USA > Connecticut > Connecticut yesterday and today : 1635-1935 : celebrating three hundred years of progress in the Constitution state > Part 29
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In 1904, The Bristol Company consisted of 50 employees. Now there are II branch offices located in Akron, Birmingham,
Original building near Platt's Bridge, Waterbury, in schich The Bristol Company seas started in 1889
Boston, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco. In addition there are duly authorized representatives in Cuba, Porto Rico, South America, Europe, India, China, Japan, Australia and other parts of the world. Also there are traveling representatives who inspect equipment in service and make recommendations in order to improve the use of control and recording devices installed in different countries.
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PIONEERS in CONTROLof INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES SINCE 1889
Lider
RISTOL'S
Airplane view of the factory at Waterbury, Conn. of The Bristol Company. Other plants of the parent and affiliated companies are located at San Francisco, Toronto, Canada, and London, England
The field organization in the United States alone has numbered as many as 72 individuals. These are apportioned among the 1 1 sales branches mentioned above, and include district managers, sectional sales and service engineers (who are located as resident engineers in important cities), local sales and service engineers, industry specialists, sales research engineers, instrumentation economics experts, and automatic control specialists.
Inasmuch as The Bristol Company is just as much interested in Bristol instruments and the service these are giving as the user is himself, it maintains well organized service laboratories in Akron, Chicago and San Francisco. Working out of these laboratories, engineers make regular periodic instrument inspection on pre-determined schedules.
Executive offices of The Bristol Co., Waterbury. Entablature overlooking the front of the main office building depicts in the center Bristol's Original Form Recorder, and on either side figures symbolizing Mechanics, Electricity, Science, Commerce, Steam and Labor, together with the immortal names of Faraday, Volta, Marconi, Bell, Whitney, Thomas, Goodyear, Howe, Wright, Watt, Stevens, and Ford.
The present officers are: Howard H. Bristol, president; Carlton W. Bristol, vice-president and chief engineer; Henry L. Griggs, vice-president and general sales manager; Herman Koester, vice-
president and factory manager; Austin L. Adams, treasurer and Samuel R. Bristol, secretary. These officers and Laurence G. Bean, Franklin B. Bristol, William H. Faeth and Harris Whitte- more, Jr. constitute the board of directors.
Beginning January 1, 1934 Bristol instruments were for the first time made in Canada by The Bristol Company of Canada, Ltd. This company was established to serve still better the Canadian market for Bristol products. It was organized especially to expand and consolidate the facilities of the laboratory in Toronto that for 12 years previously had been maintained by the parent concern in Waterbury.
The Bristol Company of Canada, Ltd. includes manufacturing and engineering as well as sales and service facilities. The fac- tory and general headquarters are located at 64 Princess Street, Toronto, Can.
A year or so previously, on October 1, 1932, an English affiliate, Bristol's Instrument Company, Ltd., was established in England. Manufacturing facilities and executive offices are maintained on Pomeroy St., New Cross, London S.E. 14.
THE BRISTOL COMPANY
Headquarters and factory of The Bristol Company of Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Ontario.
BRISTOL'S
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1836
FARREL-BIRMINGHAM COMPANY, Inc.
1935
ABOVE-General Offices, Foundry, Machine and Roll Shops at Ansonia, Conn.
LOWER LEFT-Gear Manufacturing Plant and Machine Shop at Buffalo, N. Y. LOWER RIGHT-Foundry and Machine Shops at Derby, Conn.
ARREL - BIRMINGHAM COMPANY, INC., is a combination of two of the oldest and most prominent machinery manufacturers in the eastern United States, both of which have had long and successful business careers. Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. of Ansonia, Conn., was established in 1848 and Birmingham Iron Foundry of Derby, Conn., in 1836, nearly a century ago.
Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. had its beginning when Almon Farrel of Waterbury erected a foundry and ma- chine shop in Ansonia. He had learned the trade of a millwright from his father and had developed marked talent as an engineer. His son, Franklin Farrel, who was associated with him, began his training at the age of four- teen, first working on the erection of a grist mill in Mil- ford and shortly after on a paper mill in Westville. They came to Ansonia in 1844 to survey and supervise the con- struction of the canal and copper mill for Auson G. Phelps. Both father and son were expert in the building and equip- ping of manufacturing plants and well qualified to embark on a new enterprise.
In December, 1847, Almon Farrel acquired a tract of land in Ansonia from Anson G. Phelps and "one-half square foot of permanent water" from the recently com- pleted canal. The following year he built a small foun- dry and machine shop and started business under the name of Almon Farrel & Co. In April, 1849, a co-partnership consisting of Almon Farrel, Franklin Farrel and Richard M. Johnson, an expert pattern maker, was formed, with a capital of $15,000, operating under the name of Farrel, Johnson & Co. This partnership was succeeded by a com- pany known as Farrel Foundry, with Almon Farrel as president. The new company was first capitalized for $35,000, which was later increased to $50,000.
The early products of the company were brass and iron
castings and power drives and gears for water power in- stallations. Because of the poor transportation facilities and the necessity for quicker repair service in the Waterbury area, the Farrels started in 1851 a foundry and machine shop in Waterbury. This branch plant, later, in 1880, was taken over by its manager, E. C. Lewis, and became the Waterbury Farrel Foundry & Machine Co.
Almon Farrel having died on May 31, 1857, a new company, called Farrel Foundry & Machine Co., was incorporated on August 4, 1857, with a capital of $90,000, which, as the business grew, was increased by successive stages to $3,000,000. Franklin Farrel, who had been interested in the enterprise from its inception, became president of the company in 1869, and continued to hold that office until his death in 1912.
With the start which it had obtained in the produc- tion of power drives and other mechanical equipment, it was not long before the company commenced to build metal rolling mills, rubber calenders and other roll operat- ing mechanisms. It was natural that this department of the company's business should be developed in the Nauga- tuck Valley, where the copper and brass industry was rapidly expanding and where the rubber industry at Nauga- tuck was starting its growth to major importance after the discovery of vulcanization by Charles Goodyear. At this time it was necessary to import chilled iron rolls from England but before Franklin Farrel's death the situation had been reversed and Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. was manufacturing rolls for export to countries through- out the world.
Another market which this company found for its prod- ucts was the paper industry, for which it manufactured rolls and complete calender stacks, and later, roll grinding machines. This was, in turn, followed by'the cane sugar industry, for which it began to build sugar mills about
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1836 .
FARREL-BIRMINGHAM COMPANY, Inc.
1935
Main Bay of the Ansonia Foundry
1870. At this time there were four other American firms building sugar mills for the West Indies trade but at the present time the Farrel company is the sole survivor of the group. As early as 1890 Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. shipped to Cuba machinery for two sugar mills, weighing 320 tons each, equipped with rolls forty-four inches in diameter and seven feet long on the face. During the World War the company produced gun carriages, shell presses and castings for the turbine engines in over 100 U. S. destroyers.
Thus, with a fixed determination to build well and to lead the way in the manufacture of more efficient ma- chinery for one after another of America's large indus- tries, Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. expanded from the modest little plant of 1848 vintage to a modern industrial group on the banks of the Naugatuck River, covering thir- teen and one-half acre; of floor space. And since the death of Franklin Farrel in 1912, at the ripe old age of eighty-four, a branch plant was acquired in 1920 in Buf- falo, which, until the merger with Birmingham Iron Foundry, produced nearly one-fourth of the concern's output.
The name Farrel takes its place in the ranks of Con- necticut industry along with a long line of others exam- pled by Chase, Seth Thomas, Sargent, Wallace, Cheney and Barnes, which have been identified with the establish- ment of nationally known industrial institutions.
In 1836, twelve years before the Farrels started their plant in Ansonia, three brothers, named Colburn, came to Derby from Westville, Conn., and built a small factory, originally devoted chiefly to the production of coarse cast- ings such as those used as sash weights. It was known as Birmingham Iron Foundry, since the town was then called Birmingham. It was here that Anson G. Phelps first entertained his ambition of establishing an industrial com- munity after its prototype, Birmingham in England, from which the town took. its name, but being unable to ac- quire the necessary land he went further up the Nauga- tuck Valley to what was later to be called Ansonia in his honor.
Shortly after the black panic skies of 1837 had cleared, Birmingham Iron Foundry added a machine shop and began to make mill machinery. When the business was incorporated in 1850 Sheldon Bassett came into control of the company and the firm continued to develop under
hi; management until 1891, when Henry F. Wanning, who had been associated with the company since 1865, became its president. He was later assisted by his son, Francis D. Wanning, who came into the company in 1894 and during the years that followed played an important part in its management.
During the Civil War Birmingham Iron Foundry took a prominent par: in providing munitions for the Union Army, through the production of machinery for the roll- ing of bayonets and gun barrels, as well as rendering other important service incidental to foundry and machine work. It also produced during the World War a large amount of machinery, principally for use at Watertown Arsenal, but also for private firms manufacturing war material.
Throughout this company's career, until it joined in the merge: with Farrel Foundry & Machine Co., it specialized on castings and heavy mill machinery, chictly for the rubber and non-ferrous rolling mill industries. It was the first company in Connecticut, and one of the first two or three in the country, to produce chilled iron rolls used so extensively by the industries which Farrel-Bir- mingham now serves chiefly.
Under the capable management of the Wannings, Bir- mingham Iron Foundry grew and prospered. Never stampeded by the pressure of prosperity, nor panicked by the gloom of depression, their farsighted business policy built up an industrial property which was a most important asset to the community. Its expansion was gradual, marked by that conservatism which is characteristically New Eng- land. During the entire life of the company there Were no failures, no compromises with creditors, no reorganiza- tions. The business earned its own way, the bulk of the profits being turned back into the business to pay for im- provements in plant and equipment and for acquisitions of real estate which became necessary as it expanded. From a total investment of $90,000, plus carnings, its capital stock grew to $1,250,000. Its floor area approximated seven and one-half acres.
Such is the background of Farrel-Birmingham Com- pany, Inc., which was formed by the merger of these two old companies in 1927, bringing together two organiza- tion; which had been developing along similar lines for the better part of a century. Starting originally with the manufacture of castings, power drives and gears and mis- cellaneous machine work, bath predecessor companies, dur-
Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. Plant at about the time of the Civil War
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1836
FARREL-BIRMINGHAM COMPANY, Inc.
1935
ing their long careers, have manufactured almost every kind of heavy machinery. During this period new pro- cesses have been devised, new machines designed, research and experiments have been carried on continuously, with the ideal of contributing to the progress of industry by developing and manufacturing machinery, which by the maximum transfer of skill to mechanism, would increase output, improve quality and reduce operating costs. That a high measure of success has been achieved is reflected by the performance of Farrel-Birmingham machines in every industrial country of the world doing more work and bet- ter quality work for an equal or lesser cost.
An important factor in any mechanical equipment busi- ness is its engineering and technical staff. Upon the inge- nuity and progressiveness of its engineers depends the de- velopment of new machines for the industries which the business serves. Farrel-Birmingham has always main- tained a large staff of technically trained engineers who are specialists in the designing of machinery for the vari- ous industries served by the company. The results of engi- neering research are reflected in the improvements in mechanical design of the company's products and the de- velopment of new machinery for various purposes.
A laboratory in charge of skilled and experienced metal- lurgists exercises control of all foundry work and metal mixtures for various classes of castings are scientifically prepared to insure the qualities necessary to make them mo t suitable for the purposes for which they are intended.
The company now operates three large plants, located at Ansonia and Derby, Conn., and Buffalo, N. Y., cover- ing a total area of approximately thirty acres of plant floor space and employing normally about 1700 people. The plants are all of modern construction and are equipped with tools of the latest types, some of them being the largest of their kind for the extremely heavy work that is handled.
In the three machine shops, which have a combined ca- pacity of approximately 90,000 tons of machinery annual- ly, are 500 machine tools, including planers to take work up to forty feet in length and twelve fect in width, and boring mills to swing twenty-four feet. The roll shop at Ansonia is the largest specialty roll manufacturing plant in America. It is equipped with over 100 roll lathes, thirty roll grinders and numerous other machines, capable of handling rolls seventy-two inches in diameter and 420 inches long. The two foundries at Ausonia and Derby, with their six cupolas, two 30,000-pound air furnaces and
Main Bay of the Roll Shop
One of the Large Machine Shop Bays
a six-ton electric furnace, have an annual capacity of ap- proximately 67,500 tous and are capable of making cast- ings from one pound to seventy tous in weight. At the Buffalo plant are six of the largest gear generating ma- chines in the world, in addition to numerous smaller gear cutting machines and other machine tools. To keep mate- rials and finished parts on the move through production processes are nearly one and one-half miles of crane run- ways, with fifty-eight traveling cranes and fifteen other cranes having a total lifting capacity of 1026 tons.
The Farrel-Birmingham organization represents 2 time-tested coordination of engineering skill, plant facili- tie; and financial responsibility, giving assurance of con- tinued progress in the development of machines to meet the future needs of industry.
At the present time the Ansonia and Derby plants are devoted chiefly to the manufacture of rolls and heavy machinery for five major industries-rubber, plastics, metals, cane sugar and paper-although miscellaneous machinery for many other purposes is also built, including stone and ore crushers, felt hardeners, hydraulic and power presses, etc. The roll shop at Ansonia produces rolls for a great variety of uses, including metals, paper, rubber, linoleum, asbestos, paints, ink, linseed oil, soap Raking, textile finishing, grain grinding, cereal flaking and many other purposes. The output of the Buffalo plant is prin- cipally gears of various kinds, including the famous Far- rel-Sykes generated continuous tooth double helical gears, gear drives, speed reducing and increasing units, marine drive equipment, flexible couplings and Farrel-Sykes gear generating machines.
Heading the organization today as Chairman of the Board of Directors is Franklin Farrel, Jr., grandson of the founder of Farrel Foundry & Machine Co. The ac- tive head and general manager is N. W. Pickering, Com- mander in the U. S. Navy until after the World War, when he joined the roll department of the Farrel company and advanced to the presidency in February, 1930. Vice- Presidents are: Carl Hitchcock and F. R. Hoadley at Ansonia, aud A. G. Kessler, manager of the Buffalo plant. Other officers are George C. Bryant, Secretary; F. M. Drew, Jr., Treasurer; W. B. Marvin, Assistant Secretary, at Ansonia; and L. K. Blackinan, Assistant Treasurer, at Buffalo.
124212
The SEYMOUR MANUFACTURING COMPANY
GEORGE E. MATTHIES
FRANKLIN S. JEROME
WILLIAM H. H. WOOSTER Founder of the Seymour Mfg. Co., 1878. For thirty-eight years with the Seymour Associated with the Seymour Mfg. Co. Mfg. Co. President 1920-1922 since 1917. President 1922
President 1914-1919 CONNECTICUT industry which has de- veloped from a comparatively small begin- ning into one of the country's leaders in its line is The Seymour Manufacturing Com- pany. This company, established at Sey- mour in 1878 by W. H. H. Wooster and incorporated May 6, 1880, with a capital of $30,000, is now one of the larg- est producers of nickel silver in sheets, wire and rod in the United States and is capitalized at one million dollars.
The original officers were Charles H. Pine, president; W. H. H. Wooster, secretary and treasurer; Letsome T. Wooster, superintendent. The company made steady and rapid progress is indicated by successive increases, March capital stock coming in 1882 when the original capital stock was more than doubled, being made $75,000. Continued rapid progress is indicated by successive increases, March 21, 1887, to $200,000; July 20, 1899, to $500,000; May 18, 1915, to one million dollars.
It does the bulk of its business with the manufacturers of flat and hollow ware, although a considerable portion of its output is absorbed by jewelry and hardware interests.
On July 26, 1914, W. H. H. Wooster was elected pres- ident and continued with the company in that capacity until his death, December 17, 1919. He ably conducted the com- pany during the exacting years of the great war when, under contract with the government, the mills were de- voted to the manufacture of brass discs for cartridge cases, copper rings and cupro-nickel. Nickel silver was also sup- plied in large tonnage for use in the manufacture of many items of army and navy equipment. During the later months of the war as much as 90 per cent of its production was of war material.
George E. Matthies, who succeeded Mr. Wooster as head of the company, came to Seymour in 1885 as a bookkeeper for the company and was made assistant treasurer in Janu- ary, 1888, director in 1895, secretary in July, 1913, treas- urer in July, 1915, and president January 15, 1920. He continued as president and treasurer until his death, April
11, 1922. For thirty-eight years he was intimately associ- ated with the affairs of the company and it was in its ser- vice that he developed the unusual qualities which he ex- hibited in the multiplicity of interests which occupied the last decade of h's Ife.
The rapid growth and success of the company was due in large measure to his sound judgment and rare business intuition.
Franklin S. Jerome came to the company in 1917 as vice president and upon the death of Mr. Matthies became presi- dent, which position he occupies at present. Other officers are O. F. G. Boeker, secretary; B. H. Matthies, treasurer; H. A. Leigh, assistant treasurer.
In 1919 the company's plant was virtually reconstructed in its entirety and so thoroughly modernized that it is to- day one of the finest plants of its kind in the country. At the present time the company specializes in nickel silver and phosphor bronze in sheet, wire and rod and in special alloys, such as cupro-nickel, special bronzes, engravers' copper and nickel anodes, rolled or cast.
WILLIAM H. H. WOOSTER
William H. H. Wooster, the founder of the company, was born in Waterbury, July 4, 1840. He died in New Haven, December 17, 1919. His early life was spent in Waterbury and in 186t he helped raise a company of vol- unteers for the Civil War, known as the Sixth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. In 1865, following the war, Mr. Wooster entered business at Springfield, Mass., re- maining until 1878, when, with his brother, Horace B. Wooster, he organized the Seymour Manufacturing Com- pany. He was active in the development of the Seymour Water Company which he aided in organizing and of which he became president. He was a trustee and mem- ber of the executive committee of the Seymour Trust Com- pany, vice president and director of the H. A. Matthews Manufacturing Company and prominent in civic affairs throughout his life time. He served on the school board
12435
Established by William H. H. Wooster in 1878
and was active in church work. In 1905 he was elected state senator from the 17th district on the Republican ticket.
Mr. Wooster married August 26, 1861, Anna Louise Putnam, daughter of Horace and Clarinda (Boice) Put- nam of Springfield, Mass. Their children were Annie Wooster, who married George E. Matthies; Clara Woos- ter, who married G. Herbert Merrill; Horace Putnam Wooster, Louise Wooster (died January 27, 1930), Mabel Wooster and Ruth Wooster.
GEORGE E. MATTHIES
George E. Matthies was born in Brewster, N. Y., July 9, 1863, and, as previously stated, made his first connec- tion with the Seymour Manufacturing Company in 1883, as bookkeeper. He was active in the growth of the com- pany for thirty-eight years as assistant treasurer, director, secretary, treasurer and president until the time of his death, April 11, 1922. He organized and was president of the Rimmon Eyelet Company, and with W. H. H. and L. T. Wooster purchased and reorganized the Seymour Electric Light Company. He was also one of the organ- izers of the Seymour Water Company and of the Sey- mour Trust Company, of which he was president at the time of his death. He was a director in numerous cor- porations including the American Copper Products Cor- poration (New Jersey) of which he was president; Avis Company, New Haven, vice president; British American Metals Company, Plainfield, New Jersey; Cape May Hotel Company, Philadelphia, treasurer; Eisemann Mag- neto Corporation, Brooklyn; H. A. Matthews Manufac- turing Company, president and treasurer; Miamus Motor Works, Stamford, vice president; N. Z. Graves Corpora- tion, Philadelphia, vice president; Naugatuck Valley Cruci-
ble Company, director; Seymour Metal Goods Company; Seymour Trust Company, president and director. He was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and the Bank- ers' Club of New York.
Mr. Matthies was married, November 18, 1890, to Annie Wooster, daughter of W. H. H. Wooster and Anna Putnam Wooster, to whom were born two children, Ber- nard H. Matthies and Katharine Matthies.
FRANKLIN STARR JEROME
Franklin Starr Jerome, president of the Seymour Manu- facturing Company, was born October 6, 1870, in Mont- ville, Conn., a son of Henry G. and Eliza Holt (Starr) Jerome. The ancestry of the Jerome family dates back to 1503 in the Isle of Wight and the American ancestors settled in Connecticut in the early part of the 17th cen- tury, Dr. Comfort Starr, from which Mr. Jerome is in direct descent, having come from England in 1635, set- tling in Boston, Mass.
Mr. Jerome was educated in the schools of Norwich and Montville and was graduated from Eastinan College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in .1888. His first experience in business was with the First National Bank of Norwich as a clerk in the same year and in 1903 he became president of that institution, an office which he held until 1913 when he went to California to engage in ranching and general manager of the Charles Ford Company of Watsonville.
In 1917 Mr. Jerome returned to Connecticut and was made vice president of the Seymour Manufacturing Com- pany and became president in 1922 upon the death of Mr. George E. Matthies. He is also president of the H. A. Matthews Mfg. Co., the Seymour Products Company, 'a tru tee of the Seymour Trust Company, treasurer of the
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