WATERTOWN — A few steps away from the counter of Gray’s Flower Shop, the length of say, a hefty hollyhock, an antique metal and wood cash register sits in the shadows.
The National cash register was state-of-the art of its day. In 1884, John Patterson began to make the devices in Dayton, Ohio. National became widely regarded as a “high tech” company.
“That was my grandmother’s,” Scott A. Gray said. “I remember operating it as a kid, pressing the buttons and rolling the handle. Later, the handle stopped working. You’d have to get in there and pop the drawer.”
An antique cash register at Gray’s Flower Shop in Watertown now holds memories. Chris Brock/Watertown Daily Times
The device, and the change it made, now act as a symbol of the changes the city’s floral business has experienced over the years. Gray’s Flowers, 1605 State St., the oldest business in Jefferson County, kept up with those changes, until July when Gray announced that the florist would be closing on Sept. 1, Monday.
Four generations of the Gray family have operated the business. Through each, the family maintained a tradition of quality service, affordability and community involvement, making the flower shop a household name in Northern New York.
“It simply said it was time,” Gray said on Tuesday afternoon at the shop, which still blossomed with stock. That “it” involves a couple of factors.
Gray was elected to his first two-year Assembly term in 2022 and was reelected in November. Previously, he served as chairman of the Jefferson County Board of Legislators for six years, and as a legislator for 21 years in total.
“I wasn’t going to get back into the business,” Gray explained. “I had left it during COVID. The pandemic kept me busy with the county every day.”
Scott A. Gray holds the framed business card of Frank Burton Gray, who founded Gray’s Flowers in 1918. Chris Brock/Watertown Daily Times
Since then, being an Assembly member has taken up his time. “I realized that I wasn’t going to come back to the business.”
The business model of running a flower shop was also a factor.
“The floral industry has changed,” Gray said. “Just like any other retail business, it is increasingly moving away from brick-and-mortar to people ordering online. In our case, the floral industry, it wasn’t just people ordering online. They go through a fulfillment center.”
The Gray family legacy
John Gray, born in 1835 in Redwood, the son of Scottish immigrants, served in the Civil War with the 10th New York Regiment of Heavy Artillery Volunteers. He was honorably discharged in July 1865. He and Nancy Dillon Gray had two girls and four boys, including Frank, who went by his middle name, Burton.
Burton opened a greenhouse and florist shop in Clayton in 1918, when he was 44. Likely at his side in that endeavor, according to Times files, were his wife, Maybelle, their daughter, Ethelwyn, and 13-year-old Harold L. Gray.
Harold picked up the family tradition and attended the Wharton School of Business and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and was ready in 1930 to look for an opportunity.
The business card of Frank Burton Gray, who opened a greenhouse and florist shop in Clayton in 1918. Chris Brock/Watertown Daily Times
He found it in Carthage, where widow Mary Klein was looking to unload the business her late husband, Charles, created in 1924. He became ill in 1928, and died on Aug. 29, at 51. Harold Gray was hired to manage the shop and later bought the business.
Burton apparently saw more fertile opportunities in Carthage, with its paper mills, the railroad and lumberjacks. The senior florist sold his business in Clayton in 1933 and moved to Carthage to partner with his son. Meanwhile, he often took his grandson Robert to the islands near Clayton to do landscaping for old customers — the resort hotels and large estates.
Until Nov. 20, 1946, there were three generations of Grays involved in the business. Robert L. Gray, Scott’s father, was 14 when his grandfather died. Scott’s first job was filling water picks (small, plastic tubes designed to keep single-stem flowers hydrated) for his grandfather, at 2 cents a tube.
After establishing a site in Watertown, the business returned to its roots by establishing a Clayton location in 1999, all while offering daily delivery service to customers across the region, including Fort Drum’s military community.
Scott earned an associate degree in agriculture at Cobleskill Agricultural and Technical College in 1982, and followed his family tradition. He became president when the business incorporated in 1993, and a 50-50 partner with his father. Robert died in 2005.
“My father opened up here in 1971,” Gray said of the State Street location. “I joined him in 1981.”
Before Gray’s Flower Shop, Bennett & Sons blossomed for years in Watertown. It was established in 1883 by English immigrant Fred A. Bennett, growing from one greenhouse to 11 greenhouses, covering an area of 30 square feet, according to a 1923 Times story. This advertisement is from 1913. The family business declared bankruptcy in 1929.
At the time, Gray’s was one of seven flower shops in the city — with all but one, operating their own greenhouse. Gray easily ticked off the names of the six other shops: Chapin’s, Sammy’s, Castro’s, Tubilino’s, which later became Distefano’s, New York Florists and Hutchin’s.
“Now, there’s three,” Gray said. “There was a point in time, there was just us. We survived them all.”
‘Fluid’ building status
Gray’s Flower Shop announced in July that it will be closing. Scott Gray said on Tuesday that the actual closing date of the store, originally set for Monday, has become fluid since that announcement. Jonathan Wheeler/Watertown Daily Times
The State Street store was originally set to close on Monday, but that has changed. On Wednesday, the Gray’s Flower Shop Facebook page noted, “A clearance sale is going on until everything is done.”
There’s another factor related to the initial plan to close. “I think the date is fluid right now,” Gray said on Tuesday. “It’s fluid because we just don’t know what the situation is.”
The situation may involve another floral business operating out of the current Gray’s building. “Now, we have a sense of, ‘What do we do?’” Gray said. “My original thought was to just let the business sunset. It’s had a good ride. Let it go out on its own — not sell to anybody. But if someone wanted to operate out of here, I would sell the real estate and let them put their own name on it. They could even maintain our phone number if they’d like to.”
The Times contacted two other floral firms in the Watertown area this week, seeking comments on the state of the local industry. Both declined to comment.
Too much ‘fulfillment’
One aspect that was a thorn in the side of Gray for the past few decades had been the status of the business as a “fulfillment center.”
“There’s the consumer, and then what we call in the industry, the order gatherers,” he explained. “And then, there’s the fulfillment center. Instead of the consumer coming directly to us, a third person was put in there — a middle man. They not only charged the consumer a significant fee for orders, they also charged us to receive the orders. They were profiting from us, and the consumer. In my opinion, that’s not a good business model.”
That business model “worked OK” for a while, Gray said. “We had a fair mix of national companies paying us, and local customers. And then it all started to get out of balance on the national market, and those vendors gave us a haircut, if you will.”
In the 1990s, Gray became heavily involved in the Young Owner/Managers Advisory Committee of the Florist Transworld Delivery Association. At one point, he was chairman. “I was vocal in the industry, saying we were cannibalizing our own business.”
The order gatherers, Gray said, would also be a master at working the internet search engines.
“For instance, if you used, say, Google, and put in ‘Watertown NY florists,’ it would say Gray’s Flowers, but they would co-op our name to get that order. It was really deceptive. People had the thought they were dealing with us directly, but they were dealing with a third party.”
At one time, the only way to send flowers out of town was to contact your local florist. “We had a directory of all the florists in the U.S. and we would pick a florist out of the requested area, and we would transmit that order to them,” Gray said. “The directory was 3 to 4 inches thick. That will tell you how much the business has changed.”
The Grays responded to the calls — from work and from home.
“My grandmother had an extension, not only one right next to her kitchen, but one in her bedroom. Any time the phone rang, she answered it. It didn’t matter what time of day. She was old-style customer service,” Gray said. “My whole sense of service, whether it’s been customer service or public service, was nurtured from my grandmother and grandfather, through my father, onto me.”
Aggressive buyers
Gray said his family was “aggressive” in purchasing flowers, especially from the west coast. He also purchased flowers from Holland and through brokers in Miami, who shipped out of South America.
Scott and his wife, Denise Gray, at Gray’s Flower Shop, Watertown. Chris Brock/Watertown Daily Times
“Those were the three main points. There were also local growers and Canadian growers,” he said.
Eventually, greenhouses in the Northeast, also a source, began to close, a cause Gray credited to the rising costs of utilities.
“You had to be resourceful in buying. We also used to buy from suppliers in Albany,” Gray said. “They were shipped by Greyhound bus. We’d have to go at 8 at night to the Watertown bus station to pick them up.”
Later, those trips were diverted to the Syracuse airport as air transportation became the preferred way to ship flowers.
Customs lost their bloom
Gray has also witnessed the change in habits and customs of when people purchase flowers.
“Easter and Mother’s Day were the big holidays,” Gray said. “Everybody got dressed up and wore flowers to church. As time moved on and people got less oriented toward religion, the business shifted from Easter. Valentine’s Day was zero, a blip when I was a kid. But it became the mammoth holiday. On Valentine’s Days and Mother’s Days, there were times when we worked right around the clock, preparing orders and getting the store ready. We would do five times our normal business.”
Over the years, the practice of buying flowers at stand-alone businesses has changed. From a single flower to large arrangements, they can be found from the local convenience store to supermarkets.
Gray said that years ago when the city had several florists to choose from, a consumer often selected one based on their religion.
“Florists were separated by Catholics and Protestants. We built our business on the Protestant side of Watertown. Doing business with First Presbyterian was one of the initial churches that we did business with,” he said. “That’s the way people looked at things, saying ‘They are a Catholic florist, or Protestant. It’s the same way they looked at funeral homes. Everything was guided by religion.”
And at those funeral homes, fewer flowers began arriving for services, which also impacted florists in the city.
“Back then, two sets of calling hours were popular. That’s primarily why we were open seven days a week. Sometimes, Sundays would be our busiest day. My father and I would be chugging along at it,” he said. “Our philosophy was, ‘If we were there on Sundays when people needed us, they would come back Mondays through Saturdays.’”
That buzz of the busy State Street floral shop is now history. Gray said the “great employees” over the years and loyal customers was the mix that made it a success.
“It was an agonizing decision,” Gray said of the closure. “it took a long time to make it. It wasn’t a snap decision by any stretch of the imagination. After 107 years, you don’t just turn around and say, ‘We’re done.’ There’s no question it’s bittersweet.”
He added, “I’m forever grateful to the community and for everything they’ve done for my family since I was growing up in this business. They’ve always supported us. Our business has always worked hard for our consumers.”
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