When W.T. Patrick set up his Hampton general store in 1895, he was open to selling anything.
The shop initially offered odds and ends, such as ladies’ boots and hat pins. Later it sold cars, had a grease pit and even tried to hawk condoms.
“So, my grandfather wrote the Youngs Rubbers Company, they sold Trojan rubbers,” Cary Patrick, Jr. said, referring to a letter that’s now framed and hangs on the wall. “It was like two days later the response came back. Said they only sold to authorize pharmacists. We were a drug store, but not registered pharmacists.”
The business eventually found its niche ? hardware. It’s something the Patrick family has done exceedingly well.
The West Queen Street fixture was poised to celebrate its 125-year anniversary with patrons at the end of March, but that will be postponed because of the 10-person limit on gatherings due to the coronavirus, he said.
“We are open, but with this situation, it’s probably wise to delay it,” Patrick said Saturday. “We still have a lot of people working and have been fairly busy and will stay open unless the situation changes.”
Since opening, Patrick’s Hardware has expanded to include a custom glass service with a separate location called Patrick’s Glass, exactly 100 years after the main business opened. Located on Armistead Avenue, the branch began in a back room of the 100,000 square-foot original building.
Patrick runs the business, which sells hardware supplies, lawn and garden and paint, bikes and keys and such, along with sons, Cary Patrick III and Ryan Patrick. The family also runs a glass business in Norfolk.
After four generations, and surviving the big-box retailer invasion, Patrick says the secret to success is the same as it was from the day his grandfather opened.
“We just treat customers like family, and this is a very, very simple philosophy, how we operate, it’s just, treat people how you want to be treated, so it’s nothing complicated,” Patrick said.
The work ethic was mighty, with the family often working long hours.
Patrick joined the business fresh out of college in 1976.
“They told me when I started working that vacation meant you were sick and retirement meant you were dead,” he said. “That was probably passed down from the first guy.”
As customers mill throughout the space, searching for hardware items, the store has a few relics laying around and an odd collection of items not for sale ? antique farm tools, thick catalog books, even a stuffed fox and raccoon. Many of these items are place inside an old massive bookcase, inherited from a Hampton apothecary, Patrick said.
A lingering odor wafts through the store Patrick said it’a likely from when the company sold creosote or turpentine that was kept in 55-gallon drums, he said.
In addition to his sons, Patrick employees some six salesclerks and a couple of bookkeepers, many of whom have been with the business for more than two decades.
“It’s a great compliment to your staff when … the customer wants … your employees to wait on them instead of you,” he said.
Lee’s corner
Revitalization is coming to the Olde Hampton neighborhood.
New homes are cropping up in the area and housing values are on the uptick, a positive effect from nearly $50 million in investments by the Hampton Redevelopment and Housing Authority since 2005.
A vacant lot across the street from Patrick’s Hardware is slated for 24 new homes – to be called Queens River.
But for at least a decade or longer, the neighborhood bounded by Settlers Landing Road, Armistead, West Pembroke and LaSalle avenue had been synonymous with blight and disinvestment. Redevelopment that came through during the 1960s and 1970s is largely the cause of that.
Today, Patrick’s Hardware is a loner at the corner of Back River Road and Queen Street. Charles Marshall, 80, grew up in the neighborhood and remembers when it thrived with multiple businesses.
Back in the heyday of the 1940s and 50s, locals called the intersection of Queens Street and Back River, Lee’s corner, Marshall said. It was named for a grocery store called R.C. Lee, right across from Patrick’s Hardware. Its name was engraved in the sidewalk.
Patrick’s Hardware and Glass in Hampton. It’s a father and two sons. Patrick’s Hardware business has been around since 1895 started by Cary Patrick’s grandfather.
“He had … a big two-story building. If you stood on the Patrick side, you could the engraving on the sidewalk, plus it was engraved on the top of the building,” Marshall said. “On the side where the bus stop was, the engraving was in red letters.”
The neighborhood had a few grocery stores, a fish market, a pool hall and a black-owned restaurant called “The Rush,” he said.
“It was a close-knit neighborhood, and everyone knew everyone, and everyone looked out for everybody. Between the grocery stores and W.T., it was the heart of the neighborhood,” Marshall said. “My grandfather worked there for over 50 years. Everything on Queens Street is gone except W.T. Patrick’s.”
Carolyn Mann, 76, also fondly remembers Lee’s corner and Patrick’s from her youth
“We knew that they were white, but they treated us as equals, so that’s why the black community supported them,” Mann said. “A lot of young people … worked part-time for Mr. Patrick. A lot of people who grew up in the area, go back. It’s just a unique store.”
Patrick said the goal is to have repeat business and to do that you need to treat people well.
“(My grandfather) would extend credit to both blacks and whites with a handshake,” he said. “Back in those days a handshake was as good as their word, a handshake was their bond.”
Lisa Vernon Sparks, 757-247-4832, lvernonsparks@dailypress.com
