USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 40
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Rufus N. Pratt (1833-1901), who was born in Vermont, was in the leather business and came here in 1870, began a line of casting and brass- and iron-valve business under the firm name of Pratt & Cady which is foremost in the trade today. On the reor- ganization in 1898 Mr. Pratt resigned but continued as a director. The plant has been doubled several times. Mr. Pratt also formed the Johns-Pratt Company for the manufacture of electric acces- sories, including asbestos brakes and packings, which after a most successful career was merged recently with the Colt's Patent Fire Arms Company.
Pratt & Whitney, which owes its development if not its origin to the local demand for the most accurate tools and machines, especially for the production of firearms and lathes, had outgrown the site of the Sharps Rifle Works which it took over when P. T. Barnum removed the latter to Bridgeport, and was building its large addition across Park River on Capitol Avenue. Its foreign business gradually became tremendous, including such contracts as those for equipping armories in China and Japan. Many army officers and technical engineers from those countries have been most cordially received here, to make study of Pratt & Whitney methods. One of the company officials on being asked by a news- paper man if they were not afraid that thus those nations would be enabled to establish works of their own and this foreign busi- ness be lost, replied: "Not at all. We have nothing to conceal from anybody in any part of the world-it tends to extend our trade. If they can do the work better than we can, they may undertake it. It's the workmen who count, after all. I don't think those in Hartford can be excelled." Eventually Pratt & Whitney became a part of the great combination known as the Niles, Bement & Pond Company with factories in various parts of the country, and it is today proving to be the chief part. The Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company-of which more later on-is
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an offspring. In time the company took in also the fine buildings which the Pope Company built and vacated.
It was in that summer of 1899 that the busy chapter in the Pope enterprises came, as has been told. The Hartford Woven Wire Mattress Company, which Governor Roberts conducted suc- cessfully for many years, at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Laurel Street, was adding another story to its building and was establishing a foundry on Willow Street. The Board of Trade Building has been noted. So rapidly was the district enlarging that Colonel Pope's offer to the Government to provide a branch post office was accepted and the very necessary adjunct was installed in the corner of the building which Hart & Hegeman came to acquire. It still remains at that location-as Station A.
The Smyth Manufacturing Company and the Sigourney Tool Company, under one management, were enlarging on Sigourney Street. John C. Wilson, who in 1897 had been prominent in the rubber industry, became president and treasurer, continuing in office till his death in 1919.
In its way, no less important than the advent of the motor vehicle was the advent of the typewriter. There was constant demand for something better, and something better came when John M. Fairfield, one of the most enterprising men of the times, formed a company with $60,000 capital and brought out the "Hartford," delightfully light and easy of action but, as time proved, not heavy enough to stand the wear and tear to which use in every kind of an office and under every kind of hand subjected them. Associated with Mr. Fairfield in this enterprise were such men as P. C. Royce, Col. Lucius A. Barbour, Austin C. Dunham, Josiah Baker, Jr., Francis A. Pratt, M. B. Scott, John Knous and H. D. Clemons. These names by themselves suggest many other industrial enterprises of the day.
The States Machine Company was attracted here from Newark in 1895. The National Machine Company got the con- tract for making the Daimler motor of 1891. A department of the Willimantic Thread Company came to occupy part of Cheney Brothers' silk plant on Morgan Street.
Secretary Woodward of the Board of Trade was writing: "Cut off in the middle of his career, Colonel Colt did not live to carry out the projects which might have made Hartford a second Essen, but he did live to educate a body of men whose influence direct
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and indirect is more felt than ever before." At Colt's, then as always, they were making a variety of modern guns and were drawing to their plant other enterprises. At Pratt & Whitney's they were making the Lee magazine rifle, and Charles W. Sponsel, a Hartford man and an expert under Superintendent E. G. Park- hurst of the plant, was bringing out his rapid fire gun. Then in 1917 Hartford was as near being an Essen as anything in America, unsubsidized, could be.
A graduate of both Colt's and Pratt & Whitney's, where he had worked out a few of his inventions like the still-used catcher's body-protector in baseball, William Gray (1852-1903), born in Tariffville, brought forth one of the greatest inventions of the day. It was the automatic pay-telephone station, that wholly indispensable adjunct of modern life. But the struggle he had to make to secure financial backing was largely the cause of the untimely ending of his brilliant career. Charles Soby had the most popular cigar in town, on Main Street near Goodwin's Corner. Mr. Soby knew what it was to earn one's way. As a boy in Suffield he had made cigars and peddled them to eke out the living for himself and the family of which he early had been left the chief support. By his personality as well as his ability he had gone onward till he was proprietor of a large cigar- making establishment of his own in the city and the store in front of it, was backing the baseball team, and was a bank director and altogether stood high in business circles. He enabled Gray to turn out some of his machines and to exhibit one in the cigar store. Convinced of the practicality of the device, Mr. Soby relieved Gray of further anxiety about capital; today the enlarg- ing plant of the "Gray Pay" and the position its stock continues to hold in the market tell of the reward that both he and Soby received.
E. A. Rusden invented a washing machine to be used in print- ing and dyeing textiles; it was made at Lincoln & Company's Phoenix Iron Works on Arch Street. The Farnham Typesetter Company was busy with the machine which later was taken up by the Paige Composition Company and, though failing, here was a long step in machine typesetting. And T. Hayward Giguilliot of Savannah, Ga., was here building a flying machine in the secrecy of a little shop. Others were working toward the same end and it was in these '90s, though the rush of the automobile
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may have driven it from mind, that prizes were offered for suc- cessful results.
Something fully as much desired, in the electrical world at least, was the steam turbine. The great producers of equipment then getting their start had experimented but with no satisfactory results in anything that would not tear up the strongest floor. In the mid-'90s E. C. Terry perfected a design for ordinary uses but progress was slow. It was a "new-fangled notion;" it was the kind of animal of which the Michigan farmer said, "There ain't no such thing." But by 1906 enough favor had been shown, espe- cially by the navy department, to warrant his organizing the Terry Steam Turbine Company-today, with its plant on Wind- sor Avenue, the largest concern manufacturing exclusively tur- bines and reduction gears.
John T. Austin invented the universal air chest which pro- vided an unvarying air pressure for organs and revolutionized the manufacture of those instruments. In 1899 the Austin Organ Company was organized with him as president-as he is today- and the original small factory space has developed into the best plant of its kind in America, located on Woodland Street, the largest of pipe-organ companies and the builder of the three larg- est organs in the country. The organ in the Public Ledger Audi- torium, given to Philadelphia by Cyrus H. K. Curtis, the fore- most of all organs in this or any other country, was built here.
The joy of bicycle riding never reached its acme till the rider could tell how many miles he had ridden in an hour or a year. What is now a matter of ordinary course with the motor-vehicle rider was then something longed for by the bicyclist. In 1894 Curtis H. Veeder of Hartford satisfied the longing and soon was producing what every rider could afford to have, a little but very accurate one-ounce indicator. The Veeder Manufacturing Com- pany, with name broad enough to cover other ideas Mr. Veeder had in his mind, was formed in 1896 and rooms were rented in the Courant Building. Associated with him were Howard W. Lester and David J. Post. To be sure, odometers and speed- ometers had been used in prehistoric times but they were of com- paratively monstrous proportions. The demand for the "Veeder" necessitated the building of a factory on Sargeant Street, and as automobiles developed and constantly there was the call for accurate count of whatever was run off the press or through any
MAIN ROOM OF OFFICE FORCE OF CONNECTICUT MUTUAL LIFE IN THE '90s For the same in 1928 entire large buildings are required. Formerly much of the space was rented
SKYLINE FROM THE RIVER, HARTFORD
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machine at twentieth-century speed, and also in the war times for the closest possible adjustments, enabling an aircraft gunner for example to know precisely how many cartridges he had in reserve, the inventions of Mr. Veeder were a boon. Also to meet the requirement of a finer way for determining standards, Mr. Veeder devised the tactometer, which was welcomed by the United States Bureau of Standards, by electrical manufacturers and by men working in laboratories. The discovery of the "Veeder metal" was a further aid to science.
One cause of building activity in this period was the eviction in 1892 of a number of young concerns from the Fred C. Rock- well property between Sheldon and Charter Oak streets, to make way for occupancy by Ira Dimmock of the Nonotuck Silk Com- pany of Northampton, who had bought it for his own purposes, chiefly the manufacture of twist. The property was known as the old American Machine Company. Among the concerns then occupying it were the Capewell Horse Nail Company, previously mentioned, which was about to move into its very modern plant on Governor Street; the Perkins Switch Company, the Aetna Machine Company, the Hartford Lumber Company and J. B. Merrow & Sons.
This last named, which built its extensive plant on Laurel Street, was founded by Joseph Battell Merrow (1819-1897) in the town of Mansfield at what is now known as Merrow. Mr. Merrow's plant there was the first knit-goods factory in the coun- try. Mansfield was the place of his birth and at the time he undertook to supercede the knitting needles of the housewives, his was only one of the many mills that had sprung up along streams throughout the rural districts. But his proving to be a staple product and his machinery ingenious, he was able to come nearer sources of supplies and the market and removed to Hartford. Here he and his sons, Joseph M. and George W. Merrow, devel- oped the Merrow Machine Company, turning out besides elabo- rately knitted and embroidered goods, sewing machines for use in making the heavier garments. After their father's death, the sons continued the development still further, with extensive mar- ket abroad as well as at home.
Patrick Garvan (1836-1912) was another who was enjoying the prime of his business career in those days. On coming from Ireland at an early age, his home was in East Hartford till 1894,
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when he removed to Hartford. He had been a contractor and builder but also was interested in the paper industry. Buying out his partner in that, E. J. Carroll, he proceeded to develop the large concern on State Street and to become identified with sev- eral large mills. In East Hartford he had held positions of trust, including the treasurership of the Raymond Library, and had served in both houses of the Legislature. In Hartford he was one of the first park commissioners and later the president and had special charge of the development of Riverside Park. In 1905 the business became P. Garvan, Incorporated, with himself and his sons, Thomas F., Edward and John S., as stockholders. He was one of the incorporators of the Riverside Trust Company and a trustee of the Society for Savings. He was president of the Catholic Club and he gave the chapel at Mount St. Joseph Semi- nary in memory of his wife.
William Rogers (1833-1896) was one whose career was de- voted to the silver-plating business which his father William and his father's brother Asa were the first to make possible. They began in Tariffville, removed thence to Meriden and then came here and formed the Rogers Brothers Manufacturing Company, out of which evolved the William Rogers Manufacturing Com- pany. The son William went to Meriden, so the goods of the Meriden Britannia Company also bore the name of Rogers. Re- tiring from that concern, he went with Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co., in Wallingford in 1878, and that company used his name. After a disagreement he left there but the name yielded him $10,000 a year. Many expensive lawsuits over the name Rogers were carried through the courts.
Ernest Cady (1842-1908), of colonial ancestry, who with R. N. and Francis A. Pratt established the great plant of Pratt & Cady, had been in mercantile business in his native town of Stafford and in Norwich and, in the Civil war had served in the navy, came to Hartford in 1878. It was four years later that the concern for making water valves and brass and iron castings located its plant on Capitol Avenue. Also Mr. Cady was director in the National Machine Company and a trustee of the Society for Savings. He was elected lieutenant governor on the demo- cratic ticket in 1892 and was candidate for governor at the next election. He retired from manufacturing in 1898 but continued as president of the Eastern Consolidated Oil Company.
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Another of the men of this period whose names live after them in the business they established was William Henry Wiley (1821- 1892), who came to Hartford from his birthplace, Wakefield, Mass., while yet a lad. In the early '60s he engaged in the manu- facture of shoes on Asylum Street and later founded the firm of W. H. Wiley & Son, which long was a leader in the manufacture of overgaiters, leggings and slippers. His son was J. Allen Wiley, who succeeded him as head of the concern, which eventually became Wiley, Bickford, Sweet Company, now of Worcester, Mass.
One who was especially devoted to school interests and who was chairman of the committee of the South District for twenty- eight years, during which four large buildings were put up, was Hugh Harbison (1833-1903). Of Irish birth, he came here with his family in 1849 and on the death of his father had to act as head of the little group. He went to the Colt factory in 1856, after having been clerk in a store and an employee at the Grove Car Works. Beginning as a bookkeeper he was promoted till he held the office of secretary and treasurer throughout the trying time of the Civil war and until he resigned in 1891 to devote himself to looking after his own estate, which included much realty. He was one of the founders of the First Presbyterian Church but later became affiliated with the South Church. He was a director of the Travelers and of the gas company, of which his brother, John P. Harbison, was the energetic president. Also he was a trustee of the Mechanics Savings Bank. Mayor Alex- ander Harbison was another brother and his partner in the gro- cery business.
In the early part of the decade, Jotham Goodnow (1819-1892) was succeeded in the presidency of the Aetna (fire) by William B. Clark. Mr. Goodnow, a Massachusetts man by birth, had had bank experience in Rockville and New Haven when he came here to accept the secretaryship of the Aetna. On the death of Lucius J. Hendee he was made president.
William B. Clark (1841-1927) was the son of A. N. Clark, for forty years owner of the Courant. After graduating at Gallup's College Green School on Trinity Street, Mr. Clark began his insur- ance career with the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company in 1857 and became secretary in 1863. In 1867 he was called to the position of assistant secretary in the Aetna. When Secretary Goodnow
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was made president in 1888, Mr. Clark was chosen secretary and in 1892 he succeeded to the presidency. This record of seventy years in fire insurance, at the time of his death in 1927, was the longest of any official then in the business. Few could boast of so large a circle of friends. He served as water commissioner nine years and his council was sought in many civic affairs. He also had held the position of president of the National Board of Fire Underwriters and at his death was the oldest director of the Travelers. He evinced particular interest in the Hartford Re- treat and the Hartford Hospital.
The medical profession and the social life of the city suffered a severe loss in the death of Dr. W. A. M. Wainwright (1844- 1894) in 1894-an indirect result of alarm caused by frequent burglaries. In talking with friends at the club about the number and boldness of the burglaries, the doctor declared that it seemed to be necessary for every man to get his revolver in shape to meet intruders. That afternoon he took out of its case a long-neglected revolver to clean it. Apparently an old cartridge in it jammed and he was fatally wounded. He was the son of Bishop Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright of New York. After graduating at Trinity College he studied medicine and became one of the most eminent and esteemed physicians in Hartford, winning high honors in the medical associations and in hospital work. He was surgeon on the staff of the Governor's Foot Guard. His wife, Helene Bartlett Talcott, was a descendant of Governor Haynes and of Governor Talcott; indeed, there were eight governors among the ancestors. His son, Jonathan M. Wainwright, an officer in the Spanish war, became an eminent surgeon in Scranton, Pa .; an- other son, Capt. Philip S., served in the World war and is now captain of Troop C and lives in Hartford with his sister, Mabel Wyllys Wainwright, on Forest Street, their residence standing on ground that was allotted to Governor Haynes as one of the original proprietors.
Dr. Charles W. Stiles, who lived here several years, a son of Samuel M. Stiles, secretary of Morgan G. Bulkeley, was among those who were to contribute much to make the close of the cen- tury the beginning of a remarkable era for mastering disease. Born in Spring Valley, N. Y., in 1867, he came to Hartford to live at an early age. After a year at Wesleyan University, he
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RESIDENCE OF DR. GEORGE C. F. WILLIAMS, HARTFORD
ITALIAN GARDENS OF DR. GEORGE C. F. WILLIAMS, HARTFORD Showing Pool, Pergola, Sunken Road and Terrace
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went to the College de France in 1886 and thence to other institu- tions of learning on the Continent, which honored him with de- grees as did also the American institutions on his return to this country. In 1896 he was the youngest man to receive the distinc- tion of election to the French Academy of Medicine. He lectured in the leading medical schools, did research work for the govern- ment, was scientific attache at the embassy at Berlin, and as scientific secretary of the Rockefeller Commission for the Eradi- cation of the Hook-Worm Disease (1909-1914), he practically changed conditions of life in the South, even as other scientists were changing them in Cuba and Panama. At his home in Wash- ington he takes time to write books and reports which are invalu- able contributions to zoology.
Among the more prominent men at the bar, four may be named as representing the types of the judiciary, in the forensic disputation, in corporation practice and in fiduciary trust and public service. William Hamersley was imbued with the qualities of all these types. He was born in 1838, the son of William J. Hamersley, at one time editor of the American Mercury. He studied at Trinity and at Harvard Law School and began practice in 1859. In 1863 he was councilman, and president of the board in 1867. He was city attorney when he was appointed state's attorney, which position he held twenty years. In 1878 he was on the committee that framed the practice act, in 1886 he was chosen representative on the democratic ticket, and in 1893 he was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he remained till he reached the age limit. He lectured on constitutional law at Trinity, of the trustees of which college he was a member. He received there the degrees of M. A. and LL. D. He was one of the founders of the Connecticut Bar Association and took part in forming the American Bar Association. When the State Library and Supreme Court Building was turned over to the state, he was one of the State Library Committee.
William C. Case (1836-1901) was of Granby birth, son of Dr. Jairus Case, and was graduated at Yale in 1857. His son, William S. Case, likewise a Yale graduate and also a man of marked literary ability, followed him in the profession of law. The firm of Case, Bryant & Case was doing a large business when it was dissolved on the youngest member's being appointed judge
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of the Court of Common Pleas. William C. Case had an office in New Haven for twelve years but spent most of his time here. Elected as a democrat, he was representative from Simsbury in 1869 and 1870, and elected as a republican, he was representative from Granby in 1881 and 1884, serving as speaker in the former year. In 1902 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention. William S. Case rose to be justice of the Supreme Court, contin- uing till his death in 1921.
Theodore M. Maltbie (1842-1915) began practicing law in Granby, going thence to Thompsonville and then coming to Hart- ford, where he formed a partnership with Charles H. Briscoe and later with William C. Case and Percy S. Bryant. In his later years his son was in partnership with him under the name of Maltbie & Maltbie. He was representative from Granby twice and was state senator and member of the Constitutional Conven- tion. In 1871 he was deputy insurance commissioner. Mr. Malt- bie's son, William M. Maltbie, was graduated at Yale in 1901. He rose rapidly in his profession and was appointed a justice on the Supreme Court bench in 1925. Among other positions of honor which he has held is that of private secretary to Governor Holcomb.
John Caldwell Parsons (1832-1898) was a son of Judge Francis Parsons, long prominent in the middle part of the cen- tury. He was named after Maj. John Caldwell, a leader in the formative days at the beginning of the century. At Yale he was graduated with the class of '55 and after studying law he entered the office of his distinguished great-uncle, Chief Justice Thomas S. Williams. Developing his corporation practice, he became, like his father, a councilor in insurance matters and trust organiza- tions. He was president of the Society for Savings and director in insurance and trust companies and also in the School for the Deaf and the Industrial School for Girls. As a member of the First Church, he gave many evidences of his devotion to its work. He presented the memorial windows in honor of Major Caldwell, Reverend Doctor Hawes and Chief Justice Williams. In 1875- 77 he was major commanding the Governor's Foot Guard. He was the father of Col. Francis Parsons, vice chairman of the board of the Hartford National Bank and Trust Company.
John H. Brocklesby, Trinity '65, was a son of Prof. John Brocklesby of that college, was for twenty-five years a practicing
JOHN C. PARSONS (1832-1898)
PARSONS THEATRE, HARTFORD
.
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lawyer, for a considerable time superintendent of schools and, appointed by President Cleveland, succeeded Ezra B. Bailey of Windsor Locks as collector of the port.
In insurance, banking and social circles, the loss was deeply felt of Edward M. Bunce in 1896. He had entered the employ of the Phoenix National Bank when his father, John L. Bunce, was president of it, and had become cashier when he was chosen secretary of the Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company, where his success and popularity had made him a prominent figure.
Occasion to review the excellent work the Hartford Public High School was made when Principal Joseph Hall died at his post. No secondary school in the country stood higher. Most of the sons desiring to fit for college went to the school in those days be- fore private schools had gained fame and numbers and before the overcrowding of the local school had changed history. Mr. Hall, who had come to the school in 1863 and had been vice principal, until, on the death of Samuel M. Capron, he had succeeded to the principalship in 1874 and was not made emeritus till 1893, had signed 1,041 diplomas, or an average of about sixty each year, which in that day was a proud figure. Mr. Hall was born in Ash- field, Mass., in 1828, in the ninth generation from Elder Brewster, and was graduated at Williams College in 1849. Brown and Trin- ity gave him the degree of M. A. He taught in several places, in- cluding the Connecticut Literary Institution, before coming to Hartford. While here he served on city commissions and in other ways evinced his interest in public affairs. He was the father of Dr. Joseph B. Hall, medical director of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company.
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