The average company is said to only last 10 years, according to a study from the Santa Fe Institute in the US, but many American companies have survived hundreds of years, some from before the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Click or scroll through some of the longest-lasting businesses that are still active in America today.

Henry Sands Brooks opened his first store in 1818, which was the first American shop dedicated to ready-to-wear fashion. H. & D.H. Brooks & Co.'s quality menswear was then left to his sons, who renamed the brand to Brooks Brothers in 1850 and led the brand through many highs, including the mass adoption of the button-down polo shirt, a classic piece still synonymous with the brand today.

The store has dressed 39 out of 44 sitting US presidents including Barack Obama (the topcoat and scarf he wore on his inauguration were from Brooks Brothers). More than two centuries after its founding, the company has been facing difficulties during the coronavirus pandemic and filed for bankruptcy protection in July. Brand management firm Authentic Brands and shopping centre owner Simon Property have now acquired the company and, while it isn't in quite the tip-top shape that it was, 125 of the 200 stores will remain open under the new management.

In 1818 Joseph Breck (pictured) founded Breck's Flowers, a family-owned garden supply business. It started with a garden store in Boston, Massachussets but quickly became a catalogue-based business after the first catalogue, released in 1840, saw huge success.

Just over 200 years later, business is in full bloom, with Breck's Flowers being the largest direct-to-consumer Dutch bulb importer in the world. The journey hasn’t all been rosy, though, as in 2001 Breck’s' parent company, Foster & Gallagher, went bust and Breck's was acquired by Gardens Alive!, a multi-title garden catalogue company.

A young potter, Jacob Lewis, founded Lewis Pottery in 1815 on the edge of the Ohio River. Good timing led to great demand as immigrants travelling around America used his stoneware to transport food so that rats couldn't get to their cargo. The company survives, however it has changed hands several times.

Louisville Stoneware is still alive and kicking, although it fell on difficult times in March 2007, when owner Christina Lee Brown retired and reportedly the majority of its employees were laid off. The company was sold to Two Stone, Inc in July that year, which has been reviving and expanding it ever since.

John Wiley & Sons was actually founded by John's father Charles in 1807. Charles's publishing empire began with printing and then a Wall Street bookshop. The roots of the company's success grew from the fact that Charles was part of the New York literary scene, holding meetings with writers in the back room of his bookstore, known as 'The Den'. John took over the family business in 1829, after his father's death, and expanded the business abroad, and it's still ticking over today.

Students and academics will be familiar with John Wiley & Sons – now shortened to just Wiley – as it’s one of the world’s largest publishing companies. The publisher specialises in academic materials and has 23 imprints including The Culinary Institute of America and Bloomberg Press, as well as publishing the works of more than 450 Nobel Laureates throughout its history. Unlike most companies, Wiley has seen a boom in sales during the pandemic thanks to online research becoming pivotal as access to in-person facilities is restricted.

In 1806 British-born William Colgate opened a starch, soap and candles business in Manhattan, New York at the age of just 23. However, it was in 1873 that the first own-brand Colgate toothpaste was sold in a jar. In 1896, the company was the first to sell toothpaste in a tube.

Wander down the dental aisle of any drugstore in the country and you’re sure to find a tube of Colgate, which has long been a top-selling brand worldwide and is sold in nearly 200 countries. After being bought by Palmolive soap company in 1928 it’s formally known as Colgate-Palmolive, although sales of oral care products make up almost half of all sales.

The French Revolution drove E.I. du Pont to America from France in 1799. It was here that the chemist, who had studied explosive production techniques under noted French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, founded his chemicals company in 1802. It first developed explosive powder and later dynamite, which remained its main products until the turn of the 20th century.

Nowadays, DuPont is a global provider of an array of chemicals and materials, from Fabrikoid (artificial leather) to Teflon (non-stick covering for cooking utensils). The company has shifted its gaze to sustainability in recent years with the development of products including corn-based bio-fuels and biodegradable ingredients for cosmetics. 

Since 1796 Shreve, Crump & Low has been selling jewellery, watches and fine homeware to those who can afford it – Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton got their wedding rings engraved at the jewellers in 1965. The company began in 1796 when silversmith John McFarlane opened his workshop across from Paul Revere's silversmith shop.

While there have been some comings and goings, the family-owned business is still thriving. Those with expensive tastes can visit the designer store in one of its two locations: Downtown Boston or Greenwich, Connecticut. The jeweller has moved into the modern age – and expanded its market beyond the northeast – by moving online, proving that a historic business can be more than capable of keeping up with the times.

When Jacob Beam moved to Kentucky he started making corn whiskey based on his German father's recipe. In 1795 he sold his first barrel, called Old Jake Beam Sour Mash, and since then the company has passed through seven generations.

That said, while it is still produced in Kentucky, Jim Beam has been owned by Japanese alcohol-producer Suntory Holdings since 2014. The $16 billion (£12.3bn) purchase saw Suntory renamed to Beam Suntory, and a recent boom in demand for bourbon helped the company to increase revenues by 6.5% in 2019, although tariffs on EU imports and South Korea's boycotting of Japanese products did cause a dent to profits.

On 17 May 1792, 24 stockbrokers signed The Buttonwood Agreement on Wall Street, launching the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). It wasn't until 1865 that the NYSE settled in its present location at 11 Wall Street, after more than seven decades of fast expansion that allowed New York to cement its position as the new financial centre of the US.

Nowadays, the NYSE is considered the world’s largest equities-based exchange, although it has held onto tradition. Trading hours are between 9.30am and 4.00pm Eastern Time every day and are signalled by an ‘opening bell’ and ‘closing bell’, a practice which has existed since the 1870s. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 triggered volatility in the markets and the circuit breakers used to stop panic trading were launched four times in March alone. The trading floor itself had to close in March 2020 because of the pandemic, with trading moving online. However, the trading floor reopened in May.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft traces back its roots to 1792 when John Wells started practising law in New York. The oldest Wall Street law firm to continue practising, it took its name of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in 1914 after other partners had joined.

Today, it’s a prominent international law firm which represents a number of high-profile clients, including Fortune 500 companies and leading financial institutions. The firm currently has its offices at 100 Maiden Lane in New York (pictured), which it bought in 1984 – marking a highly unusual move for a law firm to purchase and occupy its own building. While the pandemic has not closed the business, COVID-19 did lead the firm to cut pay by 25% for associate and administrative staff. Pay was restored to pre-pandemic levels at the end of July.

America's first flour company was founded by Henry Wood, who came over from England to New England and launched Henry Wood & Company on Boston's Long Wharf. Initially Wood imported English flour, but that changed in the 1820s when American wheat farming began to flourish. Since 1896, the flour has been known as King Arthur Flour, due to a change of recipe which was said to give the mix Arthurian attributes of "purity... superior strength, and a dedication to a higher purpose".

Playing a pivotal role in the American flour industry, this company is hardly run of the mill. Expansion in the 1960s led King Arthur Flour to become the largest bakery supply distributor in New England. In a landmark move, the company was sold to its employees in 2004, making them all partners in the business. It’s kept up with the times, though, launching a range of gluten-free products including coconut and almond flours and free-from brownie mixes in recent years. America's oldest flour company struggled to meet demand during the peak of the pandemic, which has really kept business booming.

Mere months after British troops had finally left America following the Revolutionary War, lawyers and merchants rallied together to create a bank, which began with $500,000 capital, which is the equivalent of more than $13 million (£10m) in today's money. And none other than Alexander Hamilton – future US Secretary of the Treasury – singlehandedly wrote the bank's constitution, although at that time it was known as The Bank of New York.

It wasn’t until nine years ago that the name BNY Mellon was coined, as a result of a $16.5 billion (£12.7bn) merger between The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation in July 2007. It’s now one of the 10 largest asset managers in the world, connecting with investors in more than 35 countries and with more than $37.3 trillion (£29tn) in assets under management as of 30 June 2020.

America's oldest distiller Laird & Company was founded by Alexander Laird, who travelled from Fife, Scotland to New Jersey in 1698. He began by making Applejack from the abundant crop of apples in the area for himself and friends, and this soon developed into a distillery in 1717, which was located behind a local inn. In 1780, the first commercial transaction was recorded.

Despite a hiatus in production due to Prohibition, the Laird family has been producing Apple Brandy ever since. Eight generations down the line, the company is headed up by Larrie W Laird, with a production capacity of three million cases annually. The family recipe hasn’t changed too much either: Applejack is still produced to 86 proof and requires 17lb of apples for every bottle. Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

In 1770 Stephen Crane opened his first paper mill five miles south of Boston, just two years after the end of British occupation. Since then the business has grown, and its paper has been used for stationery, government proclamations, stocks and bonds, and not forgetting American banknotes since 1879.

Today, the company specialises in personalised stationery, business cards and wedding invitations. With collaborations with Vera Wang’s paper designer and eco-friendly, 100% cotton paper attracting forward-thinking fans, Crane & Co. looks set to continue its success in the 21st century, particularly right now as stationery sales continue to thrive during the pandemic.

Founded in 1752 in Newport, Rhode Island, Caswell-Massey describes itself as America's original apothecary and perfumery. And it's not just famous for its longevity. The brand's scents, such as Elixir of Love No. 1 and Jockey Club, have had a famous following over the years, including JFK and Jacqueline Onassis, Lauren Bacall, and even the Rolling Stones.

Tradition and luxury are all part of Caswell-Massey’s signature scent. To create perfume blends for customers in the 70s, profiles were created based on their likes, favourite colours and pastimes as well as physical attributes like shape and size. It might sound like a ridiculous process, but many of these perfume blends became the starting point for the company’s most popular fragrances today.

The Rowland company was founded by Benjamin Rowland over 300 years ago when he began manufacturing and selling tools. In the early 1950s the Rowland family sold the business, which by that time had branch locations in Florida and Atlanta, Georgia. 

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Today, as well as manufacturing tools, The Rowland Company also creates industrial power transmission products such as breaks and clutches that are distributed to, among others, the energy, theme park and construction industries.

This stone-carving workshop in Rhode Island has been involved in its fair share of historical projects, including lettering the inscription on the National Mall in Washington DC (pictured). Fine-tuning the stone carving practice over the course of the past 300-plus years, the company still uses many traditional techniques today.

Former business owner John Benson was taught the stone carving craft by his father at the age of 15 and has since carved gravestones for the likes of Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellamn and George Ballanchine – as well as creating inscriptions for the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King memorials. The business was taken over by John's son Nicholas in 1993, keeping the centuries-old store in the family.

Newport was a place of harsh living in the colonial 17th century, with its long winters without heat or electricity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, taverns played a vital role in bringing people together to share warmth, food and drink. The White Horse opened in 1673 when it was acquired by William Mayer, Sr., and is still in operation today, making it the oldest operating restaurant in America and the 10th oldest in the world.

Nowadays, visitors can eat and drink in the knowledge that they are sharing history with the colonialists and pirates who came before them. The tavern came under its ninth set of owners in 2014 when it was acquired by a Newport-based group. The menu has had a bit of a makeover, serving upmarket dishes such as lobster salad and truffle fries, alongside traditional favourites like clam chowder.

The oldest inn in America sits at the head of the Kennebunk River in Maine. Opened by John Gooch in around 1660, who was sent to America to help settle Maine as a colony, the inn has 22 rooms, and is still in the family nine generations later.

Discover more of the world's most historic inns, bars and taverns on loveFOOD.com

As well as being the oldest family-run inn in the US, according to Family Business Magazine, current innkeeper Trish Mason has written a book about the inn’s history, detailing its peaks and troughs throughout the ages. Today, an oceanfront standard room with capacity for four people will set you back around $269 (£208) a night in high season or $129 (£100) a night in low season.

Shirley Plantation in Virginia is America's oldest farm, and the 700-acre plot is still a working plantation. But it has a deeply troubled colonial history as a key player in the slave trade. In 1787 its owner Charles Carter owned 785 enslaved people across 10 countries, 201 of whom were based at Shirley, making him the largest slave-owner in Virginia at the time. When slavery was abolished in 1865, many former enslaved people remained at Shirley and became paid farmers.

The humble beginnings of some of the world's biggest businesses

The family-owned business has been home to 11 generations of the Hill Carter family and now, alongside its farming roots, the National Historic Landmark also draws income from tourism, with tourists coming to learn about the history of the Great House (pictured), which was completed in 1738.

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