USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 62
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Lynn, and with his brother, A. H. Jones, embarked in the manufacture of a fine grade of leather shoes under the firm name of V. K. & A. H. Jones. They were the first to attempt the manufacture of a superior grade of ladies' shoes at a medium price, and from the start the under- taking proved a success. In a short time their goods were introduced into the best houses of the country, and the demand for them became greater than they were able to supply. Under Mr. Jones's manage- ment the business continued to steadily increase, and by the year 1883 had reached the sum of $1,000,000 per annum, employment being fur- nished at this time to from five to six hundred hands. At this com- paratively early period of the firm's business they had entirely outgrown their original manufacturing quarters, and in August, 1883, they commenced to build a seven story brick factory on the corner of Broad and Beach streets, and so rapidly was its construction prosecuted that the building was completed in December of the same year. It was the first brick factory built on Broad street. It contained floor space of 42,000 square feet and in appointment and machinery was considered the best equipped factory in the State. The business soon outgrew the facilities of even this large factory, and in 1885 they were operating in connection with their Lynn business two large factories in the State of New Hampshire, one at Strafford and the other in the old town of Hampton. The Strafford factory was destroyed by fire in De- cember, 1887, and on November 26, 1889, their Lynn factory was totally destroyed in the great fire which will ever be memorable in the annals of Lynn for the extent of the loss occasioned by the destruction of valuable business property. The work of rebuilding at Lynn was at once begun, and the factory as it is to-day was completed in December, 1890. From that time to the present Mr. Jones has enjoyed an unin- terrupted period of business prosperity. His personal efforts in behalf of the house in which he is the senior member has been unremitting. With practical experience in every part of the business in which he is engaged, he not only intelligently understands all of its requirements, but is withal a man of keen business sagacity, great force of character, and possesses excellent executive ability. His personal supervision of the business is most thorough and painstaking, having done all of the designing and modeling of lasts and patterns that the firm has used since the firm commenced business in 1842. To-day the product of the establishment he founded and has done so much to perfect and advance to its present high position in the trade is found in every part of the
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United States, the daily production of the firm averaging 3,000 pairs of shoes per day and furnishing employment to about 500 hands. Credit- able as has been Mr. Jones's part in the establishment of this great industry, it by no means represents the limit of his business enterprises. He is financially interested in three boot and shoe factories outside of the house of V. K. & A. H. Jones, and has been associated with several other enterprises, all of which have proven successful. Success, such as he has gained, has been acquired by persistent, well directed efforts, which no reverse could more than temporarily check, and to-day his position in one of the great industries of New England is one of which he has reason to feel a pardonable pride. In the best sense of the term he is a fine example of the self-made men of America, a distinct type of men such as no other country can present.
Mr. Jones was married in December, 1868, to Miss Eliza A. Mayhew, daughter of Capt. Vinal Mayhew, of Belfast, Me., who died October 13, 1890, from the effects of a cold received during the great Lynn fire of 1889. She was a model wife and mother and did much to contribute to her husband's success. They had one son, Harry E. Jones, who is associated with his father in business.
HOUSE OF B. F. BROWN & CO.
BOSTON is headquarters for several great houses which have acquired celebrity for the superiority of their products A notable instance of this is afforded in the successful career of the firm of B. F. Brown & Co., manufacturers of blacking and dressings for leather. It was founded in 1845 by B. F. Brown, who was born at Hanover, N. H., December 23, 1814. He came to Boston in 1837 and embarked in the wholesale drug business. The knowledge acquired in this branch of business led him to experiment in the preparation of blacking and dressing for leather, and in the year named he produced upon formulas original and exclusive to himself an article which speedily arrested the attention of the trade as far superior to any other in the market. The demands for his productions increased rapidly and a large and profitable business was soon established. Mr. Brown remained at the head of the house until his death, May 17, 1879. For several years prior to Mr. Brown's death Edward Henry Fennessy had been a partner in the business, and
JanKO Jeunessy .
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the success of the firm was largely due to his well directed efforts. Mr. Fennessy was born in Dublin, Ireland, December 13, 1833. At the age of eighteen he came to the United States and located in Island Pond, \'t., where he secured employment in the railroad service, and finally became superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway. May 1, 1866, he married Miss Ella F., daughter of B. F. Brown. After his marriage he went to Newburn, N. C., where for one year he carried on a cotton plantation. He then returned to Island Pond and engaged in mercan- tile business until he came to Boston in 1868, and became a partner in the business of B. F. Brown, under the firm name of B. F. Brown & Co. From that time until his death, May 19, 1888, Mr. Fennessy de- voted himself almost exclusively to the development of the blacking and leather dressing business of the firm, and under his wise and en- ergetic management the business grew to large proportions and the pro- ductions gained a world wide reputation. Their productions were hon- ored with prizes at the great expositions of the world, at the Centen- nial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, at Berlin in 1877, at Paris in 1878, where they received the only medal awarded for leather dressings, in Melbourne in 1880, at Frankfort in 1881, at Amsterdam in 1883, and the New Orleans Exposition in 1884 and 1885, also Paris 1889. In 1881 Mr. Fennessy became sole proprietor of the business, and so re- mained until his death, but continued operations under the old house B. F. Brown & Co., which is still retained. He was a man of great business capacity and eminently successful in all of his undertakings. He left a family of six children, two sons and four daughters, all of whom are living. His eldest son, Frank E. Fennessy, who has suc- ceeded to his father's business, was born in Island Pond, Vt., August 31, 1868. He was educated in the public schools of Newton, and at the age of eighteen became connected with B. F. Brown & Co. Soon after the death of his father he became sole proprietor, and has since success- fully carried on the business. Besides the manufacturing quarters in Boston this house has a factory in London, England, and another in Montreal, Canada, and at the present time its productions are sold not only in every part of the United States and the Canadian provinces, but throughout Europe and all foreign countries.
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JAMES J. WALWORTH.
JAMES J. WALWORTH, son of George and Philura (Jones) Walworth, was born in Canaan, N. H., on November 18, 1808. He received his early education in the public schools of his native town, and in the academies of Thetford, Vt., and Salisbury, N. H. He taught public schools during three successive winters in Dorchester, Concord and Canaan, N. H.
At the age of twenty years he came to Boston, and was for ten years engaged in the hardware business. First with Alexander H. Twombly & Co., then with Charles Scudder & Co., and later, as partner, in the firm of Scudder, Park & Co., and was subsequently appointed agent of the "Canton Hardware (Manufacturing) Company," of Canton, Mass., which position he resigned in the year 1841, in order to enter upon a new enterprise, as will hereafter appear.
The business now so widely known as the steam heating business, or the construction of steam apparatus for warming buildings and for other cognate uses, and the kindred business of manufacturing the great variety of special goods of brass and iron related thereto, had its birth in the city of New York in the year 1841, when James J. Walworth, in co-operation with his brother-in-law, Joseph Nason, then in England, purchased a small stock of pipe and fittings of James Russell & Sons, of Wednesbury, England, who were the first manufacturers of wrought iron tube machinery.
This small lot of pipe, with a few crude fittings, had been sent to this country on a venture to be sold on commission by an agent who came with the goods. After an experiment of a year or so, this agent came to the conclusion that the business would not afford him a living. He therefore notified his principals that he must give it up and return to England. Mr. Walworth took possession of this stock in a small store then No. 36 Ann street in the month of June, 1841. A year later Mr. Nason returned to Boston, and proposed to introduce into this country a newly invented hot water apparatus for warming buildings; an ap- paratus with which he had become acquainted while in association with the inventor, Angier M. Perkins, of London. The principal ma- terial used in the construction of this apparatus being wrought iron pipe.
Boston was thought to be the better field for this business. The re- sult was two concerns, one in New York and one in Boston, both to be
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carried on under the firm name of Walworth & Nason, and as one in- terest.
The New York concern had thus far been wholly devoted to the sell- ing of goods, undertaking no mechanical work, while in Boston the con- struction of apparatus for warming by the hot water system was to be the principal business.
It was now but a step, though a colossal one, from this hot water heating, to the radically new movement of using the small wrought iron tubes for heating by steam.
This was an entirely new departure from anything that had been at- tempted in this country or anywhere else.
The practical application of the new system to cotton mills, woolen mills, and other large buildings, quickly demonstrated its superior merits, and so commended it to public favor that it soon became the prevalent type of heating apparatus for all large structures, and so re- mains to this day, not only in this country, but in all civilized coun- tries.
This system of steam heating does not necessarily provide for any special ventilation. It was therefore deemed important that in dealing with public buildings, such as hospitals, court-houses, school-houses, legislative halls, and other audience halls, a scientific treatment, such as should secure ample and well regulated supplies of fresh air, should be adopted, and this could be satisfactorily accomplished only by the use of mechanical power, and for this purpose the "fan-blower," pro- pelled by a steam engine, or some other motor, was obviously and pre- eminently the most effective and economical instrument. This fan system of ventilation was therefore introduced into this country, by Walworth & Nason, in 1846, and was, during that year, applied to the United States Custom-house in Boston, at the time of the erection of that edifice. At that time this was the only ventilating fan blower in America. Small machines for smelting iron, blowing blacksmith's fires, etc., had been used, but nothing of the character of these large ventilating fans which have ranged from eight to twenty feet in diame- ter. Since that time the system has been applied to numerous public buildings in nearly every State in the Union, and is to-day recognized, by the most distinguished engineers, as by far the best system in use. Although Mr. Walworth has been the responsible business head of the concern, yet as engineer in steam heating and ventilating, he has de- 80
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signed and constructed many important works in that line in several of the States of the Union.
During the first eight years of the history of this business Walworth & Nason had no rivals, if an embryo effort started in New York by one of the employees of their New York firm be excepted. But about the year 1850 two of the leading workmen, who had received their training in the original concern, started in the business in Boston, and their successors are now doing a prosperous business, under the name of Bra- man, Dow & Co., with the able management of Henry O. Barrett, a son of one of the founders of the firm.
In 1852 the firm of Walworth & Nason was dissolved, Mr. Walworth continuing the business in his own name. At a later period he associ- ated with himself, as partners, Marshall S. Scudder, as a business man, and C. Clark Walworth, as a mechanic, neither of whom contributed any capital, and continued the business in the name of J. J. Walworth & Co. for nearly twenty years.
In the year 1872 the corporation of the Walworth Manufacturing Company was organized, with a paid up capital of $400,000, all but a small fraction of which came from the old firm. Mr. Walworth was president of this corporation from its organization until a year and a half ago, when he declined a re-election, since which time he has par- tially withdrawn from active duties.
This company now owns and occupies extensive manufacturing works at South Boston, employing at these works, and elsewhere, a force of upwards of eight hundred workmen and other employees.
Their annual sales amount to about two millions of dollars. Their manufactured goods are shipped to all parts of the United States, and to several South American and European countries. Their salesrooms and offices are at Nos. 16 to 28 Oliver street, Boston.
From this root, thus planted a half century ago by this pioneer con- cern, has grown an industry of immense proportions, represented by numerous establishments in nearly every State in the Union, as well as in many foreign lands, involving an aggregate capital of fifty or sixty millions of dollars, and the employment of more than one hundred thousand workmen in this country alone.
Mr. Walworth has been for the last twenty-eight years president of the " Malleable Iron Fittings Company," a corporation carrying on an extensive malleable iron business at Branford, Conn.
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He was a member of the Lower House of the Massachusetts Legis- lature in 1870 and 1871. He has been president of the following cor- porations and associations: the Wanalancet Iron and Tube Company, the Massachusetts Steam Heating Company, the Canton Debating So- ciety, the Alton " Franklin Society " (a literary association), the Edu- cational Association of Auburndale, the Union Flax Mills Company, and the Consolidated Gas Company. He was one of the founders of the Lasell Seminary at Auburndale.
Mr. Walworth is in direct descent from Sir William Walworth, who was lord mayor of London at the time of the great Wat Tyler rebellion in that city, during the reign of King Richard II, in the year 1381.
Tyler, the leader of the rebellion, having been granted an interview with the king at Smithfield, where were assembled 60,000 of his rebel followers, insulted the king by his insolent language, whereupon Wal- worth smote him down with his dagger, and as he fell from his horse, the rebels, seeing their leader dead, became demoralized, and were soon vanquished.
In consequence of this brave act Walworth was knighted, and "the King gave the dagger to the Arms of London." A statue of Walworth was erected in Fishmonger's Hall, near London Bridge, where it still stands.
Mr. Walworth's first ancestor in this country was William Walworth, who came from the neighborhood of London and settled in Groton, Conn., near the close of the seventeenth century.
Mr. Walworth has been twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Chickering Nason. His present wife was Lydia A. Sawyer, a widow of one of his former partners.
He has one son, Arthur Clarence Walworth, who married a daughter of the late Gardner Colby. They have six children, four sons and two daughters. He is now president of the Walworth Construction and Supply Company. In religion Mr. Walworth is a Congregationalist ; in politics, a Republican.
E. W. DENNISON.
ELIPHALET W. DENNISON, the founder of the Dennison Manufacturing Company and the creator of practically a new industry, was born in Topsham, then in Kennebeck, now Sagadahoc county, Me., November
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23, 1819. He was one of ten children, three sons and seven daughters, of Col. Andrew Dennison, one of the early pioneers of the Androscoggin region of Maine frontier life. He resided with his father at Topsham until five years of age, when the family removed across the river to Brunswick, with which village he held close and cordial family and busi- ness relations up to the time of his death.
Col. Dennison, the father, was an old time shoemaker, a thorough master of his trade, a good workman, a noted and influential citizen, and one who left his impress for good on all who came in contact with him. His shop, like many another of its kind in those days, was one of the rendezvous of the village and vicinity where politics and religion, morals and manners, and gossip of the day had active discussion. Country village boot and shoe making in New England finally lost its importance after the rise of the large manufacturing centers, such as Lynn, and the village shoemaker of the period was either forced to re- move to these more favored localities for the business, or to seek new avocations. In the year 1844 one of Colonel Dennison's sons, A. L. Dennison, being then in the jewelry business at Boston, conceived the idea of establishing his father in the business of making paper boxes for jewelers' uses, all such boxes as were then in use being imported in small assortments only and at a heavy expense. In furtherance of his plan he bought a bundle of pasteboard from John and Alexander Priestly, and a ream of assorted papers from David Felt, both of New York, the latter of whom was the only manufacturer of enameled and glazed paper in the country; took them under his arm, went with them to Brunswick, and set his father at work cutting out boxes. At this time Quincy Tufts, a Boston importer, was the only man from whom the imported boxes could be had, and Mark Worthley was the only paper box maker in Boston.
The first lot of boxes made at Brunswick were cut out with a shoe knife and straight edge by Colonol Dennison's own hands, and the nimble fingers of his two daughters put the prepared pieces together, complet- ing the boxes in a remarkably neat, work-woman like manner. As the first lot of Dennison boxes were well made and presentable in appear- ance, the demand at once exceeded the supply. A. L. Dennison exhibited samples of his Maine boxes in Boston, and took orders from David & Palmer, afterward Palmer, Bachelder & Co .; Jones, Lows & Ball, now Shreve, Crump & Low; and Bigelow Brothers, now Bigelow, Kennard & Co., each of these houses giving liberal orders. Here then
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was a new industry born into a healthy existence, which could almost run alone before its foster parents were fully aware of the fact that it had a being and a business name and place among men.
Two weeks after receiving his first samples Mr. Dennison went once more to Brunswick with a goodly stock and with such heavy orders as to convince him that some portion of the work must be done by ma- chinery to enable him to supply the demand for boxes which had al- ready come to their hands. To this end, in connection with his father, he invented and built Dennison's paper box machine, which proved a great labor saving invention, and was so perfect in construction and in its adaptability to the economic wants of paper box making, that it has served its purpose well these many years and is still used in the best ap- pointed paper box manufactories. The wholesale jewelry dealers of Boston were the first customers of the Dennison paper boxes, but New York merchants in the same line of business soon found out their merits and put in earnest claims for a supply. The perfection with which the boxes were made gave them great prestige with the trade and a prefer- ence over the clumsily made boxes imported by Mr. Tufts. Customers poured in from all directions and the demand became so great that in- genious machinery was from time to time added, and the product of the little factory greatly increased. The business of the first year, with a producing force of ten hands, amounted to $3,000, a tremendous busi- ness for the day, and the wonder of the times through all the region around Brunswick.
At the age of sixteen E. W. Dennison went to Boston as a clerk in a shoe store, where he remained six months, at the end of which time he took a situation in the wholesale dry goods store of Burnham & Dow, on Water street, remaining with that house three years. At the ex- piration of this term of service he made an engagement with his brother, A. L. Dennison, then a watchmaker and jeweler on Washing- ton street, Boston, to learn the trade of watchmaking, and after re- maining a year in this position he was sent by his brother to Bath, Me., with a stock of goods, and started out for himself by establishing a jewelry store in Bath. The enterprise, however, was not a success, and was abandoned. He then returned home, whence, after remain- ing a short time, he came to Boston, in 1839, and secured a position as salesman in a watchmaking business on Washington street, but soon after departed for Bangor, Me., to engage in the watchmaking and jewelry business in that place. After remaining there eight years he
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gave up the business, the enterprise proving, as did the one in Bath, unprofitable and unremunerative His next engagement was in the capacity of salesman for his brother in the Boston store, but his restless temperament would not permit of his settling down as a mere sales- man. In 1849, on his brother selling out his business with a view to engaging in his favorite scheme for the manufacture of watches upon an improved system, our subject took the agency for the sale of the Brunswick paper boxes, the amount of business of which, starting at $3,000 the first year, grew to $6,000 the second, and to $7,000 the third. He was now in the right channel, and his subsequent career was one of conspicuous success. After he gave his undivided attention to the selling of these goods the business grew rapidly, so much so that early in the year 1855 he established an office in New York for their sale to the wholesale trade, and soon after gave a partnership interest to Henry Hawks, putting him in charge of the New York office, and to his excel- lent business qualifications and popular manners is due much of the early growth of the business. A few years before this, some time in the year 1851, the making of jewelers' cards was added to the box business, Mr. Dennison buying imported Bristol boards and cutting them up in uniform sizes for jewelers' uses, the custom heretofore having been to cut up pieces of paper or card with scissors, by the clerks of the jewelry stores, as occasion required.
The latter business led to the use of a large amount of Bristol card board and consequently to a search for a supply at home of something equal in quality to that imported. At this time E. Lamson Perkins had a card board manufactory in Roxbury, Mass., and was the first to make Bristol boards in this country. So excellent and satisfactory was the product of this establishment for the desired purpose that a busi- ness arrangement was made between him and Mr. Dennison, which lasted, to the pecuniary advantage of both parties, until 1878-a period of twenty-eight years-when Mr. Perkins retired with an ample com- petency, and sold the card factory and its entire business and good will to the Dennison Manufacturing Company, which has since carried on the business.
In 1854 jewelers' cotton was added to the catalogue of paper boxes and tags, previous to which all jewelers' cotton was imported. So popular had the jewelers' cards become that as early as 1857 similar goods were introduced from Germany and offered for sale, and finally contested the American field with the Dennison goods, but their quality
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as compared with the latter was such that competition quickly died out and the field was left to the originator of the idea.
In 1857 some imported jewelers' tags were put upon the market. which, however, were so poor in quality as to command only a limited sale. They gave to Mr. Dennison a valuable suggestion. He was quick to see that here was another field from which a good harvest could be reaped if only properly cultivated and cared for. He at once added their manufacture, and soon was established a ready market for them. In their introduction was planted the seed which has eventually grown into the large tag business of the Dennison Manufacturing Com- pany, which has doubtless given it more notoriety and a wider name and fame than any half dozen other articles of its manufacture and sale.
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