I still call it by its old name. I know, people will think me old-fashioned, longing for a world that no longer exists. But when I drive by Huhtamaki’s expansive buildings along Route 481 on the south side of Fulton, I think of the days when the name Sealright stood proudly atop those buildings, signifying a successful industry in our city, one that earned respect from around the world.

Perhaps some of my nostalgia comes from the fact that my father, Silvio Farfaglia, worked his whole adult life at Sealright; 40-plus years. Dad started while still in high school, in the company’s Sleeving Department, where he stacked thousands of paper containers that rolled off production lines each day. Back then, if you proved yourself, you could advance in a company, and that’s what Dad did. He started driving a tow motor and then became a machinist. When he turned forty, he enrolled in some engineering classes at SU to become a mechanical engineer. That’s the job he did until his retirement: designing and troubleshooting the machines that pumped out all those containers the company was producing.

If you like ice cream, you’ll recognize the names on some of those containers: Ben and Jerry’s, Turkey Hill, Central Market and Edy’s. But Sealright produced many more products than those that held our favorite ice creams. In fact, our factory in Fulton was responsible for a unique container that revolutionized how perishable goods were delivered to people. But the company’s beginnings were humbler.

Sealright’s history started in 1886, when a mill owner from Skaneateles, Forrest G. Weeks, formed the Oswego Falls Pulp and Paper Company, located on the east side of the Oswego River, where the city of Fulton would one day incorporate. Weeks erected a mill and started bringing in pulpwood to create products like newsprint, wallpaper, wrapping paper, and the company’s specialty, something known as Fulton Board, a cylindrical paper used for packaging.

Along came Dr. Wilbur Wright and Eugene Skinner, who bought the company from Weeks and formed the Sealright Container Company in 1917. At first, the factory focused on goods such as milk bottle caps and megaphones, but the product development department regularly tested innovative ideas, and by the 1930s Sealright had patented a process to plastic coat paper containers. This was a radically different way for dairy products to be packaged and by the end of World War II much of our nation and the world were getting their milk delivered in Sealright-made plastic-coated cartons.

It was variations on that coated paper container that drove Sealright’s ongoing success. My father worked for many years fine-tuning the fast-moving machines that mass-produced those containers. I remember Dad bringing home some samples of new products that were going to be packaged in Sealright–made containers. Two that stand out in my mind are Lipton’s Cup-a-Soup and Pringles Potato Chips. Imagine being a kid and seeing for the first time potato chips neatly stacked in a tall cylinder. I thought my dad was a genius!

As often happens with small locally-based industries, Sealright eventually was acquired by a larger company. Phillips Petroleum took over, although they allowed the former management to continue running its day-to-day operations. Fulton became the eastern division of Sealright, which was now controlled by an office in Kansas City that was closer to Phillips’ headquarters in Oklahoma.

In 1983, the 450 Sealright employees banded together to purchase the company from Phillips. But economic times were tough, and finally the local plant was purchased by Huhtamaki, a company from Finland. Fulton is fortunate that Huhtamaki has consistently supported its plant, which continues to thrive today. Drive by its long buildings and notice the large signs advertising well-paying positions, offering a sense of job security for the 600 employees who work there today.

I’m glad that Huhtamaki has kept its faith in our city and workers, but I’m equally happy that we have a proud history of one the many industries that once powered Fulton. I’ve made friends with another history “buff,” Dave Coant, who’s worked in those warehouse buildings for over thirty years, stretching his knowledge of the factory from present day Huhtamaki to the good old days of Sealright.

Dave has closely studied his employer’s history and often shares pieces of it with me and others. And Dave and I have something else in common. His father, Estus Coant, worked at Sealright too. So when Dave wrote the following about his dad, I was thankful for the company that gave my father meaningful work and good pay all those years.

“In my dad’s time, employees were paid in cash by a paymaster once a week. The amount of their pay was based on piecework because, in Sealright’s early history, incentives were paid for the amount of product made or the footage of paper printed or slit.”

Dave goes on to share how Fulton workers spent their pay right in their hometown. “Shortly after receiving our checks, we of the Sealright family would make sure some of those dollars stayed local in places such as Chubbys and Muskies. Some employees might belong to the Sealright Recreation Club, a private, members-only organization. Dues for the club were taken out of paychecks. The club has always been located just north of the factory on Broadway and houses a bar and bowling alley downstairs.”

Dave’s memories reminded me of something else I know about my dad, who told us kids that his first job was setting pins at the Sealright bowling alley. He was only 12 or 13 years old and he said he made a couple nickels a night, but for a Depression-era kid, that was real money. I like to think of his meager compensation as “money in the bank” for my father, who would one day join the Sealright family and carry out his life’s work.

I’d like to thank Dave Coant for his memories, and also Richard Hale, who wrote a comprehensive overview of Sealright and many other Fulton industries for the Fulton Historical Society/Pratt House, for contributing to this article. Thanks for giving me good reasons to be so proud of my father.