History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 215

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 215

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disposed of one-third of it to his son, Reuben Hey- wood Sawin, and one-third to his son-in-law, John Da- mon, retaining the remainder to himself. An addition was soon after put up, circular saws and turning lathes were introduced, and a large business was done in get- ting out chair stock, the rapidly increasing manufac- ture of chairs in the vicinity creating a great demand for that kind of production. A few years later, about 1831, a new shop was erected and chair-making was introduced, carried on in part by Sullivan Sawin, Jr., and also by the before-mentioned parties under the firm-name of "Sawin & Damon." But the then recent invention of machinery for the turning of pails and kindred ware, together with the abundance of tin- ber near at hand suitable for the manufacture of such goods, induced the latter to go into that business, and they accordingly did so, associating with themselves Jonas Child, Moses Wood and a Mr. Vail, the last two of whom were located in Providence, and at- tended to the selling of what was made as part of the business of a general furniture house which they had established. This arrangement continued till 1836, when Sawin & Damon, having purchased a large tract of timber land in Fitzwilliam and erected a mill upon it, desired to dispose of their Gardner in- terests that they might devote themselves exclusively to the new enterprise in which they had enlisted. It was finally decided to dispose of the entire pail manufacturing business, which had been carried on under the style of the Gardner Pail Factory Co., and this was accordingly done. The purchasing parties were Amasa Bancroft, Jared Taylor, Frederick Parker and Joel Baker, the firm being known by the name of Taylor, Bancroft & Co. In 1840, Mr. Ban- croft bought out his partners and continued the busi- ness alone for twenty-five years, when he associated with bimself his son-in-law, John C. Bryant, who remained with Mr. Bancroft till his death in 1882, the name of the partnership being Amasa Bancroft & Co. About a year after the death of Mr. Bryant, Mr. Bancroft received his step-son, Alfred Wyman, as as- sociate in the business under the former name, and this relation continued till the decease of the original mem- ber of the firm early in 1888, who had the reputation of being the oldest tub and pail manufacturer in the country. The business has always been carefully managed, without any effort to increase it to gigantic proportions, and has been attended with satisfactory results. For many years it has employed an aver- age of eighteen men, and has turned out, annually, goods amounting to the value of about $25,000.

THE MANUFACTURE OF CHAIRS.

The leading industry of Gardner, overshadowing all others and contributing more than all others to the prosperity and wealth of the town, is chair manufac- turing. It is this which distinguishes it above all other towns in the county, and has given it a name and an honorable fame far and wide througbout the length and

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breadth of the land, and even in foreign realms. So important a factor in the development of the material, social and civil interests of the community, in shaping its fortunes and determining its history, deserves a somewhat detailed and careful statement of its growth from humble and unpretending beginnings through the various stages of expansion and progress up to the grand and imposing proportions which it has, at the present writing, attained. And to such a state- ment the attention of the reader is hereby invited.

It is generally understood and believed that the father and founder of the chair-making business in Gardner was James M. Comee, son of David Comee, who came from Lexington some ten or twelve years before the incorporation of the town, and settled near the junction of Pearl and Chapel Streets, in the east part. David was the son of David, who was the son of John Comee, the first of the family in the country, as is supposed, a resident of "Cambridge Farms," afterwards Lexington, at the time of its organization as a precinct in 1693. He is said to have served in the battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill and Benning- ton. He married (1) Christiana Maltman, also of Lexington, by whom he had seven children; and (2) Hannah Maltman, the mother of eight more. Of these fifteen children James M. was the second, born April 18, 1777. He married Sarah Putnam, and located at the top of the hill on what is now Pearl Street about the year 1800, upon the estate now owned and improved by Webster Gates, who married his grand-daughter, Mary F. Jaquith. In the year 1805, so far as can be learned, he began the making of chairs, in a very small way, in one of the rooms of his dwelling-house, doing most of the work at the outset with his own hands. Finding the business profitable, Mr. Comee soon called in some of the lads or yonng men of the neighborhood to assist him as apprentices. Among those thus employed at an early date were Enoch, Elijah and Jonas Brick, while, later on, were Isaac Jaquith, Elijah Putnam, Luke Fairbanks, Joseph Jackson and others. Several of these men afterwards started the same business on their own account and prosecuted it for a longer or shorter term of years, more or less successfully.

The chairs first made by Mr. Comee were nndoubt- edly constructed wholly of wood, the seats being of solid plank, either in one piece or in several pieces, firmly glued together. Rocking-chairs constituted a considerable portion of the goods produced; some having a seat entirely flat, except. it may have been hollowed out somewhat with an adze; and others, more easy and tasteful, having what was called the raised seat. Not many years transpired, however, before a new style of seat came into vogue, known as the flag seat, which proved to be very acceptable and salable, and which was in good demand for a quarter of a century, or until superseded by the more modern and more artistic rattan or cane-seat. This seat was manufactured from a plant often found in this

locality, growing in marshy places and along the borders of sluggish streams, known to botanists as a form of the genus Typha Latifolia, and to people at large as the cat-tail flag. Being of a tough, fibrous nature, with considerable thickness of structure and of sufficient length, it was well adapted to the use designated. The leaves were wound around the four sides of a seat-frame, and, when carefully twisted and woven by a skillful hand in four compartments, whose intertwining lines converged from the corners to a common centre, presented a neat and attractive ap- pearance. It was much more pleasing to the eye and more comfortable than the hard, stiff wooden seat which it largely supplanted, and was deemed a decided improvement npon it in many respects. Few, if any, chairs of this sort are now made, though specimens of them may be found in the dwellings of most of the older New England families.

In the early period of chair manufacture, the work was done mostly by hand, even to the getting out of the stock, only a small turning-lathe, propelled by foot-power, being used for preparing the round stuff. What machinery was used was very simple and the tools were very few, so that the need of other than the force resident in the human muscle had not then been made manifest. Hence, for some years, chairs were made in the simple, slow, laborious way desig- nated. The industry was in the elementary, forma- tive period of its development, feeling its way along towards better methods and a well-assured success. An advance was made and a positive advantage gained when horse-power was introduced to facilitate the turning of stock and the doing of some of the more tiresome parts of the work, for which some simple mechanical apparatus had been invented.

The chairs made by Mr. Comee were, for many years, taken to Worcester, Lowell, Springfield and Boston, with teams of one or more horses, driven by himself or by persons in his employ, who sold them in small quantities, as opportunity offered,-some- times even disposing of them from honse to honse, in the more sparsely-settled towns. In such a small way did Mr. Comee begin this important manufac- ture, and by such unpretending methods did he prosecute the work by which he earned for himself a name long to be remembered in his native town and wherever the business he did so much to make a permanent interest in the community is pursued.

Probably the first of Mr. Comee's apprentices to establish a business on his own account, and carry it on successfully for a long series of years, becoming thereby the second permanent chair-maker in Gard- ner, was Elijah Brick. He went to his trade in 1806, when fourteen years of age, and served in good old-fashioned style till he was twenty-one. Continu- ing with Mr. Comee as journeyman for a year, he bought, in 1814, a place half a mile north of the Common, on which he settled, built a small shop and commenced the making of flag-seat chairs. He em-

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ployed his brother Enoch to assist him about the wood-work, and female help to make the seats. Later on, Benjamin Howe was in his service, and others, afterward, as his business increased. For many years he marketed his goods himself, carting them, with his own team, to Boston, Salem, Provi- dence and elsewhere. About 1840 he extended his operations and commenced making cane-seat chairs, which had then become somewhat popular, and were rapidly rising into favor, with the trade and with the general public.

During the ten years following the date of Mr. Brick's setting up the making of chairs there were other persons who did the same thing, but their un- dertakings were small or of very brief continuance, and did but little towards building up the manufac- ture into a permanent and commanding position in the place. Among these was Jonas Brick, who be- gan in a shop near the Wright saw-mill in 1818, the first of the trade, so far as is known, in the south part of the town. He was in business, however, but a short time, and at an early date left the town.

The chair-making era of Gardner history may be divided into two parts : the first covering a period of about twenty-five or thirty years, the second of fifty- five or sixty years. The former passed over or gave way to the latter with the introduction of machinery into chair-shops, to be run by water or other power, and also with the introduction of the use of rattan as an important element or constituent part of the material for the production of chairs. The transition from one to the other of these divisions may be regarded as having taken place substantially between the years 1830 and 1835, during which period the germs of most of the existing large chair establishments were first planted and began their process of growth and development, as will hereafter appear.

Recognizing the distinctive characteristics of the chair-manufacturing industry which marked the change alluded to, and looking over the list of those who were active and instrumental in bringing that result to pass, it is eminently just and proper to make special mention of the part taken in the matter by Mr. Elijah Putnam. Disappointed, as no doubt he was, in many of his plans and expectations, and not to be counted among the successful manufacturers of the town, he yet was, for a long series of years, con- nected with the chair business, and perhaps contrib- uted as much, in his way, to the development of this branch of production and to the new departure which ushered in the better day of chair-making, as any other individual. Fertile in inventive resources, he yet was not gifted with that practical judgment and executive ability which were needful to use those resources to the best advantage, and make them productive of the most profitable and satisfac- tory results. Full of new ideas in regard to the manufacture of chairs, and abounding in designs and devices of a mechanical nature, he lacked the power

of embodying his ideas in a feasible working system, and of applying his contrivances in an effectual way to the attainment of the ends proposed. Nevertheless, he rendered essential service to his calling and to the community by his suggestions, by his hints at im- provements or his imperfect conceptions of tools and machines, which he could not of himself work out to successful issues, but which others, of a more prac- tical turn of mind, getting possession of, could easily put to efficient and remunerative service. And it is believed that some of the more valuable kinds of chair-making machinery and various improvements in the business, which first came into use and ren- dered important aid in advancing to its present com- manding position the chief industrial interest of the town, originated in the prolific brain of this man, who, himself. derived but little pecuniary advantage from them, but to whom credit for them in due de- gree should be assigned, even though others were in- strumental in giving form to the ideas and principles involved, and in putting them into successful opera- tion.

Mr. Putnam was one of the apprenticed workmen of James M. Comee. After closing his apprentice- ship and perhaps working as journeyman for a time, he married, and settled upon the estate opposite the Common, where Charles Scollay now resides, going into business for himself about the year 1825. He possibly began in one of the rooms of his dwelling- house, but soon erected a shop in which to carry on his trade. He employed numerous workmen as time went on, some of the oldest and best known chair- makers of the town having served more or less under him. The usual foot-lathe was the only machinery he had at the beginning; but following the bent of his genius, he afterwards made use of a steam-engine of his own invention, which, however, did not prove a success. He then constructed and put up a wind- mill, as some still living remember, but this also failed to serve the purpose intended and was removed. He finally introduced horse-power, which supplied his needs till 1838, when he bought the mill privilege, now occupied by John A. Dunn, of William S. Lynde, built a dam and removed his shop thither, continuing the business for seven years, when he sold out to Cowee, Collester & Co., from whose hands the property passed, after several changes, to its pres- ent ownership. Mr. Putnam also carried on business awhile on the site to which Conant, Ball & Co. have recently removed, but his shop was burned in 1839 and the privilege was transferred after a time to L. H. Sawin, the predecessor of those now in possession of it.

To Mr. Putnam, moreover, belongs, with hut little doubt, whatever credit is due for the introduction of the cane-seat to the chair manufacturing fraternity of Gardner and for making the rattan business an im- portant branch of the predominating industry of the community. It was, so far as can be ascertained by

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

extensive and painstaking inquiry, under his auspices that the first cane-seating was done in the town; it was by his agency that imported rattan was first brought to the place, split, shaven and made fit for use; and it was under his management and in his name that cane-seat chairs were first actually pro- duced here and put upon the market, as will be more fully set forth in subsequent pages.

tion from the earlier to the later period of the chair- making era-from the old to the new system of ways, means and methods of chair production.

A sketch of the existing chair establishments of Gardner, such as is proposed, will involve a still fur- ther consideration of the change alluded to, since some of them date back to the time when it occurred, and since some of their founders were more or le-s active in bringing it about. But before going on to pre- sent such a sketch, it seems proper to submit as briefly as may be an account of the introduction and use of rat- tan as an important adjunct or component part of the manufacture in its more modern aspects and achieve- ments. Constituting as it does a distinct branch of the general industry under notice, and possessing characteristics peculiar to itself, it may be considered under the specific name of

Recurring once more to the date at which Mr. Put- nam began his career and when several others also were looking to the same calling as a means of liveli- hood and of worldly prosperity, it may be stated that the increased and increasing demand for chair stock occasioned thereby suggested the use of water-power, of which there was considerable not yet improved in town, as an easily available agency for meeting that demand. Mr. Ezra Baker seemed to be the first to turn the suggestion to practical account and appre- THE RATTAN BUSINESS .- Rattan is a species of the palm tree bearing the scientific name of Culamus Rotang and a product of the forests of the East In- dian Islands, especially of Sumatra and Borneo, and of the Malayan Peninsula. It is a slender plant, scarcely ever exceeding an inch in diameter and of great length. It is sometimes supported by the larger trees among which it grows and sometimes runs along the ground forming a tangled web, through which it is impossible to pass. The peculiarities which render ciate the opportunity offered for a new and promising industrial pursuit. A plan of action presented itself to him, which he very soon proceeded to carry into effect. He purchased a small mill privilege on Knee- land Brook, situated half a mile northwest of the northern extremity of Crystal Lake, constructed a dam, erected a shop and put in one or more lathes for the turning of posts and stretchers and other parts of chair material. At that time the timber used was bought of the farmers round-about, who prepared it it valuable for a great variety of uses, and which give for the lathe by cutting it the required length, split- it commercial importance, are its remarkable flexi- bility and strength, its extreme length combined with uniformity of size, its capability of being split into small strips and the hard, silicious glazing with which it is coated. It is gathered by the natives of the region where it is produced, and prepared for ship- ping at very little expense, and then sent to different parts of the world. The eastern nations of Asia have for a long time known its value and have used it in making various articles of furniture, baskets, sieves, mats, and even hats and shoes. Large quantities of it are employed in China as bands for tea-chests, to se- cure them against the perils of transportation. It was probably in this way that it first became known to Western Europe and to America, where its proper- ties are now so well understood, and where it is at the present day so largely utilized in the production of many kinds of house furnishing goods, children's car- riages, and numerous styles of fancy articles ; also for decorative purposes, being easily made to assume unique and newly-devised forms, pleasing to the eye and taste. Its adaptability to an indefinite but ever- increasing number of uses has given it in these later years a wide distribution and an unbounded popu- larity throughout the civilized world. ting it and taking off the corners, as it was not then deemed possible to turn a square stick. The circular- · saw had not come into use. But its day was at hand, and it was not long before Mr. Baker purchased one, put it into his shop and prepared his own lumber for the lathe. This was the first saw of the kind in town. In 1828, the business of Mr. Baker increas- ing on his hands, he purchased the Fairbanks grist- mill, afterwards sold to Elijah Putnam as stated, and transferred his machinery there, where he oper- ated for several years. Previous to this change on the part of Mr. Baker, Asa Perley erected a shop of con- siderable size on the same stream, near where Clark Street crosses it, and fitted it up for the same kind of work. It was not long after this that Sawin & Damon engaged in the same business at the Pail Factory site, and about the same time Merrick Wal- lace, who married the daughter of Ezra Baker, bought of Deacon Fairbanks the small privilege above his grist-mill, where the main factory of Heywood Bros. & Co. now is located, built a shop and went into the business of getting out chair-stuff there. Similar enterprises were started elsewhere in town and went on with a varying success, until the demand was more than met, or until chair-makers came to see At what date rattan was first used as a part of chair construction in this country has not been determined, nor in what locality, nor by whom it was thus origi- nally employed on these shores. It was first brought to the notice of the people of Gardner and vicinity in that connection about the year 1830, at which time that it was for their advantage to prepare their own material, when the work of getting out stock as a sep- arate and independent calling was given up and be- came an integral part of the general business of chair manufacture. This was another feature of the transi-

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chair-seats were being made of it in or near the City of New York, whence they were sent in different directions and put into chairs by those already en- gaged in chair manufacturing. It does not appear that any of the trade in Gardner made use of any of these New York seats in their business previous to the date at which what are called cane-seats were actually produced within its borders, though it is quite certain that they were purchased and used to some extent in neighboring towns about that time. The work of putting the rattan, or cane as it was more familiarly called, into these New York seats was done in part, at least, hy the inmates of the penitentiary of the State of Connecticut, and it was by that avenue that the " seating " of chairs and the making of cane- seat chairs first found its way into this town.

It was in the year 1832 or 1833 that John Cowee, an employé of Mr. Elijah Putnam, visited the Connec- ticut State Prison, and, by going through the depart- ment where the inmates were engaged in " seating" chairs and carefully watching their movements, ob- tained an idea of the way in which the work was done. Whether he did this on his own motion, or at the suggestion of Mr. Putnam, is not known. After leav- ing the prison he purchased a seat and also some cane made ready for use and returned home, bringing the articles with him. Going to the shop of Mr. Putnam, he carefully took the cane from the seat, studying the process closely, and then went to work with the pre- pared cane, putting the seat in again and so producing the first seat of the kind that was actually " seated " in town. This point gained, it was not difficult to go on to the construction of a cane-seat chair in all its parts from beginning to end. And this Mr. Putnam proceeded at once to do. Making the frames by facili- ties easily obtained, he engaged women to come to his house, where they were taught the mystery of seating, and where they were employed for a time in doing that part of the work, one of the rooms of his dwelling being devoted to that use. These seats he put into chairs which, when finished, were sold with other articles of his production, and the cane-seat chair business was fairly inaugurated in the commun- ity where it was in after-years to attain undreamed-of proportions and achieve a most wonderful success. The "seating" continued to be done on Mr. Putnam's premises until it was found that the demand for the chairs could not be met unless the seats could be produced more rapidly than was possible in that small way, when the practice of "putting out" seating was inaugurated-that is, of distributing the frames and cane in families in the neighborhood, by the members of which the interweaving process was carried on. As the cane-seat chair grew in pop- ular favor and the business of manufacturing it in- creased, this work of " seating " was enlarged propor- tionally, expanding and extending itself until it became an important industry on its own account, affording employment to the inmates of hundreds and

thousands of homes in the region round-about and contributing, as a source of income, largely to the comfort, prosperity and happiness of multitudes of people.

To begin with, the cane put into the seats was ob- tained from outside, probably from New York, pre- pared for use. Very soon, however, in 1833, Mr. Warren Sargent, from Dummerston, Vt., and a little later his brother, John R. Sargent, came to the place and went to work getting out cane, as it was termed, iu Mr. Putnam's shop, and, most likely, under his auspices, where they carried on business for a time, inducting others into it and establishing it upon a permanent basis. Leaving town after a few years, they were succeeded by Benjamin H. Rugg, a skillful and successful cane-worker, for a long while at the 'Heywood shop and at his own residence on Green Street ; Robert (+. Reed, who worked first at Mr, Put- nam's and afterward at James M. Comee's; Edmond Newton, at South Gardner; Asher Shattuck, who was first employed at Putuam's in 1838 and, after serving at several places, finally in the cane department at the Heywood establishment in the West Village, and perhaps others. Probably Mr. Shattuck is the oldest living cane-worker in Gardner, and the one who has been longest connected with that special industry.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 215

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1576

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576