Imagine that you’re going on a vacation. You have a travel razor to shave with. You probably have a travel brush too. But do you have a folding barber’s chair and stool? No? Then how can you be shaved in style while traveling?

Fear not; Henry Remick have patented a handy, folding chair and stool for barbers (and also dentists and so on). It also came with a telescoping barber pole, because… because why not, I guess.

Of course, it is worth keeping in mind that Henry patented his chair and stool back in 1865, a time when moving furniture was less easy than it is today. So if you were planning to move your shop around, or were going out west, or just needed things shipped a long way, it made sense to have a barber’s chair that was easy to move. And it was an added bonus that everything you needed to run your business could be stored in the chair and stool.

Well, everything except the skill of shaving others, that is. You had to learn that somehow.

The invention consisted of a chair, a stool, and a mirror. As can be seen from the drawing, the mirror is attached to the stool. In the chair there various drawers and cupboards. Or as the patent text puts it;

…the body of the chair is provided with receptacles for a supply of hot and cold water, implements of trade, washing apparatus, money drawer, and other closets.

In short, Henry saw his chair and stool as a one-stop-shop for running a barbershop. In not-so-short.. well, let us turn to the patent text again:

The back of the chair is provided with several closets or receptacles, each having a door properly hinged and furnished with stays to prevent them from falling down too low.
The closets L M are made for receiving any articles or implements which need a place of deposit. The closet N is a place for depositing a wash-bowl and other articles of a toilet, its door being double, and the inner leaf there of, which is hinged to the edge of the main part, being provided with an opening for the bottom of the bowl. K is a closet for holding paper, documents, and writing materials, and its door can be swung down and held at such an inclination as to form a convenient desk. The sides of the chair are also provided with receptacles for different uses, to wit: A receptacle, C, with a door, B. Part of this receptacle is divided by many partitions (designated by the letter B) to provide places for brushes, razors, soap, and other articles used in the tonsorial art. It also contains a vessel, D, for hot water and a lamp, E, beneath said vessel, for heating the Water. B’ is a vessel placed in an adjoining division to that containing the vessel D, and supplied from the latter by means of a faucet. Over the vessel F is a soap-dish, G, and over that a place for powder. I is a money-drawer, sliding in and out on the same side of the chair which has the receptacle C. The opposite side of the chair (see Fig. 2) has a receptacle, d, for cold water and for bottles, drugs, medicines, &c.

The chair had legs that folded up tight, and the stool could be disassembled into reasonable small pieces. This way the whole setup could be packed up in an as small as possible crate, and brought on to the next place of business.

You can read the whole patent for Henry’s fold up barbershop at Google Patents.