USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Part II > Part 4
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Having begun the manufacture of the machine the next step was to introduce it to the public. Mr. Wheeler took one of the machines to O. F. Winchester, now at the head of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, then largely en-
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gaged in the manufacture of shirts at New Haven, Conn. Mr. Winchester refused even to try it ; but Mr. Wheeler had a shirt made wholly on the machine, Mr. Wilson's wife being the
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THE ORIGINAL WHEELER AND WILSON SEWING MACHINE AS CONSTRUCTED IN 1852.
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operator; whereupon Mr. Winchester, struck by the beauty of the work, at once purchased the right in the machine for the county of New Haven. Mr. Wheeler then carried two of the machines to Troy, N. Y., and left them with J. Gardner, a leading shirt manufacturer there. After a trial of them for three weeks Mr. Gardner came to Watertown and purchased the one-half right to sell the machine in Rensselaer County, N. Y., for $3,000. Mr. Wheeler now devoted himself to the introduction of the machine, especially in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Several hundred machines had been sold when, in October, 1853, the Wheeler and Wilson Manufactur- ing Company was organized. The business now had become so well established that various parties desired to obtain an interest in it, and a proposition was made to Messrs. Wheeler, Wilson and Co. that a joint stock company should be organ- ized, with a capital of $160,000, of which $100,000 was to be allowed for the patent, and $60,000 for the factory and machin- ery. The firm, meanwhile, engaged to sell stock to outside parties to the amount of $70,000, at par. The parties who subscribed for the stock gave their notes, which, however, they were not called on to pay, the dividends from the earn- ings of the company liquidating them as they became due.
Mr. Wilson at this time retired from active participation in the business, while in consideration of the value of his inventions, he received a regular salary, without personal service, and considerable sums of money on the renewal of his patents. He has resided at Waterbury since 1863, where - he owns an estate of some twenty-five acres, with a commodi- ous residence. Among his out buildings is a shop well fur- nished with tools and machinery for working in wood and metals, affording him ample facilities for the gratification of his mechanical taste. Here he has perfected several inven- tions. On the 19th of December, 1854, he patented his four- motion feed, whereby the flat, toothed surface, being in con- tact with the cloth, is moved forward, carrying the cloth with it, then drops a little, so as not to touch the cloth, then moves backward, then rises up against the cloth, and is again ready for the first motion. This feed is at once simple and effective.
In 1865 Mr. Wilson erected a fine hotel, with a large public hall, at North Adams, Mass.
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The manufactory was continued at Watertown until 1856, when, owing to the increase of the business, the property of the Jerome Clock Company, at Bridgeport, was purchased. Additions to the old brick factory already on the premises, were made from time to time. A portion of these buildings, including the clock factory, was burned December 12, 1875, but was at once rebuilt.
In the work shops of the company are made the needles and other minor attachments needed for the great variety of work to which the machine is adapted. Extensive shops are also devoted to the cabinet work. The new finish of the latter by the use of the wood-filling, was patented January 18, 1876, by Mr. Wheeler. This invention is of value, not only to manufacturers of sewing machines, but in every line of cabinet work in which it is desirable to give a high polish to hard woods. The process occupies less than one-half of the time, and the materials cost much less than in any of the processes previously in use.
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WHEELER AND WILSON'S "D, IO" MACHINE, FIRST PRODUCED IN OCTOBER, 1885.
Various improvements of this machine have been made from time to time, by the expenditure of nearly $500,000 upon experiments, resulting in the " Improved Wheeler and Wilson machine, Nos. 6, 7 and 8." To the two first awards
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were made at Vienna in 1873, and at Philadelphia in 1876, corresponding to the awards to the old machine at London in 1862, and at Paris in 1867.
Machines adapted to various kinds of work, both on leather and cloth, have been produced in the best styles and with the most advantageous improvements.
Mr. Wheeler took a leading part in forming the combin- ation, in 1856, of the principal sewing machine companies. The three companies which were parties in it, the Wheeler and Wilson, the Singer, and the Grover and Baker, had begun business about the same time, and the patents under which they were working were granted between November 12, 1850, and August 12, 1851.
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WHEELER AND WILSON NO. 8 MACHINE AS CONSTRUCTED IN 1885.
The officers of the Wheeler and Wilson company at its organization, were: Alanson Warren, President; George P. Woodruff, Secretary and Treasurer; and Nathaniel Wheeler, General Manager. Mr. Warren resigned his office in 1855, and Mr. Wheeler was elected president, retaining the office of general manager. Mr. Woodruff resigned his offices in 1855, being succeeded by William H. Perry.
Mr. Wheeler has represented his district in the State Senate, and was also one of the commissioners for the build-
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History of Stratford.
ing the State Capitol at Hartford, the greatest public enter- prise ever undertaken by the State.
William H. Perry is a native of Woodstock, Conn., and when a young man was a school teacher; after which he was employed by his brother, who was a contractor in the armory of Samuel Colt, at Hartford, Conn. Having acquired in this employment practical skill as a machinist, he engaged with his brother to execute a portion of the latter's contract. In 1855 he went to Watertown, Conn., and became book- keeper in the office of the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company, and was appointed the next year superintendent of the factory. In July, 1856, he was elected secretary and treasurer, which offices, with that of superintendent, he still holds.
The principal buildings of this company, situated in the east district of Bridgeport, on East Washington avenue, consist of a main factory for metal working, assembling, testing, etc., occupying one complete square, 368 by 307 feet, under one roof; a wood-working factory, covering a second square, 526 by 219 feet; a foundry and needle factory upon a third, 368 by 232 feet ; the works altogether covering over seven acres of ground.
The main machinery room is that in which the principal mechanical operations are performed in the production of the metal parts of the sewing machines. This fire proof room is L-shaped, 300 feet in length, 219 feet in width in one part, and 100 in the other. Power is distributed from four main lines of shafting, which have not perceptibly deviated from correct adjustment since they were first placed in position.
The Howe Sewing Machine Company was organ- ized in 1865, and located on Kossuth street, Bridgeport.
Elias Howe, Jr., was born at Spencer, Mass., in 1819, his father being a farmer and miller. Here he resided until 1835, when, with his parents' reluctant consent, he went to Lowell, Mass., to learn a trade in a large cotton mill, where he continued until the financial troubles of 1837. Being then out of work he went to Cambridge, where he obtained em- ployment on the new hemp carding machine invented by
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ELIAS HOWE, JR.
Prof. Treadwell. His cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, since speaker of the House of Representatives and Major General, worked in the same shop with him. From this place he went to Boston, to the shop of Ari Davis, where he heard a sewing machine first mentioned as a mechanical possibility. At twenty-one years of age he married, and continued a jour- neyman machinist. About 1843 he began to investigate the proposition of making a sewing machine in hope of securing a better fortune than the wages of a journeyman would ever give. Hundreds of hours of both night and day he studied and worked, but without success, until one day in 1844 the idea flashed upon him of using two threads and forming a stitch by the aid of a shuttle and a curved needle with the
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eye near the point, and he then felt he had invented a sewing machine. In October of the same year he had demonstrated, by a rough model, that such a machine would sew, but he was poor, having ceased to be a journeyman, and the days of darkness were upon him.
Under these circumstances he sought help, and found it in a friend named George Fisher, and by him, upon the value of half the invention, was placed in circumstances where he could construct a machine, although under great want of advantages. All the winter of 1844-5 Mr. Howe worked on his machine and in April he sewed a seam with it, and by the middle of May, 1845, he had completed his work. In July he sewed with his machine all the seams of two suits of woolen clothes, one for Mr. Fisher and the other for himself. This first machine, after crossing the ocean many times, and figur- ing as a dumb, but irrefutable witness, in many a court, is still preserved. The accompanying cut illustrates the first sewing machine made by Elias Howe, Jr., completed in April, 1845, and claimed by him to have "sewed the first seam made by machinery."
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FIRST SEWING MACHINE MADE BY ELIAS HOWE, JR.
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Mr. Howe now worked another year to make a model to deposit in the patent office, which was accomplished, and his patent issued September 10, 1846.
Two years Mr. Howe labored to introduce his machine both in America and England, when he returned from the latter country with only half a crown as the income for all his labors on the invention. Upon his return he found a number of sewing machines in the field of curiosity and competition, and then followed numberless vexations and some law suits. A statement in a historical sketch of Mr. Howe's work says, that by the time the extension of Mr. Howe's patent expired in 1867, the amount he had received for his machines did not " fall short of two million dollars," or that, "as Mr. Howe had devoted twenty-seven years of his life to the invention and development of the sewing machine, the public had com- pensated him at the rate of $75,000 a year. It had cost him, however, immense sums to defend his rights, and he was then very far from being the richest of the sewing machine kings."
BUILDINGS OF THE HOWE MACHINE COMPANY.
The buildings for the manufacture of the Howe machines were erected in Bridgeport in 1865, and formed an extensive and imposing establishment on the eastern bank of the har- bor, in full view from the railroad station and the public travel, and they are somewhat represented in the accompany- ing miniature engraving. A considerable portion of these buildings were destroyed by fire in 1883, but soon after rebuilt, although not to the full extent of the older buildings.
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An illustration of the latest improvements and most complete machine of this company is here inserted to exhibit the historical progress of this enterprise as contrasted with the machine when first made and patented.
The DEW HOWE
The American Hand Sewing Machine Company occupies a part of the Bridgeport Power Company's building on South avenue. It was organized in 1884, with the follow- ing officers, who are the same still : President, John J. Marvin, of New York; Secretary and Treasurer, E. R. Pearsall, of New York; Manager, A. M. Barber, of Bridgeport. The principal office and salesroom is in New York. The com- pany manufacture a hand sewing machine, which was patented October 21, 1884, and it is as ingenious an invention as has been placed upon the market for many years. It has also been patented in Europe and every country having patent laws.
The machine is complete in every detail, may be turned or run by either hand in any position, and so easily that a child can use it. It will make a perfect stitch through half a dozen thicknesses of heavy woolen goods, and makes 250 stitches a minute. It is a shuttle machine, but the patent covers, also, the chain and loop stitch. The skill displayed in making the complicated machinery and tools for the con-
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. struction of the different parts shows but little less inventive ability than in producing the machine itself. The perfect fitting of every part is as necessary as in the construction of a watch. Some idea of the expense of making these machines may be obtained by looking into the tool room, where may be seen a few implements, such as could almost be carried away in a person's arms, which represent an expense of $8,000 -this for producing only one portion of the machine.
The factory is fully equipped for the construction of the entire machine, even to the nickel plating used upon it.
At present they employ but fifty hands, most of them skilled mechanics who came to this city with the organizers of the company. The business, although just started, gives promise of exceeding the greatest expectations of the com- pany, for up to the present time they have been unable to produce the machine as fast as demanded for market, but they propose soon to be able to complete one thousand a day. A hand bobbin, which winds with an automatic thread guide, accompanies each machine, which is claimed to be an improvement on anything now in the market.
Mr. Adin M. Barber, who has obtained several patents, is the patentee, likewise, of a machine for cutting saw blades, by which many are cut at one movement of the machine. This he has sold to the Diamond Saw Company, in which he is also interested.
The Warner Brothers Corset Manufactory .- Prom- inent among the industries of Bridgeport is the corset factory of Warner Brothers, situated upon the south side of the rail- road near Seaside Park, and having a frontage of 537 feet upon Lafayette, Atlantic and Warren streets. It is built of brick with blue stone trimmings, and is impressive from its size and extensive frontage rather than from any beauty of architecture.
The interior of the factory is fitted up with more than usual care and taste. The rooms are high and nicely fur- nished, heated with steam, having abundance of light and good ventilation. Two engines from the Pacific Iron Works, of forty horse power each, are employed to furnish the power for five hundred sewing machines, beside eyelet machines,
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steam presses, and two hundred machines for the manufac -. ture of " Coraline," a special article made only by this firm, and used by them in place of whalebone for stiffening their corsets.
The capacity of the factory is about 6,000 corsets daily, and it gives employment to from 1,000 to 1,200 hands, about seven-eighths of whom are women. The average wages of the corset stitchers is from eight to ten dollars per week, and as the work is very clean and tidy it is much sought after by the better class of help.
This factory was first established in Bridgeport in 1876, since which time it has been enlarged four times and more
THE MANUFACTORY OF THE WARNER BROTHERS.
than quadrupled in size. It is the just boast of the proprie- tors that their factory has never been shut down a single working day, except for necessary repairs, it has never run on short hours, and no help has ever been discharged for the purpose of reducing production.
Beside the manufacture of corsets the Messrs. Warner Brothers are also largely engaged in making base balls; the production this year averaging about 3,000 balls daily. This industry occupies about one-sixth of the factory and gives employment to 300 hands during the greater part of the year The firm consists of Dr. I. DeVer Warner, who resides in Bridgeport and has charge of the manufacture of the goods,
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This building was erected by Warner Brothers for the use of their employees in 1887. It comprises a Restaurant, Free Reading Room, Library, Bath Rooms, a large Public Hall, and Rooms for Evening Classes. It is a very elegant and substantial building of granite, brownstone and pressed brick, costing $60,000, and is located on the corner of Lafay- ette and Atlantic streets, Bridgeport.
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and Dr. Lucien C. Warner, who resides in New York and has charge of the sales. They are natives of central New York, though their ancestors are of New England descent. They were both educated as physicians, Dr. I. D. Warner graduating in 1862, and Dr. L. C. Warner in 1866. Previous to 1874 they were engaged in the work of their profession, part of the time practicing medicine at Cortland, New York, and part of the time lecturing throughout the country on hygiene and kindred topics.
The transition from the practice of medicine to the man- ufacture of corsets is not so difficult as at first appears. The intelligent physician is bound to consider the question of dress in its relation to health. Corsets, as they were worn twelve years ago, were mostly instruments of torture. Their shape had little suggestion of the " human form divine," and the chief thought seemed to have been to make them as stiff and unyielding as possible. Fashionable modistes failed to recognize that a corset which prevented the natural bending and twisting of the body, not only was unhealthy and un- comfortable, but also unsightly. Only that degree of rigidity is required which will prevent the dress from wrinkling at the waist and if the corset is properly fitted to the figure this can be accomplished without seriously restricting the ease and graceful movements of the body. Physicians had long recognized the evils of ill-fitting and rigid corsets, but they lacked the mechanical skill and business sagacity to work out the needed reformation. This the Drs. Warner pos- sessed, for they had a natural taste for invention and busi- ness, which their professional training had not been able to obliterate. A few corsets were first made for their own lady patients, and these were received with so great favor that they soon abandoned their practice and devoted their entire time to the development and extension of their business. This has been prosperous beyond all precedent. Within five years they were in the very front rank of corset makers of this country, and to-day their name is recognized through- out both Europe and America as that of the leading corset house of the world.
The superior shape and style of the corsets which the
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Drs. Warner introduced have been largely copied by other manufacturers, and thus a complete revolution has been made in the style of corsets worn in this country. Through their labor and influence a corset no longer means to a lady tight lacing, physical torture, contracted chest, and ruined health, but it performs the natural functions of a garment for pre- serving health, beauty and comfort.
The Bridgeport Corset Company are located on the corner of Noble avenue and Burroughs street. The proprie- tors are I. W. Birdsey and Company, W. C. Sherwood superintendent. They occupied at first a room in the build- ing of the Howe Manufacturing Company until the fire of December, 1883, when they removed to their present place in what is known as the Frary Cutlery building. They began at first in a building 15 by 20 feet with the help of five or six persons, now they employ about 300 and make 150 dozen cor- sets per day. They have a branch house in Birmingham, Conn.,-the Birdsey Corset Company-and with the work of these two and two other companies their united production is 700 dozen per day. The one business house of these com- panies is 71 Leonard street, New York. In the manufacture of these goods whalebone is nearly excluded and tricora fiber is used instead. Several complicated machines are used in this work. Everything in the business is so thoroughly systematized by the superintendent and furnished with ma- chinery by the company that corsets can be made and sold at an exceedingly low price and comfortable dividends made to the stockholders.
Thomson, Langdon and Company, manufacturers of corsets, are located at the corner of Railroad and Myrtle avenues. The proprietors are Charles H. Langdon, of New York and W. A. Nettleton, of Bridgeport, who were estab- lished in 1876, but reorganized January 1, 1885, retaining the same name. They employ on an average 350 hands, their goods all being sold through the New York house, 70 Worth street. Their average daily product is 125 dozen corsets. Their building is finely located, 120 feet long and 40 wide, four stories in height. Their specialties are the Thomson glove-fitting corsets, and their patent unbreakable corset steels.
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H. W. Lyon is corset manufacturer at 88 Middle street. He commenced at his present place, January 1, 1885, the making of the crown corset, having a standing contract for all he can produce. He was engaged previously with Thom- son, Langdon and Company, in 1877, and began the manufac- ture of corsets by himself in 1880, at 25 State street, employ- ing 250 hands, but after a time closed his business there. He then managed a branch manufactory for I. Newman and Co., of New Haven, located in Bridgeport.
Jerome B. Secor, manufacturer of sewing machines, is located on corner of Broad street and Railroad avenue. He came to this city in the autumn of 1870, from Chicago, Ill., with the Secor Machine Company. That company was dis- solved in 1876, and he continued to manufacture machines in his own name. He employs about one hundred persons, manufacturing entirely on orders for the Avery and Empress machines. He is under contract to furnish 200 weekly of the Avery and 500 per month of the Empress, the latter being comparatively a new machine. All goods go to the New York house.
The Canfield Rubber Company, successors to Isaac A. Canfield, of Middletown, Conn., was incorporated and established here in February, 1885. They are located on Railroad avenue, corner of Myrtle. The officers are : Ratcliff Hicks, of New York, President; D. M. Baldwin, of Bridge- port, Treasurer; and H. O. Canfield, Manager. They em- ploy forty hands and manufacture the Canfield seamless dress shields, and mould work of all kinds, and thousands of small goods of different styles. Soon after being established here they bought the rubber mould works of A. C. Andress, of New Haven, and have made a very successful beginning, up to the present time. They have two great advantages, the one is the complete furnishing of their establishment to make goods of all descriptions in their line, and the other is the fact that their foreman, Mr. H. O. Canfield, is not only thor- oughly a practical man, but also skilled in the art of working the various materials of which the goods are constructed into the most perfect form and finish. The capital stock is $50,000.
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The history of the Canfields-father and son-in developing this line of goods is very interesting and extends over a num- ber of years of practical study, in a rubber manufactory in Naugatuck, Conn.
The Bridgeport Paper Box Company, located at 76 Middle street, was established January 1, 1877. The firm consists of E. L. White, of Bridgeport, and E. W. Smith, of Waterbury, and they employ 150 hands and occupy the upper part of the large building on Middle street. They produce hundreds of different sizes and styles of square boxes, turning out 1000 daily. The business conducted with the machinery requires much skill and dexterity in making and finishing the boxes so rapidly.
Ives, Blakeslee and Company, manufacturers of toys and novelties, are located on Broad street and corner of Rail- road avenue. The company was established by E. R. Ives and Cornelius Blakeslee, in the spring of 1868. In 1880 E. G. Williams, of New York, was added to the firm, and thus the company continues. They employ on an average forty per- sons in the factory here, but their branch manufactories, two in New York and one in Philadelphia, make a large number indirectly in their employ.
Their specialties are mechanical toys, Fourth of July and holiday goods, which, with all their goods, are handled through their New York house, at 297 Broadway, and sold largely by traveling representatives of their store. Their quarto illustrated catalogue of over thirty pages, and their octavo catalogue of 192 pages, represent somewhat adequately their line of products.
The Bridgeport Machine Tool Works, E. P. Bul- lard, of New York, proprietor, W. H. Bullard, of Bridgeport, manager, are located on the corner of Broad street and Rail- road avenue. This business was established here in 1880, as a branch of the New York house, for the special purpose of making a particular line of goods-namely, the manufacture of lathes. They employ seventy-five hands, and a general increase has been and probably will be needed, since they are behind on orders. In the first fifteen months 180 lathes were
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