USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 3 The Beginnings of Roman Catholicism in Connecticut > Part 21
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Another household industry which had a notable devel- opment, and which was also later in close connection with the brass manufacture, was the making of pewter and britannia ware. About 1800 there were several small shops engaged in the production of pewter wares. The most important were in Hartford, Meriden, and Walling- ford. Pewter was a mixture of tin and lead, in the pro- portion of one to four, which fused readily. The process was to cast the metal in the form desired, the articles being then finished by lathe or by hand tools. The first wares were spoons, plates or platters, basins or mugs. The product was marketed by peddlers.
After 1815 britannia, an alloy of tin with small amounts of antimony and copper, came to be used, the casting process still being employed. Pewter could not be rolled, nor could britannia, to advantage. Some rolling was attempted with unsatisfactory results. In 1836 Robert Wallace of Wallingford, who had been casting both pewter and britannia, secured from an Englishman in New York, for twenty-five dollars, a new formula. This was an alloy of nickel, zinc, and copper, in the pro- portion approximately of two of copper to one of each of the other metals. Wallace secured small amounts of the necessary metals and fused them. The product was sent to a brass rolling mill in Waterbury and then occurred the first rolling, in the United States, of nickel silver.
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This was found to be harder than britannia, was well adapted for rolling, took a high polish, was apparently durable, and was successfully used from the start. The rising brass industry found its possibilities enlarged by the making and rolling of nickel silver, and ever since this has been an important item in the trade.
III
OF the various household industries to which the resi- dents of Connecticut about the beginning of the nine- teenth century devoted their energy and ingenuity, the most notable in its development within the state, judg- ing by its connection with the brass industry of today and the position which this now occupies, was the mak- ing of metal buttons. This was the germ from which grew the manufacture of brass in Connecticut.
In 1790, Henry Grilley, who had learned the process from an Englishman in Boston, associated with his brothers, Silas and Samuel, in the making of pewter buttons in Waterbury. At that time this was a house- hold industry. The pewter was cast in a mould, with the eye in a solid piece, and finished by hand. In 1800 the Grilleys improved the process by the introduction of an eye of iron wire. Two years later Abel Porter and his brother, Levi, came to Waterbury from Southington, Connecticut, and, associated with the Grilleys under the name of Abel Porter and Company, undertook the manu- facture of buttons from sheet brass. Apparently they were the first in America to employ the modern method of making brass by the direct fusion of copper and zinc. This also involved the first rolling of brass in the United States.
Copper was obtained by the purchase of old stills, kettles, ship-sheathing, and the like, zinc was added, and
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brass ingots were obtained. Until the middle of the century all the copper used in the Waterbury mills was either old material broken up or imported in bulk. All the zinc was imported until about 1870. The brass ingots were taken to an iron mill in Litchfield, where they were roughly rolled and then returned to Waterbury, where they were finished by being run between steel rolls, two inches in diameter, driven by horsepower. The forms were struck by dies from the sheet brass, concave, con- vex, round, or oval; the face was gilded and the product placed upon the market. The buttons were at first sold from house to house, until the tinware peddlers added them to their stock in trade.
Slowly the enterprise became established. In 1806 Levi Porter retired. Two years later, David Hayden, a skilled mechanic, was secured from Attleboro, Massachusetts, where the casting process was still employed. A larger mill was acquired and water power was utilized. The next year Silas Grilley sold out his interest, and in 181I, all the original proprietors having retired, a new partner- ship was formed under the name Leavenworth, Hayden and Scovill. From this firm, through a partnership of James M. L. and William H. Scovill in 1827, has come directly the present corporation, Scovill Manufacturing Company.
This is now the oldest organization in the field, con- tinuously operating since 1802. Today it occupies the largest independent plant in the country, probably in the world, devoted to the manufacture of brass, includ- ing both its casting shop and mill products and its semi- finished and finished wares. It does, in the main, a custom business, so that only a comparatively small amount of its total product is marketed in its own name. The yearly capacity of its mills is about 100,000,000 pounds. It is a
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completely self-contained manufacturing unit. Normally the company has employed about 8,000 hands, but in 1918 at the wartime peak it had 15,000 employees.
IV
FOR twenty years, as far as is now known, this Waterbury undertaking was the only sustained effort to roll brass in the United States. It was not until 1823 that the busi- ness had grown to such proportions as to engage atten- tion and to invite competition. In 1812 Aaron Benedict had established himself in the making of bone and ivory buttons in Waterbury. In 1823 he associated himself with four other men, raised a capital of $6,500 and began the making of rolled brass buttons. By this time cast buttons had disappeared from the market and there were no brass buttons made in the country outside of Waterbury. From this venture came the Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Company, the second of the Waterbury firms to become established in the industry. This enter- prise, which has been in operation continuously since its beginning in 1823, was, in 1900, included in the Ameri- can Brass Company, then newly organized.
At first Benedict followed the example of the older firm and had his brass rolled in the iron mill at Litchfield. He tried to organize the sale of his product and placed agents in New York and at Philadelphia, but the effort to extend the market was not immediately successful. It was difficult to compete with English goods. Before this an attempt had been made to secure skilled workmen from England, but the first who came were hardly more efficient than the native Americans. Benedict next at- tempted to get better machinery. In 1824 he imported from England rolls (eleven inches in diameter and thirty inches long) of much the largest capacity then in this
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country. He tried to economize by rolling his own brass.
At the same time the Scovills were trying to better conditions. In 1820, James Croft, who reported that he had been employed in Birmingham by an English firm whose goods held the highest rank in the American mar- ket, was hired by them. He declared that the machinery here in use was much inferior to that in England and he was sent thither to get better. He returned with an expert toolmaker and the product of the firm was vastly im- proved.
With the heavier machinery of Benedict and the serv- ices of Croft and his mechanic, it was found that Eng- lish competition could be met, and the profits of the manufacture rapidly increased. It was during this decade, from 1820 to 1830, that the rising industry passed the experimental stage. By 1830 it was securely established. In 1824 Benedict began to roll his own brass and in 1829 Scovill began to roll his. Shortly thereafter Waterbury rolled brass began to come into the market. Until after the middle of the century there was no rolling of brass in the country in appreciable amounts except at Water- bury. As the extension of the operations of these two firms from the simple making of buttons to the rolling of brass for market was a critical stage in the growth of the industry, it is well to consider the condition of the trade at that time.
As the manufacture of buttons was carried on at Waterbury it involved the essentials of the factory sys- tem. In this respect it was one of the earliest in American industry. The old processes required the casting of the metal into moulds and finishing by hand and had been carried on as a household industry. In Waterbury machines were then introduced which were novel, for they demanded the attention of operatives and could
I2
not be adapted for household manufacture. The machin- ery required the use of power. Horsepower was used at first, water power after 1808. There was some division of labor, as rolling of the brass, operating of the dies and stamps which cut the blanks, and finishing were quite distinct operations. But it is not to be assumed that, be- cause the essentials of the factory system were present, the plants were of notable size. In 1820 twenty hands were the maximum number of employees. Even in 1830 the number in the two establishments was between forty and fifty, and ordinarily the members of the firm were actively engaged in the operation of the machinery in the factory.
V
IN 1829, Benedict and Coe succeeded to the business originally established by Aaron Benedict. There was then an open market for about thirty tons of sheet brass and for about twenty tons of wire. The country, hitherto, had imported all the wire and practically all the sheet brass. The margin above their own needs which the Waterbury mills could sell in the open market was small. There is on record only that a few manufacturers in Boston were using small amounts of Waterbury brass in the making of fire engines, kettles, grates, and fenders, and for rolled plates. The calculated profit was large. Both sheet brass and brass wire sold in the market at three to four times the total cost of raw material and labor. During the ten years from 1820 to 1830, from accumulated profits, the two firms had multiplied by four their invested capital.
Believing that a profitable business could be estab- lished, Israel Holmes, who had been in the employ of the Scovills and who started more new enterprises than any other individual, associated seven other men with him-
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self, raised a capital of $8,000, and began the making of sheet metal and wire for the open market in 1830. The first firm name was Holmes and Hotchkiss. The venture was not immediately successful. Within eight years several changes were made in the partnership. In 1838 the name was fixed as Brown and Elton, which continued until 1856, when the partnership was dissolved. The prosperity of this new firm was entirely dependent upon machinery and workmen that Holmes, in 1831, secured from Birmingham, England. He obtained three sets of rolls and six wire blocks, and engaged a caster, roller, wiredrawer, and tubemaker. This was the first effort to draw wire and to make tubing in the United States.
After the advent of this third firm in Waterbury it was possible to produce sheet brass and wire in much larger quantity than the open market could absorb. The manu- facturers were driven to the task of working up their own product. Up to that time the making of metal buttons had furnished the only considerable local demand for sheet brass. Now, however, was called into active opera- tion that initiative and enterprise which, having estab- lished the first rolling of brass, determined that the indus- try should be localized in Waterbury and the vicinity.
Holmes and Hotchkiss began the making of tubing from sheet metal brazed at the joint. After 1836 such tubing was used for interior work for gas, first by the New York Gas Company. An attempt was also made to supply the demand for brass wire. At that time twelve to fourteen tons of wire was a six months' supply, and it was all imported. It was not easy to secure the market. Gradually this was accomplished and in 1835 twenty-five hands were employed in this department. No local com- petition had then appeared.
In 1836 this new firm began the manufacture of hooks
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and eyes-the first successful attempt in the United States. In 1810 hooks and eyes had cost $1.50 a gross. The possibility of large profit had encouraged some attempt to make them of imported wire, but this was shortly abandoned. When Holmes and Hotchkiss found a surplus of wire on their hands they undertook this manufacture, and for some years they alone used domestic wire for this purpose. In 1842 the company also took up the making of pins.
Another new undertaking was the making of brass butts (hinges). These had been cast of iron as well as of brass. Their manufacture had been established in Troy, New York, before 1830. About 1835, Benedict and Burn- ham, who had in the previous year succeeded Benedict and Coe, made butts of rolled brass at a cost and with a finish which easily rivaled those made of cast metal. Hitherto there had been an active trade in imported butts. In 1836 the Scovills also took up this manufacture, and the local market was soon gained.
At about the same time, as has already been noted, the invention of the rolled-brass clock created an active demand for sheet brass. Also the rolling of nickel silver was introduced, principally for the manufacture of tableware.
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Two other ventures followed which, for different reasons, had a large place in the subsequent history of the trade. The result was to add two new plants and, for the first time, to extend the industry outside Waterbury.
In 1834 Israel Coe left his partnership with Benedict and associated himself with Anson G. Phelps of New York and with John Hungerford, shortly including Israel Holmes who sold out his interest in Holmes and Hotchkiss. They organized the Wolcottville Brass Com-
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pany and established a new industry in Wolcottville (now Torrington) for the making of brass kettles by the battery process, so called. The kettles were hammered into shape from blanks. Before this kettles had been cast. At first imported blanks were used. Then an attempt was made to cast blanks, then to use sheet metal, but the right metal mixture was not discovered, nor was a satisfactory annealing process found. At first it was thought that the troubles arose because of the ignorance or inefficiency of the workmen, so several skilled men were brought from England. These proved to be but indifferent workmen and the product was still unsatis- factory. The new concern barely weathered the financial storm of 1837. In 1842 Coe visited the only two estab- lishments in Europe using this process and secured the right mixture and the proper annealing process. Immedi- ately the product was vastly improved and for several years the company was very prosperous.
In 1851 Hiram W. Hayden, then employed by the Scovills, invented the process, still in use, of forming kettles by spinning and turning, and the Wolcottville concern found its business practically gone. Before this the associates had one by one become interested in other enterprises and the control of the plant had passed to Hungerford. Later his workmen were hired away by another company in Ansonia. In 1863, after the plant had been practically idle for several years, the men who organ- ized the Coe Brass Company raised a capital of $100,000, bought it, and achieved large success in drawing wire and in rolling nickel silver, brass, and copper. This plant, which has been in operation continuously since 1863, became the central unit of the American Brass Company upon its organization on December 14, 1899.
The other venture had an even larger effect upon later
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conditions. It marked the introduction of a new factor in the industry. Previously each new departure had been taken by those identified with the existing mills. Anson G. Phelps was an importer of tin, brass, and copper in New York, and hence was in closer touch with the domes- tic market than were the Waterbury men. In 1834 he had become interested in the Wolcottville venture but in 1836, associated with some others, he built a mill in Derby for the rolling of copper. He felt that he could successfully compete with the mills up the valley. Smith and Phelps, as the partnership was then called, located their plant on the west bank of the Naugatuck and named the new settlement Birmingham, from the famous English center. The panic of 1837 broke just as the enter- prise was getting started, but from the first the new plant was successful. In 1838 the mill was burned, but was immediately rebuilt. Workmen and machinery were secured from England and men were hired from Wolcott- ville and Waterbury. The new mill made a specialty of copper sheets and wire, and this manufacture was largely centered there.
Phelps, encouraged by his success, planned a large manufacturing community at Birmingham and sought to control the surrounding land. This project was arrested by a man who, learning of the plan, bought a farm that was considered essential to its accomplishment and raised the price of it from $5,000 to $30,000. This Phelps refused to pay, so he went two miles up the river where he founded Ansonia, so called from his own given name. In 1844 a rolling mill was constructed there. Later, as the Wolcottville company lost its command of the market for brass kettles, Phelps secured the most of its skilled labor. In 1854 the Derby mill was abandoned and the Ansonia Brass and Copper Company, which came to be
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one of the largest establishments in the trade, was or- ganized. In 1899 this company joined with the Coe Brass Company in the formation of the American Brass Com- pany. The success of the Ansonia venture definitely added the handling of copper to the already established brass business. Phelps's enterprise also added a new branch of manufacture to the rising industry, namely, the making of pins from brass wire.
VII
IN America in the colonial days pins were imported and were very costly. One of the items of an estate left in Waterbury in 1749, in company with wearing apparel, breeches, coats, knives, and a razor was a "paper of pinns." In 1775 the provincial assembly of North Caro- lina offered a bounty of fifty pounds for the first twenty- five dozen pins of domestic manufacture equal to those imported from England. At that time pins cost seven shillings six pence a dozen. The cost of pins and their usefulness gave form and point to the phrase "pin money," designating the sum allowed a wife by her hus- band for the purchase of such necessary articles. Various attempts were made to introduce this manufacture in the United States, but until after 1830 all pins were imported.
In 1831, Dr. John I. Howe of New York invented a pin-making machine which was successfully operated. He made improvements in 1832, 1833, 1838, and 1841. In the last year the solid-headed pin was perfected. The earlier machines had used a wire-wound head. At the same time others were at work and two other ventures proved to be successful. By 1840 Slocum and Jillson in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the Fowler Brothers in Northford, Connecticut, were making pins for the mar-
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ket. The Fowler machine proved to be superior to the Howe machine. The next improvement was the machine for sticking the pins on paper. The high labor cost made improvement necessary. Slocum and Jillson and Dr. Howe together perfected a sticking machine. This gave them a decided advantage over the Fowlers, notwith- standing their better machine for making the pins. In 1838 the Howe Manufacturing Company, which had been organized in New York in 1835, was located in Derby under the influence of A. G. Phelps. This company continued in business in Derby until 1908.
The enterprise of the Waterbury men also appeared in this connection. In 1842 Brown and Elton purchased the business of the Fowlers in Northford and moved the machinery to Waterbury. They also bought a third interest in Slocum and Jillson and made an arrangement with Dr. Howe for the use of his patent of the sticking machine. In 1846 Brown and Elton with Benedict and Burnham organized the American Pin Company, bought the rest of the business of Slocum and Jillson, and moved the machinery to Waterbury. This gave the control of the effective pin-making machines and the sticking device to the American Pin Company and the Howe Manufac- turing Company. It was the sticking device which was the deciding factor in the control of the American mar- ket. In England pins were still stuck upon the papers for market by hand.
Induced by the large profit realized, many others attempted the making of pins, but shortly these all dis- appeared. By 1848 the only companies in America were the Howe Manufacturing Company and the American Pin Company. For many years these two, and the Oak- ville Company, established in 1850, controlled the Ameri- can market. The two companies last named were ac-
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quired by Scovills in 1923, while the Howe Company had been purchased in 1908 by Plume and Atwood.
VIII
THE three establishments in Waterbury, the Scovills, Benedict and Burnham, and Brown and Elton, with the Wolcottville concern and the Derby mill, were the only successful ventures in the brass industry before 1840. It is believed that they were the only plants in the country devoted to the rolling and the working of sheet brass.
The panic of 1837 broke just as the three newer con- cerns were getting started. The large profits which were being made, the notably increased demand due to Jerome's clock, and the control of the business made possible the continuation of the operation of the factories and, when once the crisis was past, led to rapid recovery. After 1840 the demand broadened considerably, the ven- tures were increasingly successful, and the next decade was relatively the most prosperous of any until 1880.
Shortly after 1840 another new product of the brass mills was called for, and this was supplied in the effort to work up surplus material. The invention of Daguerre in the realm of photography in 1839 was first applied to silver plates. Soon, however, it was found that copper plated with silver answered the purpose, and in 1842 the Scovills undertook to supply this demand. From the first this effort was successful. Plates considered better than the English, and nearly as good as the French, were placed in large quantities upon the market. Other manufac- turers followed this example and for many years the mak- ing of photographic plates was an important item in the trade. Many other uses were found for copper and brass in the business of the photographic galleries, and the brass mills supplied these demands.
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IX
THE expanding trade and the large profits encouraged competition, and during the next few years several new plants were established. The first new concern to roll brass was the Waterbury Brass Company. The first step in the organization of this company was taken by a man who owned a mill privilege on the Mad River. He en- listed the interest of capitalists, including John P. Elton of Brown and Elton. Israel Holmes was induced to sever his connection with the Wolcottville company and to assume the presidency of the new organization. In 1846 the first mill was built, the largest at that date in the country. In 1852 this company bought of Hiram W. Hayden his newly invented spinning process and soon controlled the manufacture of brass kettles. The success of the new company as well as its rapid growth was indi- cated by the increase of its capital stock. At the beginning this was $40,000, increased the same year to $50,000; in 1848 this was $75,000; in 1850, $104,000; in 1852, $208,000; in 1853, $250,000; in 1857, $300,000; and in 1860, $400,000. From 1855 to 1860 this company handled the largest weight of metal of any in the valley. In 1899 it participated in the organization of the American Brass Company.
From Phelps's venture in Derby two other companies arose. The first was in 1848 in Ansonia. Thomas Wallace, who had learned the trade of drawing wire in England, in 1832 removed to America. For nine years he worked with uncertain results at his trade in various places. In 184I he moved to Derby and until 1848 he drew wire for the pin machines of the Howe Manufacturing Company. In that year he began operations on his own account in
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Ansonia and in company with his sons built up a large business in rolling metal and drawing wire. In 1853 the enterprise was incorporated and a good business was built up. About 1880 this plant was one of the largest in the valley. Later the company was forced into liquida- tion and in 1896 the plant was bought by the Coe Brass Company.
The second outgrowth of Phelps's activity appeared in the organization of the Humphreysville Copper Com- pany at Seymour in 1849 with a capital of $40,000, increased to $200,000 in 1852. The leading spirit in this company was Thomas James, who moved from the Derby mill to Ansonia in 1847. This company prospered in its earlier years, but in 1855, with a nominal capital of $750,000, it was succeeded by the New Haven Copper Company with a capital of $400,000. The new company was still overcapitalized and for nearly twenty years financial difficulties interfered with its prosperity. Since 1880 the company has been moderately successful. From the first it has made a specialty of handling copper.
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