did so. In regard to taking care of his employees, he would close the store early four nights a week so they could spend time with their families. In 1899, Edgar made 25 of his employees stakeholders in his store.
What Edgar was most known for was being the first to have a department store Santa Claus. Often dressing up in numerous costumes such as Uncle Sam, George Washington, a clown, and other characters, he brought joy to the children around. He would take thousands of children to July 4th picnics by trolley each year.
During Christmas in 1890, Edgar saw the fascination children had with Santa Claus and had a custom suit made for him. Wearing this suit and walking down the aisles of his store, he spent one hour each day dressed as Santa on weekdays and three hours on Saturdays. Needing to do more in the store, he hired other people to portray Santa Claus so he could focus on daily business. He wanted to give kids the chance to meet Santa. The idea also worked to increase sales for his store and to bring more customers in.
Since then, other department stores did the same, and today, most malls seem to have a Santa Claus every year during Christmas.
Edgar said, "My life in Scotland was a poor one. When I came to this country, I had to scratch to get by. I never really had a childhood because I was out working. I think that's why I enjoyed children so much; I was trying to make up for the childhood I never had."
The Boston Store burned down in 1886. He and Reynolds rebuilt the store, but when Reynolds passed away, Edgar bought out his estate for around six thousand dollars. In 1906, needing to build a new location, Edgar built a fireproof building called the James Edgar Building in Brockton, known as possibly the first concrete department store in the United States. This new building had nearly 150 employees and was 52,000 square feet.
After the building was complete, Edgar reopened his store as the James Edgar Company. Edgar suffered a stroke in 1904 and was partially paralyzed. He died five years later in 1909, but his influence lived on.
The town of Brockton was struggling during the 1920s. Known once as the shoemaking town, many children did not have shoes nor could they get the shoes fixed, which led to them not attending school. Edgar’s influence overtook then-president of Edgar’s Department Store, William Wright, the son-in-law of James Edgar, who knew he needed to help. He purchased a three thousand dollar shoe repair machine and hired a handful of shoe cobblers. By Christmas, he had fixed over one thousand pairs of shoes, and by the following spring, an additional nearly five thousand.
The store quietly continued its success until the 1960s when Almighty Bigelow and Washburn Incorporated purchased Edgar’s. During this time, they sold numerous types of merchandise, including cosmetics, jewelry, and home goods. The business featured a bright green carpet, and Edgar’s Department Store soon opened up in other locations, including as an anchor in the Swansea Mall in Swansea, Massachusetts.
Struggling with too much competition, such as Bradley’s and Ames, the company eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Brownlee’s purchased them after bankruptcy, but by 1989, Edgar’s Department Stores had closed.
