Charles F. Seabrook
Charles Franklin Seabrook (28 May 1881 – 1964), known professionally as C.F. Seabrook, was an American businessman and owner of Seabrook Farms, a family-owned frozen vegetable packing plant in New Jersey that at one point was the largest irrigated truck farm in the world. Seabrook Farms became famous for recruiting Japanese Americans from internment camps beginning in January 1944 and other immigrants displaced from World War II. He was nicknamed the "Henry Ford of agriculture" by B.C. Forbes, the founder of Forbes magazine, and the town of Seabrook, New Jersey is named after him. Early life Seabrook was born in Cumberland County, New Jersey to parents Aurthur P. and Elizabeth (known as "Riley") Seabrook. His father was an Englishman who started an unnamed farm truck in 1870. In 1893, his father bought a piece of land in Upper Deerfield to expand his farming business. C.F. Seabrook left school at the age of 12 to work as a farmhand for his father's farm in Upper Deerfield, Cumberland County. He is often described as a "reluctant farmer", who had interests in engineering instead. Career During the early 1920s, he briefly worked overseas in Europe as an engineering consultant for civil projects. Seabrook Farms At the age of 14, Seabrook was an early proponent of novel irrigation methods in farming. He installed a single pipe with punched holes that fed water droplets over a celery bed in 1907 that increased production by approximately 300% and continued to be used until the mid-1930s. In the 1910s, C.F. bought his father's farm and had it incorporated in 1913. The farm briefly was sold and renamed Del Bay Farms in 1919; however, Seabrook bought back ownership as well as a local cannery business. He was instrumental in the creation of highways that linked New Jersey to larger cities where his produce was sold, such as Philadelphia and New York City. Seabrook expanded his father's business of growing and selling fresh vegetables by buying out surrounding plots of land. In the 1930s, he expanded the company to include the production of canned and frozen vegetables. His frozen food venture led to a partnership with Clarence Birdseye. By the 1940s, Seabrook was operating one of the largest farm and food businesses in the United States. At its height, it was producing agriculture on over 54,000 acres of land across three states and employing over 4,000 workers. The company also pioneered the use of gasoline-powered tractors and trucks. Seabrook Farms became the supplier of frozen food for General Foods Corporation under their Birdseye brand, and under this name began supplying food for national and international markets. Seabrook had previously filled labor shortages with people of diverse backgrounds from the United States, including Italian immigrants and southern African Americans. During the Second World War, Seabrook worked with the War Relocation Authority to employ Japanese Americans released from internment camps. These laborers helped fill government orders of food to feed the troops overseas. After one year, over 1,000 Japanese Americans had