USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 24
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Besides the savings banks, encouragers of thrift have been the two co-operative banks, the Pittsfield, incorporated in 1889, and the Union, in 1911, both of which are now successfully conducted in their respective offices on North Street.
Established in Pittsfield in 1835, the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company in 1876 had headquarters in West's block, at the corner of Park Square and North Street, which it occupied until the demolition of the building in 1894. From 1895 until 1909, the company occupied offices in the building erected on the site of West's block by the Berkshire County Savings Bank; and when the Agricultural Bank building was ready for occu- pancy, the fire insurance company moved to its present quarters therein. The president in 1876 was John C. West, who was succeeded in 1879 by Jabez L. Peck, in 1895 by Frank W. Hins- dale, and in 1906 by Henry R. Peirson, the present president. Albert B. Root was secretary and treasurer of the company in 1876. John M. Stevenson followed Mr. Root in 1879 and served until 1912, when Robert A. Barbour, who is now the secretary and treasurer, assumed that office. During this period, the growth of the business of the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company was highly creditable to the management, for on September first, 1875, the number of policies was 4,150 and the amount at risk was $5,332,863, while on January first, 1915, the number of policies was 16,724 and the amount at risk, $20,396,527.
The officer of longest service in the history of the veteran company was John M. Stevenson, who was born in Cambridge, New York, August thirty-first, 1846, and died at Asheville, North Carolina, March twentieth, 1916. He became a citizen of Pittsfield in 1872. Mr. Stevenson was a neighborly, indus- trious, public-spirited man, who served the community faithfully in many ways. His efforts promoted the establishment of the first street railway in Pittsfield; he was a good friend and a
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useful citizen; and he preserved to the last an unusually youthful cheeriness in social intercourse.
On January first, 1876, the Berkshire Life Insurance Com- pany, now the most important and widely known financial in- stitution in Pittsfield, had 4,813 policies outstanding for an ag- gregate insurance of $10,940,216. The company's outstanding policies on January first, 1915, numbered 31,449, and represented an insurance of $76,513,988. Thomas F. Plunkett, the second president of the company, died in 1875, and was succeeded in 1876 by Edward Boltwood. Mr. Boltwood, who was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1839, became a resident of Pittsfield in 1870, and died in 1878, at Cairo, Egypt. He was followed in the presidency of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company by Wil- liam R. Plunkett in 1878, by James W. Hull in 1903, and by William D. Wyman in 1911. The vice-presidents since 1876 have been James M. Barker, Walter F. Hawkins, William D. Wyman, and James W. Hull; the treasurers, Edward Boltwood, James W. Hull, William D. Wyman, and Joseph F. Titus; and the secretaries, James W. Hull, Theodore L. Allen, and Robert H. Davenport. The present officers are William D. Wyman, president, Walter F. Hawkins, vice-president, Joseph F. Titus, treasurer, and Robert H. Davenport, secretary. Since the completion of its building, in 1868, the company has maintained its home office on the second floor. The building was remodeled and enlarged in 1911.
The field covered by the agencies of the Berkshire Life In- surance Company includes most of the northern states of the Union; and its prosperity, conservatively achieved, has been of substantial assistance to the general prosperity of the city. Several similar institutions in the United States are organized upon a far larger scale, of course; but among them this Pittsfield company, founded and managed in its youth by men of a country town, stands well toward the front, in respect of excellence of reputation for reliable efficiency and watchful management.
CHAPTER XVIII
ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING
T HE claim of Pittsfield to the title of pioneer in woolen manufacture in the United States was more familiar in the last century than now. The claim rests upon the ap- parent priority in this country of Arthur Scholfield's little shop for the making of carding machines, near the West Street bridge over the Housatonic, where he set up his first carding machine in 1801, and a few years later began the manufacture also of looms. Mr. Scholfield's machinery was widely used, and at least contrib- uted essentially to the establishment in America of the business of making woolen cloth.
Pittsfield's claim to national priority in the manufacture of machinery for the transmission of electrical energy by high voltage over long distances is far more securely based. The first polyphase, alternating current generator installed in the United States for power transmission was made in Pittsfield. This machine was presented, as a relic, to the Museum of Natural History and Art in 1914. Few historical exhibits therein are of more significance to the city. None are of more interest to American manufacturers; for from this generator may be said to have descended the power plants of the continent, sending their gigantic energy hundreds of miles to accomplish hundreds of results. The development of the woolen industry through Scholfield's machinery was of signal importance; but of im- portance even more momentous was the later development of many sorts of industries through the machinery designed and made in Pittsfield by the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Com- pany.
In 1887 William Stanley, Jr. was a resident of Great Bar- rington, where he had placed in operation, on a very modest scale and with fewer than twenty customers, a lighting plant
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which utilized the system of the alternating current in transmis- sion. It will be remembered that prior to 1887 the continuous current seemed to absorb the attention of American electrical cn- gincers. Some, however, concerning themselves with the prob- lem of the economical distribution of current over larger areas, perceived the importance of cutting down the plant cost involved in the use of the continuous current, which then necessitated heavy copper cables. Among these engineers, and as a practical inventor foremost among them, was Mr. Stanley. A working theory of the alternating current was clear in his mind as early as 1883. Failing then to convince George Westinghouse, with whom he was at the time associated, of its utility, he soon after- ward withdrew from his connection with Mr. Westinghouse, and in 1885 and 1886 constructed and operated, in Great Barrington, the first alternating current machinery to be seen in this country, which was capable of transmitting current for light and power over an extended field. The size of the wires was one twenty- fifth of that required under the continuous current system then in use.
Near Mr. Stanley's home, the town of Pittsfield offered a somewhat broader opportunity for testing and developing his devices, and accordingly he became officially attached, as we have seen, to the Pittsfield Illuminating Company in 1887. When this corporation was consolidated with its older rival, forming the present Pittsfield Electric Company, it was announced that an upper floor of the new building, erected for the company by W. A. Whittlesey on Cottage Row, now Eagle Street, had been leased to Mr. Stanley for a laboratory and workshop.
The news was greeted by Pittsfield's business men with com- posure. The vague notion appears to have prevailed that Mr. Stanley's activities would be merely a part of those of the lighting company, and also that he might have something or other to do with the equipment with electric power of the street railway. Even after the announcement that Mr. Stanley had moved his home and working headquarters to Pittsfield, and had gathered there around him a group of progressive young electrical engi- neers, the conservative town did not indulge itself in undignified prevision. A few men, however, were able apparently to foresee,
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if dimly, the importance of this new Pittsfield enterprise. One of these men was William W. Gamwell. A certain interview which Mr. Stanley had with Mr. Gamwell in the summer of 1890 is said to have been the germ of the Stanley Electric Manufactur- ing Company. There were in the country only two establish- ments where alternate current machines were made, although about 1,500 stations were operating the system, and the number of them was rapidly increasing. To Mr. Gamwell, Mr. Stanley advanced the idea that here was a commercial opening worth trial. His plan was to supply these stations with transformers, devices to raise or lower the voltage of electrical currents. The manufac- ture of generators, or of other station appliances, did not enter into the original scheme.
Mr. Gamwell's interest was excited, as well as that of others, among whom was William A. Whittlesey. Meetings preliminary to the organization of a company were held in the office of William R. Plunkett, another valuable supporter of the undertaking. Local investors were coy, and naturally so, for in a Berkshire town of those days electrical machinery was generally held to be an almost fantastic sort of thing. At length, on December twenty-sixth, 1890, incorporation of the Stanley Electric Manu- facturing Company was effected, the legal papers having been drawn by Mr. Plunkett. The capital stock was $25,000. The officers were Charles Atwater, president and treasurer; George H. Tucker, clerk; the foregoing, with William Stanley, Jr., Charles E. Hibbard, William W. Gamwell, and Henry C. Clark, directors. A somewhat odd coincidence suggests itself. The first corporation formed in Pittsfield for the purpose of textile manufacturing, afterward the town's chief industrial reliance, was organized at Captain Merrick's tavern in 1809. In a build- ing on precisely the same site, eighty-one years later, was or- ganized a corporation whose success was to be the backbone of the city's industrial welfare.
Charles Atwater, the first president of the corporation, was born in 1853, and was for many years connected with the manu- facturing business of L. Pomeroy's Sons. An affable and ex- tremely popular man, of many friends, he died in London, May first, 1898.
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As early as November, 1890, the designing and modeling of transformers and gencrators had been begun in the laboratory on Cottage Row by the engineers associated with Mr. Stanley. Prominent among them was Cummings C. Chesney, who then became a citizen of Pittsfield. In 1892, after the laboratory force had been joined by John F. Kelly, the Stanley Laboratory Company was incorporated, with a capital stock of $10,000. The function of the laboratory company was that of a consulting engincer for the manufacturing company, and the early en- deavors of the former were chiefly directed toward the perfection of an alternating current motor for use in the transmission of power over long distances. Miles of wire were strung in the se- clusion of "Colt's lot", near the present intersection of Colt Road and Wendell Avenue, and there experiments were conducted. Eventually was perfected what is now known as the inductor type of generator. The sale of this machine, which was the joint invention of Messrs. Stanley, Kelly, and Chesney, was destined to be the most important single factor in the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company's prosperity.
In January, 1891, the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Com- pany began operation, and in the following April the first trans- former was shipped. The factory was in a building on Clapp Avenue, where sixteen hands were employed. The works' engi- neer was Cummings C. Chesney, the shop superintendent was John H. Kelman, and the sales manager was Henry Hine, who had learned the business with the Westinghouse enterprises. Extraordinary success crowned the young undertaking im- mediately. In 1891 the company built the first 100-light trans- formers used in America; its little factory was the first in the country to build transformers of 10,000 volts and higher. The 4000 K W transformer made in 1893 by the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company, for an establishment in Pittsburg, was at that time the largest machine of the kind in the world. Thus in the manufacture of transformers, the company was a leader.
To the manufacture of transformers was soon added that of switchboards, motors, and generators. In 1893 the company's shop built the first American polyphase alternating current generator for long distance transmission of energy at high volt-
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age. This was installed in December, 1893, at a power plant, called the "Old Furnace" plant, near the Monument Mills at Housatonic, Massachusetts, and generated electrical energy for transmission to the Monument Mills and to Great Barrington, to be used for light and power. The historic generator remained in daily operation until 1912, and in 1914 it was presented by the General Electric Company to the Museum of Natural History and Art in Pittsfield. Thus in the designing and construction of high tension apparatus for the transmission of power, the local company again was a vigorous pioneer, and it successfully equipped great plants of power transmission in California, in Canada, and the South. By such equipment, made in Pittsfield by a Pittsfield concern, the entire field of American industry was permanently and impressively broadened.
The business speedily outgrew the original quarters of the company. In 1893 the company established itself in the new brick factory which William A. Whittlesey built for it on Renne Avenue. About 300 hands were there employed, and a constant growth was maintained in the company's product, now compris- ing transformers, generators, rotary converters, switchboard ap- paratus, motor generator sets, and other station appliances, and marketed under the trade name of the "S.K.C. System", so designated because its devisers were Messrs. Stanley, Kelly, and Chesney. The Stanley Laboratory Company, in which these en- gineers were the principal stockholders, was absorbed by the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company in 1895.
Financially, the company in its youthful days had an ad- vantage over many older competitors in not being loaded down, like some of the great electrical supply concerns of that period, with the enormous cost of years of experimental work, with the heavy expense of preliminary trials, failures, and alterations in its product. Guided by the alert talent of the engineers in the lab- oratory, the Pittsfield company engaged itself in the manufacture of perfected apparatus. But the rapid expansion of its business, although very profitable, compelled the carrying of a larger and larger amount of raw material and of material in process of manu- facture. The money market at the time was stringent. The financial managers of the company were not seldom embarrassed
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by lack of capital, and occasionally they, with the heavier stock- holders, borrowed money on their joint paper for the temporary needs of the corporation. During its first six months of existence, on a capital of $25,000, the company carned about $7,500. On May second, 1891, the capital was increased by vote to $50,000, and in that year the profit was $18,000. In the third year, the capital having been voted an increase to $100,000 on August ninth, 1892, the earnings were $54,000. In 1893 the capital was raised to $200,000, and to $300,000 in 1895.
Early changes among the officers of the company may here be notcd. In November, 1891, Henry Hine and William R. Plunkett took the places, as directors, of Charles E. Hibbard and Henry C. Clark. In July, 1893, Charles Atwater retired from the presidency and treasurership, and was succeeded by William W. Gamwell, whose duties of treasurer were assumed in Septem- ber, 1893, by William A. Whittlesey. In March, 1894, Messrs. Atwater and Stanley withdrew from the board of directors, and Walter F. Hawkins and George W. Bailey replaced them. Mr. Whittlesey, in January, 1896, declined re-election as treasurer, and Mr. Gamwell, the president, succeeded him, holding two offices until December, 1896, when George W. Bailey was chosen treasurer.
Six years after the chartering of the company with a capitaliz- ation of $25,000, it was voted, on December, nineteenth, 1896, to increase the capital stock from $300,000 to $500,000. During the same brief period, the company had played a leading part in the enormous development of the use in America of electrical machinery, and a part equally remarkable in the industrial devel- opment of the city. Financed by local capital and managed by local men, the company was able to report, in 1897, that the as- sets exceeded the liabilities, except for capital stock, by $402,000 and that the profits since 1891 had been nearly $300,000. Pay- ments for wages in Pittsfield had amounted in five years to ap- proximately half a million dollars. Nevertheless, about $80,000 of the capital stock voted to be issued in 1896 remained unsub- scribed. By this lack of local support some of the officers of the company appear to have been somewhat daunted. The value of the enterprise to Pittsfield was proved, and its future
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possibilities could hardly be estimated. The corporate managers, however, had little choice. Trade pressure by powerful rivals made expansion of capital imperative. Unless this could be periodically assured from investors at home, a sale of corporate control to investors from abroad was inevitable, and such a sale carried the contingency of the removal of the works from the city.
In July, 1899, it was announced that control of the rights and property of the company had been sold; and it was later disclosed that the purchaser was Ferdinand W. Roebling, of the John A. Roebling Sons Company of Trenton, New Jersey. The sale was fully completed in January, 1900, and Mr. Roebling then became sole owner of the stock, with the exception of a few shares held by the local directors. The company was thereupon dissolved, and a new corporation, bearing the same name, was immediately organized under the laws of the state of New Jersey. The capital stock of the new company was, in 1900, fixed at $2,000,000, of which one-half was to be paid in. The new chief officers were Dr. F. A. C. Perrine, president, William W. Gam- well, treasurer, and Henry Hine, general manager. Mr. Hine, however, soon withdrew. Cummings C. Chesney continued to be chief engineer of the works.
The community at once was greatly perturbed by rumors that the plant was to be removed. A public meeting chose a commit- tee whose members used urgent efforts to obtain liberal sub- scriptions from local investors to stock in the reorganized cor- poration; a concerted attempt was made by leading citizens to convince the new management that the works might with mutual advantage be retained in Pittsfield. Finally, in March, 1900, there was popular rejoicing at the announcement that the shops would remain in the city. The new president, Dr. Perrine, who was Mr. Roebling's son-in-law, became a resident of Pittsfield, and the distinctively local character of the industry was not lost, although the financial control had passed elsewhere.
Plans immediately took shape for the construction of a manu- facturing plant on a scale unprecedented in Pittsfield. The se- lection of the site at Morningside, near the line of the railroad track, was made known in April, 1900, and there the first building erected was the one used at present for the manufacture of trans-
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formers. In dimensions 500 by 90 feet, this shop was striking evidence of the growth of the enterprise in its decade of existence. Auxiliary buildings having been completed, the company was established in its new home in 1901; and the shop on Renne Avenue was abandoned, as well as the shop on Clapp Avenue, which until then had been utilized mainly for the manufacture of switchboards. The Morningside factory in 1901 gave employ- ment to about 1,200 operatives. The output of machinery in that year was represented by a sum of approximately one million dollars. There were then in use, throughout the United States and Canada, more than 500 "S.K.C." generators. The value set on the year's shipments for 1903 was, in round figures, $1,- 500,000, and the maximum of the working force was 1,700. The vitality of the company's business and its prospective growth at- tracted more particular attention from the great financial powers of the country.
The controlling owners of the corporate stock were then a small group of New York capitalists, which included, besides Mr. Roebling, William C. Whitney and Thomas F. Ryan. By this syndicate a sale of the company was effected, in 1903, to the General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York. The purchasing company, which is the largest manufacturer of elec- trical machinery and appliances in America, had been formed in 1892 by the union of the Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, and the Thompson-Houston Company of Lynn, Massachusetts.
Popular apprehension was again excited lest, by this sale, Pittsfield should lose the manufactory which had become the most powerful stimulant to the city's prosperity. It soon ap- peared, however, that it was not the immediate intention of the purchasers to consolidate the Pittsfield establishment with their system of factories, but rather to operate the local plant as an individual concern. The chief officers of the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company under the new control were men well known to the community-W. Murray Crane, president, William W. Gamwell, treasurer, and Cummings C. Chesney, one of the vice-presidents and the supervising engineer. Another vice- president in the reorganization was Dr. F. A. C. Perrine, who re-
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signed in the following year, 1904, when also resigned William W. Gamwell, after service of the utmost value to the company, as president, treasurer, or director since its incorporation.
William W. Gamwell was born at Pittsfield, February twentieth, 1850; and in 1874, he formed a partnership with Eugene H. Robbins to conduct a store on West Street for the sale of steam heating appliances. This establishment still maintains the success which has distinguished it for more than forty years. The rare business acumen possessed by Mr. Gamwell showed it- self in other directions. He was of great assistance to the man- agement of the Pittsfield National Bank, and was a capable president of that institution for several years. His death oc- curred on September twenty-first, 1913.
His quiet, placid demeanor was that of an easy-going man; but behind it was a compelling personal force which he could so concentrate and utilize as to affect his associates and business antagonists often before they quite realized what was happening. Simple, human traits were strongly marked in him; he delighted in friendship, and in giving either pleasure or help to his friends. His keen sagacity was unpretentious, and perhaps for that reason was the more effective. The trust which people had in his shrewd judgment was strengthened by the reticence and calmness with which his judgment was applied. During the course of the momentous financial negotiations, which preceded the sale of the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company and which in behalf of the Pittsfield concern were handled chiefly by Mr. Gamwell, this popular trust was especially manifest; and Mr. Gamwell's connection with the Stanley Company from the beginning tended to fortify the enterprise in local confidence as well as to placate its internal discords.
The year 1903, which witnessed the purchase of the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company by the General Electric Com- pany, witnessed also the alliance of the former with the General Incandescent Arc Light Company of New York. The name of the concern was changed to the Stanley-G. I. Electric Manufac- turing Company. In 1907 the Pittsfield plant was formally and in all respects taken over by the General Electric Company, its individual corporate name and individual board of officers were
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discontinued, and it became nominally, as it had been for four years practically, a part of the General Electric Company's sys- tem of factorics, which includes works in Lynn and Schenectady. Throughout these changes, Cummings C. Chesney remained as general manager of the Pittsfield works, and in 1915 he still held that office.
In December, 1905, plans were made public which signified a great expansion of the works at Morningside. The construc- tion cost of additions to the plant was about $280,000 in 1906, and about $300,000 in 1907. Five years later, in 1912, the ex- penditure for new buildings at the General Electric works at Pittsfield during the year was approximately $425,000. By these and other enlargements, the floor area of the shops was in- creased to 1,600,000 square feet. In 1915 the capacity employ- ment was about one-sixth of the population of the city. The plant then comprised twenty-two factories and the same number of auxiliary buildings. A complete and technical description of the product of the huge establishment would be out of place in a general history of Pittsfield. Some figures, however, are here impressive. The principal items of the annual output capacity were, in 1915, transformers aggregating 4,800,000 horse power, 300,000 electric flat irons, 168,000 electric fans, and 24,000 small motors, while the product includes numerous machines and de- vices of other sorts.
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