History of Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1656-1894, Part 62

Author: Kingman, Bradford, 1831-1903. 4n
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1170

USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Brockton > History of Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1656-1894 > Part 62

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BOOT AND SHOE MANUFACTURE.

" uppers " and " soles " is of the very best quality and tannage, and the "samples," in the almost numberless varieties of styles and pattern, are certainly worthy to grace, as they do, the counters and shelves of the first-class boot and shoe stores.

From the earliest days to the present the manufacture of boots and shoes has been a distinctive business with the people of this city, and with the march of improvement and the adoption of the modern facili- ties for prosecuting the growing business, Brockton has kept pace, and from a few little obscure rooms once used, supplied with rudely con- structed shoemakers' benches, old fashioned awls, waxed ends, etc., have sprung up large two, three and four story buildings, constructed on modern principles and supplied with all the latest and most improved machinery known or used in the prosecution of the business. Nowhere has capital been more lavishly expended to secure the best facilities, and nowhere is a greater degree of enterprise manifested to keep up with the times and compete successfully with other manufacturing towns and cities.

In the preceding chapters of this volume we have given at length much of the earlier history of the town and city of Brockton, and if we seek for the causes of her present prosperity, and what has given her a high place in the list of prominent boot and shoe manufacturing, we need only to visit one of the many large manufacturing establishments, and observe carefully the rapidity and diligence used in the various kinds of work in hand. Instead of workmen sitting on low benches, we find large groups of people, all vieing with each other in skill and dispatch, till it would seem as if the shoes would travel themselves. We also find a constant clattering of machines run by long lines of shafting, and in passing from one department to another one cannot help becoming con- vinced that he has found the answer to his enquiry, viz., " Push." There has been a rapid development in the methods of producing foot wear. amounting to a revolution during the past forty years. The inventive genius of man has been taxed to bring about the present condition of things. It was within the last four decades that the greatest advance has been made.

From the old fashioned method of sewing shoes advance was gradual ; first, hand made pegs being used, then brass or iron nails clinched, next

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HISTORY OF BROCKTON.

the screw fastening, and afterwards the sewing machine. The first of these sewing machines were introduced as an accepted implement of in- dustry in 1846. Previous to that Thomas Saint patented in England one of the first if not the first of the features of the modern sewing ma- chine. But the first attempt to introduce them into the sewing of leather was by Lyman R. Blake in 1858, which was afterward perfected as the McKay sole sewing machine, which proved to be one of the most im- portant invention of modern days. To Gordon Mckay is due the credit of bringing the sewing machine into practical use for uniting the uppers on soles of shoes by means of wax thread, that being the combined ideas of several inventors. This machine was brought into use in 1861 and generally adopted. The effect of this and the introduction of other machinery in the aggregate products of this leading industry in Massa- chusetts may be seen as follows: In 1845 there were 45,877 persons producing 20,896,312 pairs of boots and shoes. In 1855, 77,877 per- sons produced 45,066,828 pairs ; the increase of product exceeding the increase of persons employed. But in 1875, when machinery introduced into this trade was in full operation, 49,608 persons, or only 3,731 more than in 1845, when 59,762,866, or three times as many as were made in 1845.

In no trade has the change been more complete from personal labor, whereby all parts of the shoe were made by the same workman, to that of the factory system, depending upon the correlated operations of num- erous independent machines.

Since the introduction of the above machinery various methods of sewing and fastening of soles have been devised-the cable screw, stand- ard screw, clinching screw, wire grip, and other metal fastenings, the Goodyear welt machine, etc., thus giving the manufacturer a choice of methods. The manufacturers of Brockton have not been slow in adopt- ing such of the different kinds as would best promote successful results.

We also find that the manufacturers have an enviable reputation for making a good article for the money they get, and they make what is wanted. With them it is: " Press the button and they will do the rest."

Some one has drawn a picture representing a large building, with cat- tle being driven into one end of the same, while at the other end are manufactured goods being sent away. That may nearly represent the

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shoe manufacturing of Brockton ; the facilities for doing their work is so compact in one establishment.

The Americans are rapidly securing to themselves superiority over all other nations in this most important of manufacturing interests, and they are now regarded as the manufacturers of the world. American ingenuity and skill has completely rivaled the best specimens of Parisian handicraft, and the importation of French gaiters has nearly ceased. Narrowing our limits down to home interests, we may safely say that the highest perfection of this branch of the mechanic arts has been at- tained in Massachusetts.

Early in the seventeenth century the Lords of Trade reported to Parliament that the greater portion of leather used within the province was made in Massachusetts. During the war of the Revolution, Massa- chusetts supplied large quantities of shoes for the army, and during the late Rebellion she supplied the demand of-the government.

The boot and shoe trade of New England is of modern date. Previous to the war of 1812, those engaged in shoemaking consisted of the "vil- lage cobbler," and those whose custom it was to travel from house to house and place to place, to repair and make shoes for the families, enough to last them till he came around again. which was usually once a year. Shoes were not made up in large quantities as at the present time, and it was by degrees that the shoemakers procured a little leather and made it into shoes, and bartered them at a neighboring store for groceries, or exchanged them with the tanners for leather. At length the store-keepers kept a few shoes on hand for sale.

The store trade of Massachusetts may be said to have begun in or about 1818, when the first cargo of shoes and boots was shipped to New York to Messrs. Spofford & Tileston, boot and shoe jobbers. The trade has since continued to increase, till it now forms one-third part of the total manufacturing power of the country. Nearly every small country town in New England does something in the manufacture of boots and shoes, and it has been estimated that every eighth man is a shoemaker.

This important industrial interest, having assumed such wonderful proportions, and towering as it does above all its compeers in magni- tude and importance, deserves more than a passing notice. When we consider the amount of capital devoted to this branch of the mechanic

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arts, the energy and perseverance of the leading men engaged in the same, we cannot fail to give it a place among the greatest of manufactures. The shoes that were made previous to 1818 were mostly hand sewed, until a patent was obtained for riveting the uppers to the bottoms, a steel plate having been used for that purpose. Then came wooden pegs, said to have been first used by Joseph Walker, of Hopkinton, Mass. Soon after pegs had come into common use, it produced a great revolu- tion in the manufacture of sale work. Women and boys were employed to peg shoes that could not so well be employed on sewed work, and hence the number of shoemakers increased very fast. It is said four hundred bushels of pegs were made from four cords of wood in one day. If we stop to consider the great improvements made in the manufacture of sale work by machinery, we cannot fail to see that it has become one of the most important of business pursuits. We now find, instead of the manufacturers sending out leather to make into shoes, as in former times, large numbers of men are engaged in groups making shoes in the manufacturing shops by the different machines that are in use, of which there is a great variety. Instead of cutting leather with a hand- knife, it is now cut with dies, propelled either by machinery or by hand, and in place of the uppers being sewed by hand as they were formerly, machines do the work nicer and much quicker. Then we have the patent last-holder, for assisting in the process of lasting the shoes ; from this the shoe passes to the pegging machine, where, in almost incredible time, the shoe is pegged ; from thence the shoe is passed to the leveling machine, which is a powerful engine for rubbing down the bottoms. Then the shoe is handed from one person to another to do the different parts, of finishing the edges, and grinding the bottoms, putting on of heels, etc. After they are finished, by grinding the bottoms, they are colored and tied in pairs, or placed in single pairs in a paper box, and packed in cases for shipment. We have already seen that shoemaking and manufacturing are not what they were once. Manufacturing shops, instead of the inevitable old red shops, small buildings, having a few cutters only, are now large and commodious buildings, several stories high, filled with machinery of different kinds, and propelled by steam power. In one room, usually the basement, is the steam boiler and engine, and machines for cutting sole leather, rolling it and cutting out

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the soles at a single stroke. In another loft the leather is secured to the last, and the outer soles prepared for the pegging operation. This ma- chine is supplied with a thin strip of wood, like a watch spring, its width being the length of the peg. From the coil at each revolution of the machine, a peg is clipped, that falls into a cell, ready to be introduced by its next movement into its place in the shoe. The pegs are thus produced at the rate of fourteen in a second.

In these days of improvements the following article published in Bos- ton in 1855 seems a little antiquated :

The manufacture of boots and shoes does not, like that of many articles, require the collection of operatives into large manufacturing villages. Central establishments are provided in the country, where the materials are gathered, the leather is cut, packed and distributed to the shcetnakers, who carry them home, sometimes many miles, and put · them together; after which they are returned, and another lot taken. In this way shoemaking is distributed into a large portion of the towns in the State.

It is well known to most of our older readers that seventy-five years ago the centre of the boot and shoe manufacturing interests in the east- ern section of New England was in Randolph, Abington, Stoughton and the Bridgewaters. About the earliest persons to embark in the making of these goods for the wholesale or jobbing trade was a soldier of the Revolution, of Randolph, whose name was Thomas French. After seeing much service in the expeditions of Montgomery and Arnold against Quebec in 1775, he was taken prisoner and set to work on the fortifications. Not long after this he was placed on board a transport bound for Halifax, N. S., and while on the passage he and a man from Braintee, by the name of Thayer, got possession of the vessel and brought it into a Massachusetts port.

Mr. French, having regained his freedom, returned to his home in Randolph and established himself as a tanner and currier. His tannery was located on the Blue Hill turnpike, just below the present site of the Catholic Church and south of the mill pond, where his large house now stands.

After the war, Adonijah French, a relative of the above, in the dis- charge of the military service required of him, was sent with the com- pany to which he belonged to Castle Island, now Fort Independence. This company was composed of twenty-six men from Braintree (at that time embracing the towns of Quincy, Randolph and Holbrook), seven-

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teen from Weymouth and thirteen from Abington and Stoughton, their business being to protect the property of the State. At the fort were one or two shoemakers, and as the time hung heavy on the hands of the members of the company and their funds were getting low, the idea struck them that they would learn to make shoes, both for the purpose of keeping themselves busy and of improving their finances. They ac- cordingly sent their comrade French to Boston, who returned with a quantity of leather which in due time was made up into shoes and sent to Boston to be sold. In this way they worked for two years, and at the expiration of their term of service returned home with the trade well learned. Some of the soldier shoemakers, who had farms, went back to their old occupations, but others not so favorably situated betook themselves to the tannery of old Capt. Thomas French, and asked to be set at work making shoes, as he had leather to dispose of. Being an energetic and enterprising man, he was tempted to try the experiment, and gave out a quantity of work to one or two of them. After the shoes were finished he took them in his saddle bags, mounted his horse, and riding through Blue Hill woods disposed of them at the various stores in Boston.

It was from this small beginning that we may date the commence- ment of the shoe business in the towns of Randolph, Brockton, Wey- mouth, Abington, Stoughton and the Bridgewaters. From this small start, Captain French successfully increased his business until he ex- tended his sales to Montreal and Quebec, the scene of his early exploits and sufferings. Not long after he succeeded in thus establishing him- self in his new business, others took the hint and also began manufactur- ing. One, an apprentice boy, after getting so as to put a shoe together, ran away from his master, travelled on foot to Boston, backed home leather sufficient for a dozen or twenty pairs of shoes, making up the goods, and backed them into Boston again, replenishing his stock from the proceeds and adopting the same method of transportation as at first. He afterwards became a manufacturer and died leaving an estate ap- praised at $20,000.

Among the first to follow Captain French in the manufacture of shoes were two other Castle Island soldiers-Major Amasa Stetson and his brother Samuel-by whom the first store for the exclusive sale of boots

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and shoes was established in Boston. Major Stetson accumulated an immense fortune, his estate at the time of his death, being valued at over a million. He remembered his native town by giving a liberal amount for the erection of Stetson Hall, and for the endowment of a school which also bears his name; he also made generous bequests to his old comrades who served with him on Castle Island.

The business was also early undertaken by Silas Alden, who carried it on with much success, but it was his son, Silas, jr., to whom Ran- dolph is chiefly indebted for making it the center of so large a business in the production of boots and shoes. He was a man of much enter- prise, and built up a large trade with New York and other seaboard cities. The embargo laid upon our ports by the British, in the war of 1812, interfered greatly with the prosecution of his business, but he kept his customers supplied by sending goods overland, employing the farmers of Randolph to transport shoes in their ox and horse teams to Baltimore and Richmond, and once as far as Charleston, S. C.

Mr. Micah Faxon was probably the first person who manufactured shoes for the wholesale trade in what is now Brockton. He came from Randolph in 1811, and commenced cutting and making shoes in the house that was formerly occupied by the late Matthew Packard on Crescent street, and on the same lot that the late Mr. Faxon's house now stands. At that time there was no one in town who could bind the vamps and put the shoes together, and they were sent to Randolph to be made. At first he made one hundred pair of fine calf spring-heel shoes, and carried them to Boston on horseback. His first lot was sold to Messrs. Monroe & Nash, a firm on Long Wharf, Boston, who were among the first to send goods to the South. When carriages came into common use, he carried his shoes into the city in wagons, and brought out his own leather. The market men, and those who carried wood and other goods to market, used to bring out stock for him, which, of course, was in small lots at first. Soon after this time Messrs. Silas Packard and Col. Edward Southworth became engaged in the same business in connection with their store, on the corner of Court and Main streets, were the late David Cobb's store formerly stood, and which he occupied until near his decease, and which was afterward occupied by his son, David Herbert Cobb. The Whipple-Freeman brick block, in which is the post-office, stands on the site of the old building.

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HISTORY OF BROCKTON.

Following Mr. Faxon, about the year 1820, was William French, who was located near where B. F. Reynolds now lives. John May and Sid- ney Howard began manufacturing about the same time, the latter go- ing to Savannah to sell their goods ; Zophar Field and Charles South- worth, in a part of the large tenement building near the present resi- dence of William L. Field ; Zenas Brett, in the old Brett homestead ; Nathan Jones, in a building that then stood where C. R. Ford's factory is located, was afterwards a part of the furniture establishment of How- ard, Clark & Co .; Col. Edward Southworth in what is now known as the Gazette building; in 1816 Benjamin Kingman and Major Nathan Hayward, in the rear part of the house which occupied the present site of Hon. E. Southworth's residence ; Charles and Azra Keith, on the " Plain,"1 their principal business being the manufacture of sailors' pumps which they took to New Bedford and sold to the whalemen.

In 1825 Isaac Packard, Heman Packard, Simeon Dunbar and Ly- . sander Howard went into business together at the West Shares, but in a few months dissolved, and the latter was alone, in a building formerly occupied by his father Ichabod . Howard. His business rapidly en- larged, and in 1833 he put up the shop now standing in front of the house of Royal Snell, where he employed several hands and produced nearly twenty- five thousand dollars' worth of goods per year, this being by far the largest business done by any manufacturer in town at that time. The business traits which he developed and the enterprise and activity which he displayed, soon won for him a leading place among the people of the town and gave promise of a large measure of success in the future. These hopes were cut off by his death in 1835, and the town was bereft of one of its most earnest and promising young men. Previous to his death he had taken his brother Henry into partnership, and after his decease the business was continued by Henry and David Howard, under the firm name of L. Howard & Co. About this time Francis Dunbar began to get out a few shoes in the chamber of Zenas Brett's store at the North End, but his uncle, Asaph Dunbar, recogniz- ing his abilities, offered him inducements to take hold for him, and he went to New Orleans, where he was shortly after attacked with yellow fever and came home to die.

1 Campello.

frederick Howund

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The next to engage in the business were Rufus E. Howard, Nahum Reynolds, Daniel Field, George F. Mathews, George W. Bryant, Josiah Packard, Isaac F. Curtis, Francis M. French, Hiram French, Samuel S. Brett and perhaps others. Of these Rufus E. Howard took the lead, ' his business far out-reaching that which had ever before been attempted in town. In 1836 his sales amounted to fifty thousand dollars, a fact which, as it became known, was the topic of as much comment as any- thing which ever transpired in town, unless it be the recent savings bank developments. Two years later he died, and for the second time the town was called to mourn the loss of its leading business man. About this time Caleb Howard, John Tilden, Howard Tilden and Perez Mar- shall formed a partnership and began manufacturing at Marshall's Cor- ner ; George Clark was also engaged in business about that time at the West Shares, and George W. Dunbar at the centre village. In 1837, the latter formed a partership with Bradford Dunbar and himself re- moved to New Orleans to sell the goods they made. The same year Frederick Howard began to manufacture, though not upon a large scale, his sales never amounting to over twenty-five thousand a year. On the death of Rufus E. Howard he took the business and carried it on until 1843, when he sold out to David Howard. Among others who engaged in manufacturing during these years were C. J. F. Packard, B. F. Lawton and S. S. Webster at the West Shares, and Edwin Dunbar, B. G. Stoddard and R. A. Stoddard at the north part of the village, North Bridgewater in the meantime beginning to take favorable rank with Randolph, Stoughton, Abington and other shoe towns in this sec- tion of the State.

Among the early manufacturers, in and around Brockton, the reader will recall the names of Nathaniel, Isaac, James and Darius Littlefield, of Stoughton (now Avon). James Littlefield removed to Randolph, where he resided many years, and from thence removed to Campello, and later to Boston, where in partnership with his son, George C., they became wholesale leather merchants on Fulton street, George con- tinuing the sale of leather up to this date on High street. Many is the young man in beginning the manufacture of boots and shoes in Brock- ton who cherishes the pleasantest recollections of this firm, in rendering to them kind words of encouragement, and the more substantial aid in starting them on their business career.

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There were others in Stoughton and vicinity who were putting out leather to be made into shoes in the numerous small seven by nine shops scattered throughout that region. The old firm of I. & H. Blanchard is familiar to many of our older citizens, besides the Ather- tons, Tuckers, Goldthwaites, Linfields, Swans and Belchers, of Stough- ton. The well known family of White, Caleb and Elisha Holbrooks, of East Randolph, the latter, of whom by his beneficence, caused the name of this village to be changed to Holbrook, and made into a separate municipality from its mother town of Randolph.

Next come the well-known names of Alden, Belcher, Wales, Maguire, Du Bois, French, Thayers and Howards of Randolph.

In Abington we remember the Dunbars, Gurneys, Abner Curtis, Jenkins Lane & Sons and others. In Weymouth were the Tirrells, Lords, Vinings, Nash and Torreys. Our readers will call to mind the old and well-known firm of Mitchell & Bryant in Joppa Village (now -Elmwood), East Bridgewater, composed of Cushing Mitchell and Seth Bryant, the last named gentlemen now living at (Ashmont), Boston. in his ninety-fifth year, vigorous and smart, still holding to his Democrat ideas as firmly as in his youthful days. While nearer home we find the familiar names of Keith, Howard, Packard, Reynolds, Copeland and Kingman, all well known in the trade, even to the present time.

It is said that in 1855 the boot and shoe interests of Massachusetts were the largest of any in the State. The number of boot. shoe and leather dealers in Boston in 1855 was 176 firms, hide and leather dealers forty-three firms, leather dealers fifty-one firms. Some of those doing a business of one- half million dollars ; these are pretty small figures for 1894, to say nothing of the immense amount of leather brought from the "swamp" in New York to the manufacturers of Brockton.

This business in Boston was formerly confined to the streets near the Market as Shoe and Leather street, Blackstone, Fulton, Clinton, Cross, Ann, and other localities near by. Later large and elegant stores were erected of granite on Pearl, Purchase, Kilby, Federal, Congress, High, South, Lincoln, Essex and Summer streets, and the larger leather stores on or near Atlantic avenue, and in immediate proximity to the several Southern Railroad stations.

To-day nearly all of our Brockton manufacturers have stores for the

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sale of their goods in the above named localities. The boot and shoe trade has also excellent facilities for disposing of their goods by means of traveling salesmen to all parts of the country, and an extensive ac- quaintance with buyers, who are now familiar with the customs and usage of manufacturers. The modern bureaus of credit, mercantile agencies, and the various clubs have been the means within a few years of placing this most important of industries upon a well established basis, quite in contrast with the old method of conducting business. It is much more systematic and easier to do an extensive trade than it was formerly to do a small business. In this new departure perhaps there are none who are better prepared or qualified than are the manufacturers of Brock- ton, which includes Campello and Montello. The growth of the city for the past twenty years attests the fact that the older manufacturers have been a success, and now the younger members of the craft are fol- lowing faithfully along the lines of enterprise with successful results.

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History of Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1656-1894, Part 62

Author: Kingman, Bradford, 1831-1903. 4n Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 1170

Author: Kingman, Bradford, 1831-1903. 4n
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1170