August 1900 - August 10, 1900 (Friday)

August 10, 1900 (Friday)

• Milton S. Hershey got out of the business of making caramel candy, selling his Lancaster Caramel Company to investor Daniel F. Lafean for one million dollars in cash. Hershey and his attorney, John Snyder, turned down initial offers for a merger, then for $500,000 and finally for $900,000 cash and $100,000 stock before sealing the deal in Provdence, Rhode Island, at 11:00 in the morning. With the infusion of capital, The Hershey Company built a factory in Derry Church, Pennsylvania and created the largest chocolate manufacturer in America, with sales of five billion dollars a year by 2007.
• A plot to kidnap Lord Roberts was foiled as the ringleaders were arrested in Pretoria. Hans Cordua was the only one of the perpretrators to be executed, dying before a firing squad on August 24.
• Charles Russell, Baron Russell of Killowen, the Lord Chief Justice of England, died at the age 67, following surgery the day before for "gastric catarrh".
• Born: Norma Shearer, film actress, born Edith Norma Shearer in Montreal (d. 1983); and Arthur Espie Porritt, Governor General of New Zealand 1967–72, Olympic medalist 1924; in Wanganui; (d. 1994)