USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 47
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Mr. Howard, after the failure of the Waltham enterprise, returned to the original factory in Roxbury, and, abandoning the manufacture of the cheaper kind of watches and clocks, devoted himself exclusively to the higher grades. Although beset by many difficulties at first, he persevered until he achieved a high degree of success, the Howard watch gaining a reputation, ever since maintained, as among the best made. Mr. Howard for many years was the controlling spirit in the concern. In 1881 the company was incorporated under the style of the E. Howard Watch and Clock Company, with a capital of $250,000, which was increased in 1892 to $500,000. The company in 1873 erected another factory on Eustis street, Roxbury. The manufacture of watches is carried on in the old factory, while the new factory is devoted exclusively to the manufacture of clocks, which include, be- sides clocks for residences, town clocks of superior construction, astro- nomical clocks, and fine regulators for watchmakers. Several hundred skilled workmen are employed. Samuel Little is president of the company, Arthur M. Little, treasurer, and Rufus B. Carr, general manager.
Boston capital started the watch industry at Waltham, where it is still largely employed in what has since grown to be a very important industry.
The American Tube Works, with an extensive plant at Somerville, where 600 operatives are employed, was established in 1851. Seamless drawn brass and copper tubes for locomotives, marine and stationary boilers are the principal product. This company, after repeated trials, succeeded in producing seamless copper tubes identical, with exception of the metal, with their seamless brass tubes (the latter being protected by English patent), and now own the only patents under which a tube is drawn from a cylindrical casting of pure copper. E. S. Buckingham is president of the company, and William C. Cotton treasurer.
The leading marine industry at East Boston is that conducted by the Atlantic Works, which were incorporated in 1853. Up to the present time marine work has been the sole business, but in 1892 the Robinson Boiler Works was consolidated with the Atlantic Works, and prepara- tions are now in progress for the manufacture of all kinds of plate iron work, including stationary boilers and tanks. Since the war the At- lantic Works have fitted about 100 vessels with engines and boilers,
480
SUFFOLK COUNTY
including the steamer Enterprise, steamer William Lawrence, five lake steamers for freight traffic, the sloops of war Adams and Esser, the revenue cutters Richard Rush and Samuel Dexter, a number of ferry, tug and fire boats, coal, lighter and wrecking steamers, and steam yachts. The present officers of the Atlantic Works are: I. N. Lothrop, president, and Alfred E. Cox, treasurer and general manager. Oliver Edwards, for many years president of the works, was born in Buxton, Me., in 1808. When a boy he came to Boston and learned the machin- ist trade. Soon after attaining his majority, he commenced business in company with a Mr. Thayer, and later was one of the firm of Ed- wards, Holman & Fernald, manufacturers of fire-proof safes. After the retirement of Mr. Holman, the firm was Edwards, Fernald & Ker- shaw. and their establishment on Green street will be remembered by those familiar with that section more than forty years ago. In 1853 he was one of the originators of the Atlantic Works, and was president of that corporation from its organization until his death in 1876. When a young journeyman he made the first safe which was manufactured in the shop which later was celebrated for its manufactures in that line.
Gilman Joslin, also for several years president of the Atlantic Works, was born in Stoddard, N. H., in 1804. When a lad of thirteen he came to Massachusetts. After acquiring a fair education, he turned his attention to mechanical appliances, in which he afterwards excelled to a wonderful degree. When of age he went to Nashua, and for two years worked in a cotton factory; after which he returned to Boston and engaged as a wood turner and maker of looking-glasses and picture frames. In this calling he was brought into contact with artists and men of some scientifie attainments, who were impressed by his ability and fine workmanship. Among these was Josiah Loring, a bookbinder by trade, whose business in part was the selling of school globes im- ported from England. About the year 1830, being satisfied that young Joslin could make equally good globes, he set him to work, and his ex- pectations being realized, their manufacture was continued for several years, until the business was purchased by Mr. Joslin and continued by him for a number of years, until given up to his sons. His invent- ive faculty was constantly at work on some new idea. When the first account was published that Daguerre, in France, had discovered a pro- cess of making pictures by sunlight, young Joslin, although possessed of little practical knowledge of chemistry, did not wait to see a speci- men of the process worked out by another, but applied himself at once,
481
INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
and actually produced the first daguerreotype ever made in Boston. In 1853 he was one of the organizers of the Atlantic Works of East Bos- ton; became one of the directors, and from that time until his death was unremitting in his labors to perfect the work turned out at that famous establishment. During the late civil war a number of the iron monitors, and many of the most important and difficult works required for our war vessels, were built at this establishment. In all these operations the intuitive knowledge, genius, and strong common sense of Mr. Joslin were conspicuous. Besides the presidency of these works, he was also president of the Coffer Dam Company, which he had assisted in organizing for the purpose of affording the facilities to re- pair large ocean steamers without the necessity of going into a dry dock. Perhaps the crowning work of his life in this direction was the designing and erection of the immense iron shears, now standing on the wharf at the works in East Boston, which are conceded to be the finest apparatus of the kind in the world, being one hundred and thirty feet in height, and capable of handling with celerity the largest masses of iron work now manufactured. He died in Boston, April 28, 1886.
The Cunningham Iron Works Company was founded in 1852 by Thomas Cunningham. In 1871 his two sons, J. H. and T. Cunning- ham, were admitted as partners, the business at that time being con- ducted under the firm style of Thomas Cunningham & Sons. The father dying in 1881, the sons succeeded to the entire control of the business, when they adopted the title of the Cunningham Iron Works. In 1885 the business was incorporated under its present title with a capital of $100,000. This company have works at Charlestown and East Boston. Steam boilers, iron pipes and fittings are the main articles of manufacture, in which some two hundred men are employed.
In 1852 Solomon A. Woods and Solomon S. Gray, under the firm name of Gray & Woods, began in Boston the manufacture of wood- planing machines, originally invented by Mr. Gray, but greatly improved and rendered more practical by Mr. Woods's inventions. This copartnership lasted for five years, during which period valuable improvements were patented. In 1865 Mr. Woods added to his busi- ness the manufacture of the Woodworth planes, with the Woodbury patented improvements, of which he was the sole licensee. To meet the demands of this extensive business he commenced the erection of manufacturing works at South Boston, and established branch houses at New York and Chicago. In 1873 a corporation was formed, with a
61
482
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
capital of $300,000, under the name of the S. A. Woods Machine Com- pany, of which Mr. Woods became president, which position he still holds. To the successive firms of Gray & Woods, S. A. Woods and the S. A. Woods Machine Company, have been issued more than fifty patents for devices and improvements in machines for planing wood and making mouldings. They have received nearly one hundred gold, silver and bronze medals from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association and numerous other similar institutions. Mr. Woods was the organizer and leader in the successful defence of the manufacturers of wood-working machines in the celebrated suit brought, in 1825, by the Woodbury Patent Planing Machine Company against the users of planing and moulding machines, the expense of the litigation on both sides aggregating nearly one hundred thousand dollars.
The modern passenger elevator, now so generally used in all large buildings, was originally invented by Otis Tufts, of Boston. Not only in this connection but in many other directions, Mr. Tufts's inventive genius was exercised with beneficent results. His ideas were in ad- vance of the mechanical practices of the time, and he was constantly devising new ways to accomplish familiar processes, or inventing some devices to supersede them. He was born in Cambridge in 1804. He became a machinist, and first devoted his energies to the perfection and manufacture of printing presses. The " Tufts Press " was a familiar object in many printing offices more than half a century ago. In 1834 he perfected the first steam power printing press ever run in this coun- try. He originated that style of steam engine which embraces the en- tire mechanism and boiler on a single bed. In 1845 he engaged in the enterprise of constructing iron steamships, and was the first to intro- duce the feature of making them with double hulls, braced and trussed together. He built and launched, in East Boston, the first vessel con- structed wholly of iron, ever built in the United States. This was the tow-boat R. B. Forbes, the plans for the vessel and machinery being drawn by John Ericsson, afterward so famous as the designer of the celebrated Monitor. He also built the first steam pile-driver. The circumstances leading to this invention are these: Mr. Tufts was pass- ing the site of the Boston Custom House when they were laboriously driving the piles for the foundation with a pile-driver operated by hand, and he suggested to the foreman that at that rate the building would be finished about the year 2000. The foreman knew Mr. Tufts, and alluding to the reputation of his printing press, asked if he thought he
483
INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
could build a custom house as well. Mr. Tufts said he would tell him the next day. True to his word he called and showed the foreman the draft of a steam pile-driver which he had meanwhile thought out and put on paper. A machine was built at once, according to the design, and was soon in successful operation. Mr. Tufts took no steps toward securing a patent on his invention, which superseded the old fashioned hand machine everywhere. He also first applied steam to the cutting of marble, His invention, however, which has commanded the widest attention, was the steam elevator. The first one was actuated by a screw, and was called a "vertical railway," being placed in the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York in 1859. This elevator excited widespread
attention and universal admiration. He was also the inventor of the practice now universal of providing elevators with lifting ropes so ar- ranged by levers as to equalize the strain, and also of adding others as extras to carry the load in case of breakage. The first one of this kind was put into the American House in Boston in 1868. His mind turned toward mathematics and mechanical sciences. His engines were considered perfect specimens of American mechanical and scien- tific skill, and were used not only by our government, but were also in demand abroad. He was an estimable citizen, a man of strict integrity, devoted to his business, always bent on making some needed improve- ment. He possessed great constructive ability, was genial, social and affable, and a great favorite among his acquaintances. Like many other inventors and benefactors, he planted the seed while others have gathered the harvest. He died at the age of sixty-five years, leaving two daughters and a son, Otis Tufts, jr., who succeeded his father in business. The latter died September 29, 1885. Like his father, he possessed rare inventive and mechanical ability.
Moore & Wyman suceeded to the business established by Otis Tufts. In 1884 the Moore & Wyman Elevator and Machine Works were incor- porated. The plant of the company is located at the corner of Granite and Richards streets, where are manufactured steam, hydraulic, electric and belt elevators for passenger and freight service. The officers of the company are C. E. Moore, president; C. E. Wyman, treasurer.
In 1851 Richard F. Bond, of Dorchester, was awarded the "Grand Council Medal " at the World's Fair held in London for his invention for recording astronomical observations. He was born in Dorchester, in 1827, and was a son of the celebrated watch and chronometer maker, William Cranch Bond, from whom he learned the same business. At
484
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
the age of twenty-one he was taken into the firm, and afterwards be- came sole proprietor by purchasing the interest of his father and brother. He died in 1866.
William Lincoln, of Boston, was the second man in the United States to engage in the manufacture of coal oil in this country. Soon after the discovery of petroleum, he, with William D. Philbrook, built a re- finery in East Boston. Later a refinery was built in East Cambridge. Here the business was conducted on a large scale, requiring the equip- ment of a line of schooners to ply between Philadelphia and Boston for the transportation of the petroleum. The factory was destroyed by fire in 1872, after which the business was not resumed.
In Chelsea are located the extensive foundry and workshops of the Magee Furnace Company, which were established in 1856, and incor- porated under present title in 1867. The product of these works in- cludes stoves, ranges, furnaces and heating apparatus of many descrip- tions, in the manufacture of which 400 workmen are employed. Their goods are not only largely used in this country, but in considerable quantities are exported to foreign countries. John Magee, president of the company, is the inventor of the Magee stoves and furnaces.
In 1858 Benjamin F. Sturtevant, elsewhere referred to in connection with inventions relating to shoe machinery, turned his attention to other inventions, and developed the blower or exhaust fan, which he extensively manufactured at Jamaica Plain until his death. In July, 1890, the B. F. Sturtevant Company was incorporated with a capital of $500,000. The factory at Jamaica Plain consists of several brick build- ings, constituting the largest exclusive blower and exhaust fan works in the world, and where 500 workmen are employed. The adoption of the Sturtevant blower for producing increased draught in marine boil- ers has revolutionized the ocean traffic and made possible the record- breaking trips of our transatlantic liners. Such vessels as the City of Paris, City of New York, and City of Berlin, have numbers of these fans on board, forcing the air through the boiler furnaces. On the City of Paris alone there are blowers delivering in the aggregate a volume of not less than 18,000,000 cubic feet per hour, almost doubling the steaming capacities of the boilers over what could be obtained without the use of the blowers. The United States navy early realized the im- mense advantages of forced draught, and all the vessels of the "new navy " have, with scarcely an exception, been fitted out with large numbers of the Sturtevant fans.
485
INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
Mr. Sturtevant, the founder of this company, was born in Maine, in 1833, and early became well known through his invention for pegging boots and shoes. Besides the blower or exhaust fan he was the inven- tor of a projectile which was used by the government during the War of the Rebellion. He was a liberal patron of religious institutions, and built Sturtevant Hall at the Newton Theological Institution, and gave freely to many others. He died at his home in Jamaica Plain, April 14, 1890.
Among the industrial enterprises in Boston which have been con- spicuously successful is that represented by the Boston Button Com- pany, which was inaugurated on a small scale, in 1868, by Metcalf & McCleery. The business rapidly expanded, and now gives employment to 500 workmen. The present factory on A street, near the Congress street bridge, was erected in 1890. It is a spacious modern seven story building, and entirely utilized for manufacturing purposes. The pro- ductions consist of all kinds of covered buttons, covered tacks and nails, which find a ready market all over the United States, Canada, and in foreign countries. Branch offices and warerooms are maintained in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Montreal and Toronto. The original founders of the business are still sole proprietors.
At Cambridgeport is located the manufacturing plant of The Damon Safe and Iron Works Company, which succeeded to the business estab- lished by George L. Damon in 1874, the present company being incor- porated in 1885. George L. Damon, the president and treasurer of the company, has been granted several valuable patents relating to safes, the most important relating to gravity automatic bolt work. This system is in use in the United States treasury vault at Washington, where the sum of $90,000,000 in silver coin was stored in 1891. This great vault, which was built under Mr. Damon's direction in 1886, measures 55 by 35 feet and is 10 feet high. The great vault of the sub-treasury in New York, built in 1876, 48 by 28 by 12 feet, and the sub-treasuries " at Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans and San Francisco are all the work of this company, also the vaults in use in the mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco and New Or- leans. During the last fifteen years this company has furnished to banking institutions in Philadelphia work exceeding in value half a million dollars, and in Boston and Massachusetts they have furnished work for the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company, Springfield Safe Deposit and Trust Company, American Loan and Trust Company, New
486
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
England Trust Company, Bay State Deposit and Trust Company, Old Colony Trust Company, Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance and Trust Company, First National Bank, Worcester Safe Deposit and Trust Company, and the State Street Safe Deposit Vault, built in 1891 at a cost of $150,000, the largest and most expensive iron vault in the United States, its capacity being 18,000 boxes.
Of late years Boston capital has been largely invested in the manu- facture of clothing. Among the representative manufacturers in this line more than a half a century ago were Simeon Palmer, Carney & Sleeper, and Gove & Locke. John Simmons, of Quincy Market Hall, and George W. Simmons, of Oak Hall, advanced the character and re- spectability of ready-made clothing up to a mercantile standard. They were followed by Milton & Slocomb, and others, until at the present time the manufacture of clothing has become the largest single industry of the city. In 1880 there were 311 clothing manufactories giving em- ployment to 12,661 hands, who earned $4, 206,768. In the department of men's clothing the product was valued at more than $16,000,000, while the total product reached the sum almost of $20,000,000.
In the manufacture of furniture Boston has long held the leading position among eastern cities. Within the city limits there are one hundred factories employing from fifteen to one hundred workmen. The capital invested in this industry, according to recent statistics, amounts to $3,581,000; wages paid $1,405, 258 ; value of materials used $1,981,674; value of product $4,193,000; hands employed 2, 249.
The industrial condition of Suffolk county according to the United States census for 1880 was as follows:
Kind of Industries.
No. Est.
Average No. hands emp.
Capital.
Value of Product.
Artificial flowers
4
178
20,000
124,900
Awning and tents
4
52
16,000
77,150
Baking and yeast powder.
4
46
254,000
305,230
Belting and hose, leather
3
28
40,000
204,000
Billiard table and materials
4
43
47,000
88,300
Blacking
6
82
63,500
324,400
Blacksmithing
I 54
569
188,275
657,285
Bookbinding
46
1,019
410,000
986,416
Boot and shoe cut stock
13
266
62,500
352,200
Boot and shoe findings.
II
175
II7,700
389,883
Boots and shoes
83
1,321
348,775
1,928,740
Boxes, fancy and paper.
522
139,900
380,062
Boxes, wooden, packing
5
46
18,500
80,900
· Brass castings
26
246
222,400
410,553
Bread, crackers, and other bakery products
I13
612
292,950
1,471,582
Bridges
9
138
53,000
325,500
Brooms and brushes.
16
413
290,300
828,290
1
I
I
I
I
48
INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
Kind of Industries.
Average No. No. Est. hands emp.
Capital. 818,605
3,748,358
Carriage and wagon materials
3
23
52,000
110,358
Carriages and wagons
23
420
375,000
6£2,085
Clothing, men's
222
9,270
4,200, 193
16,157,892
Clothing, women's
24
1,976
319,900
180.820
Coffee and spices, roasted and ground.
12
I2I
289,000
1,448,86g 52,950
Confectionery
33
525
251,475
1,606 214
Cooperage
21
Coppersmithing
8
I41
107,200
249.100
Cordage and twine
7
467
706,550
1, 124,400
Cork cutting
4
56
32,434
106,125
Corsets ..
5
27I
45'000
226,600
Cotton goods
5
289
243,000
550,000
Cutlery and edge tools
42
34,000
58,500
Drugs and chemicals.
II
115
200,500
450,961
Dyeing and cleaning
20
215
41,300
135,371
Electrical apparatus and supplies
9
88
162,500
119,289
Electroplating
IQ
97
113,450
147,550
Engraving and die-sinking.
22
I74
53,150
224,031
Engraving, steel
116
7,600
18,700
Engraving, wood.
64
20,135
83,975
Fancy articles
6
55
17,500
48,200
Fertilizers
5
254
568,000
1,231,170
Files.
7
68
57,200
57,133
Flavoring extract
6
54
65,500
266,500
Flouring and grist mill products
8
69
510,000
1,101,000
Fruits and vegetables canned and preserved.
8
316
242,700
681,188
Furnishing goods, men's
15
182
690,900
377,925
Furniture
123
2,365
1,388,875
3,867,917
Furniture, chairs
7
IO4
70,000
257,238
Furs, dressed
13
II7
64,547
263,250
Glass, cut, stained and ornamented.
IC
92
55,650
114,340
Gold and silver leaf and foil
5
52
19,300
96,175
Grease and tallow
4
100
392,000
564,868
Hair work.
13
74
28,600
73,400
Hand stamps
5
12
0,500
20,356
Hardware
51
111,850
79,900
Hardware, saddlery
3
42
26,000
36,300
Hats and caps.
27
402
106,200
441,276
House furnishing goods
5
39
20,700
46,200
Hosiery and knit goods
9
1,417
156,800
484,183
Instruments, professional and scientific.
103
81,000
123,54º
Iron and steel
5
1,120
1,624,408
2,189,987
Iron bolts, nuts, washers and rivets
3
39
30,000
51,000
Iron castings.
20
650
589,000
894,500
Iron forgings.
3
246
420,000
502,970
Japanning
6
29
4,600
25,000
Jewelry
29
403
208,100
516,722
Kindling wood
3
58
19,000
58,687
Labels and tags
5
I32
288,000
450,325
Lapidary work
4
39
39,000
102,200
Lasts
3
10,500
18,100
Leather, curried
20
542
420,800
2,520,792
Leather, dressed
8
202
315,500
579,350
Lithographing.
9
686
487,550
989,020
5
1
1
1
1
1
305
2,419
32
27.300
1
1
1
1
I
I
1
I
I
1
I
II
79,467
188,560
Coffins and burial cases, and undertakers' goods 9
Value of Product.
Carpentering
12
II
488
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
Kind of Industries.
No. Est. 20
51
29,000
66,560
Looking-glass and picture frames
45
288
123,700
533,097
Lumber, planed.
10
178
282,500
360,810
Machinery
114
3,195
4,235,833
5,340,266
Marble and stone work
43
1,033
696,600
1,442,861
Masonry, brick and stone work
85
1,096
270,925
1,299,551
Mattresses and spring beds
19
314
181,597
677,792
Meat packing
21
211
Q18,000
7,096,777
Millinery and lace goods
4
144
38,500
317,000
Mineral and soda water.
8
91
74,600
239 644
Models and patterns
22
87
24,850
88,455
Musical instruments, organs and materials 8
520
445,366
904-732
Musical instruments, pianos and materials
23
1,121
1,673,000
2,166,966
Oils, illuminating.
3
345,000
Painting and paper hanging.
229
1,096
248,828
1, 199,781
Paints
6
73
241,500
390,900
Patent medicines and compounds
21
125
179,650
771,631
Perfumery and cosmetics.
7
40
21,500
126,000
Photographing.
41
I86
103,900
231,935
Pickles, preserves and sauces.
4
21
12,500
78,000
Plastering
16
82
13,800
92,680
Plumbing and gas fitting
117
589
232,550
973.588
Pocket books
3
7
2,400
7,000
Printing and publishing
145
2,876
2,496,535
5,469,518
Printing materials
4
I5
15,300
28,050
Refrigerators
5
64
52,350
87,700
Roofing and roofing materials
41
238
173,625
465,567
Rubber and elastic goods.
IO
923
1,095,000
2,095,460
Saddlery and harness
6c
433
723,300
570,014
Sash, doors and blinds
12
93
73,800
195,045
Scales and balances
3
44
49,000
51,613
Sewing machines and materials
3
41
243,000
102,700
Skirts
7
196
69,300
329.800
Show cases
5
18
10,800
29,980
Silk and silk goods
9
380
132,800
443,425
Silversmithing
5
13
4,250
16,235
Soap and candles
11
73
161,400
208,633
Soda water apparatus.
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