Celebrating 142 years of service to the bag trade, the Halsted Corporation is one of the nation’s oldest bag companies. Started in 1876 as a bag manufacturing business by E.S. Halsted, the Halsted Bag factory was located in downtown Manhattan. For more than one hundred years, Halsted specialized in manufacturing bags for all trades – from potato sacks used by local farmers to burlap sandbags found in military bunkers during Vietnam.
In 1927, with the Halsted name growing throughout the industry, Mr. Halsted sensed the need to expand the manufacturing facility. He purchased land in Jersey City, New Jersey and built the 45,000 square foot factory where the Halsted Bag Corporation remained until 2016. With the new facility producing more than two thousand bags per hour, a 1929 edition of Bags Magazine named Halsted, “one of the most up to date bag plants in the country.”
In 1944, Mr. Halsted hired Henry Jaszewski as an assistant bookkeeper. Although only a part-time position, Henry managed to form a close relationship with Mr. Halsted and worked his way up the ranks over the next thirty years – to assistant treasurer, vice president, and ultimately president and part owner. When Mr. Halsted passed away in 1974, Henry assumed sole ownership of Halsted.
Under Henry’s leadership, the Halsted Corporation expanded nationally, as it began servicing bag suppliers outside the New York metropolitan area for the very first time. Halsted’s manufacturing developed from mostly sack and burlap products to include both wholesale woven polypropylene bags and cotton bags.
In 1977, Henry was joined by his son-in-law, Michael Murphy. Recognizing the need to stay competitive in a changing global market, Henry and Michael soon began the practice of importing polypropylene bags from factories overseas. To date, Halsted has formed partnerships with factories in Bangladesh, India, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Korea. These relationships are critical to Halsted’s unique ability to get our customer the most competitive price available.
In 2016, Halsted moved its headquarters to a state-of-the-art warehousing facility in Cranbury, New Jersey where it remains today. With nearly 100,000 sq. feet of space, the facility has allowed for a significant expansion of products and services including sandbags and a variety of bulk bag options.
