USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 24
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"Many other firms in Worcester no doubt had part in the great work of keeping the Man with the Gun supplied with all that he needed, and better supplied than his opponent was. When the soldier boys threw off their over- alls, put on uniforms, and shouldered the gun, their sisters did not hesitate to don overalls and take the vacant places where they could in the machine shops and munition plants. Worcester also drew many skilled male mechanics from elsewhere. There were probably forty thousand workers in the local plants during the peak of war activity.
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"One sees therefore, the reason why, on August 17, 1918, announcement was made that Worcester's war production zone ranked first at Washington. War Department officials referred to the Worcester production zone as the most satisfactory in the United States for efficiency, rapidity of output, and intelligent cooperation. Worcester was placed first, according to population, Pittsburgh next, and Detroit third."
There is no difficulty in presenting evidence of the industrial greatness of Worcester, county or city. If, as has been suggested, this leadership has been gained despite natural advantages, its greatness must be due to persons, rather than things. Men of means and of vision, canny investors and the enterprising speculators, have all played their parts upon its stage. More than the usual number of "founders" have reaped the rewards of their faith, and there has been manifest the New England tendency for manufacturing concerns to remain in the control of families over several generations. Another New England trait stands out in any consideration of the subject, Yankee ingenuity, or better, inventive genius. The writer of Crane's History of Worcester County said that "It must not be overlooked that to the bril- liance and genius of native and naturalized sons of Worcester and Worcester County must be attributed a large measure of Worcester's success." Heading the list of the famous inventors of the county would come Eli Whitney and Elias Howe, inventors of the cotton gin and sewing machine. Macaulay said: "What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin has more than equalled in its relation to the prog- ress and power of the United States." Yet Eli Whitney never enjoyed the benefits of his invention-the model was stolen from his workshop, it is said. Elias Howe sapped his vitality by ten years of grim litigious struggle before he began to benefit by his sewing machine. William Howe invented the truss wooden bridge ; Lucius J. Knowles, the openshed cassimere loom and looms for weaving narrow fabrics; Jerome Wheelock invented the Wheelock engine; Erastus B. Bigelow invented the first carpet machine; William Crompton invented the first power loom for weaving fancy cottons; Charles Thurber invented a typewriter in 1843; Russell L. Hawes invented the first successful envelope-making machine in America; Loring and A. G. Coes invented the Coes wrench; Ichabod Washburn invented the first piano wire drawn in America; Thomas Blanchard the first loom for weaving irregular forms; A. W. Gifford, the first milled machine screws placed on the market ; Charles Burleigh invented the first rock drill successfully driven by power ; the Simonds family of Fitchburg, made the circular saw industry; Josiah Green was one of the first, if not the first, to use wooden pegs, in place of nails, for boots; Eli Bruce invented a machine for making pins out of wire, heading and pointing them ready for use; Thomas Keyes and David C. Mur-
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dock invented a stopmotion, a machine used in the warping of cotton and woolen yarns, their machine being the only one used for the purpose for fifty years, and in demand in almost all the cotton mills of this and other countries. Leonard Dunnel Gale, of Millbury, or that part of Sutton which became Mill- bury, had more to do with the perfecting of telegraphy than had Morse, who goes into history as the inventor, although Morse admitted that: "If anyone has a claim to be mutual inventor it is Professor Gale." As a matter of fact, Professor Gale was pursuing investigations along a similar line, and with success, at the time Morse confided to him that he had failed to operate his own device. Morse had not much more than a theory, an inspiration; Gale had carried his own experiments to success, and instantly demonstrated that fact when Morse brought to his laboratory his unworkable contrivance. Nevertheless, Gale, like many other inventors, failed to profit by his device. However, inventions by Worcester County men have, during the last century, created many industries within and without the county.
Fitchburg-Second in industrial ranking, in the county, Fitchburg makes a better showing over a long period than Worcester in proportion to its population. As a city it celebrated its centennial in 1932, and some of its most important manufactures are as old as the municipality. A gazetteer of 1839 lists its three principal productions as woolen fabrics, cotton goods and paper to which might be added metal products. The order of importance has changed but they remain the four outstanding products, although, until very recent years Fitchburg's more than a hundred manufacturing establishments turned out an extraordinary variety of articles. A list of the products made in Fitchburg to within the last five years include: Armor plate, automatic sprinklers, auto trucks, awnings, babbitt lining metal, bicycles, books, brass casting, bricks, brooms, brushes, catalogs, children's suits, children's under- wear, combs, condensers, cotton waste, cotton yarn, duck fabrics, electrical, envelopes, files, flour mills, gas, gingham, grinding machines, hack saws, hair pins, humidifiers, iron castings, lace curtains, lumber mills, machine knives, baling machines, machine tools, machinery, market gardens, mixo-beaters, newspapers, paper, paper bags, paper boxes, patters (castings), piping engi- neering, plating works, printing, revolvers, saws, shoes, shotguns, screen plates, steam boilers, steam engines, steam pumps, steel horse collars, steel plates, top roll covering, wagons, welding, wood novelties, wooden boxes, woolen fabrics, worsted yarn.
Natural resources have contributed a large share to Fitchburg's industrial expansion, notably the forests of a former day and the river which later brought the materials for wood pulp and furnished the power which not only changed the forest supplies into paper but furnished in modern times hydro-
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electric power to turn the wheels of its factories. Given a nucleus of trained and skilled mechanics, workmen from all quarters of the globe, among whom those of English, Canadian, Irish and Scandinavian origin were outstanding, and add to this the enterprise and frugality of its native sons which to an astonishing extent financed, and retained in the family for generations, manu- facturing concerns, and one has the ideal industrial center. The city has been a reservoir of artisans from which all America has drawn. The Wallaces and the Crockers, of whom three and four generations have remained in the direction of the paper industry to make the city second only to Holyoke as a maker of papers, are but representatives among the long-time leaders in Fitchburg.
Until the last decade, the output of the Fitchburg paper mills in pulp and paper represented nearly half of the total value of manufacturers in the city. As matters of record rather than as a study of present-day conditions when history of a sort is being made and unmade, consider the mills of Crocker, Burbank and Company, Inc., the Fitchburg Paper Company, Louis Dejonge and Company, and the Falalah Paper Company, which line the banks of the river, and in good years sold products to the value of $20,000,000. Quoting from The Fitchburg Sentinel of 1913:
"No concern has assisted more widely to the prestige of our city than Crocker, Burbank and Company, manufacturers of book, card, and Bristol papers, and as the business has been continued since 1850 under this firm name, its history is parallel with Fitchburg's period of greatest development and advancement.
"The plant now comprises eight mills, and gives employment to seven hundred people. This result has been effected from a modest beginning when one stone mill was occupied, fifteen hundred pounds of paper manu- factured, and a handful of people employed.
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"Its present (1913) payroll is one of the largest in the city. Add to this the expenses of administration, transportation, materials, and other items of organization and operation, and we find this corporation the centre of a wheel around which much of the prosperity of Fitchburg revolves.
"From the founding of the business in 1750 it was controlled by men who were interested in municipal development, as well as in their private affairs, and the Hon. Alvah Crocker will always be remembered as the man who secured the first railroad for Fitchburg, and was first president of the Fitch- burg Railroad, and the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad, in 1845. He engaged in the manufacture of paper by hand in 1826. In 1851 he formed
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partnership with Gardner S. Burbank, and on the retirement of Mr. Burbank in 1866, other members of the Crocker family became associated with him, though he remained the head of the business until his death in 1876.
"Others who have been active in the concern are his son, the late Hon. Charles T. Crocker, who was ably fitted to carry on his father's strong busi- ness principles, and who directly is responsible for paper-making improve- ments which today are being universally used in the more modern mills: George F. Fay, S. E. Crocker, George H. Crocker, Alvah Crocker, Edward S. Crocker, and Charles T. Crocker, Jr. The business was incorporated in January, 1909, with George H. Crocker, president, and Alvah Crocker, sec- retary and treasurer."
Then, to quote from a later publication (1924) :
"The Fitchburg Paper Company may be supposed to have had its begin- ning in the partnership of Rodney Wallace and Stephen Shepley, which partnership continued from 1853 to 1865, under the trading names of Shepley and Wallace, and later of R. Wallace and Company. They were wholesale paper dealers, but in 1865, while the partnership still existed, they formed the Fitchburg Paper Company, and acquired the Lyon Paper Mill and the Kimball Scythe Shops at West Fitchburg. The members of the company were Stephen Shepley, Rodney Wallace, and Benjamin Snow, but some time later Stephen E. Denton was admitted, and took charge of the manufactur- ing of paper in the Lyon Mill. In July, 1865, Stephen Shepley sold his interest to Wallace and Snow. The changes during the next few years were important : Mr. Denton died in 1866, and Mr. Snow's interest passed to Mr. Wallace in 1869. In the same year Mr. Wallace purchased the interest of the Denton estate, thus becoming sole owner of the Fitchburg Paper Com- pany. In 1876 he erected a dam ; in 1878 he built a new mill ; two years later he built another, thus increasing his product of paper to six tons a day. Other expansion came steadily and by 1913 the company was producing seventy- five tons a day. In 1878 Mr. Wallace admitted his sons, Herbert I. and George R., into partnership. The father died in 1903, but the sons have con- tinued very successfully to direct the affairs of the huge business, and several other important manufacturing enterprises in Fitchburg also. Some years ago Mr. Herbert I. Wallace retired from business affairs, and Mr. George R. Wallace has since been president of the Fitchburg Paper Company. His son, Major George R. Wallace, Jr., is vice-president.
"The Falalah Paper Company was founded in 1885 by Albert N. and Seth L. Lowe. Its specialty has always been calendared cardboard for show and advertising cards, and for almost forty years the company has had a high standard of excellence of product. Mr. Joseph A. Lowe is general manager.
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"The Louis Dejonge Company, manufacturers of surface-coated paper, acquired the former, and almost new, plant of the Mitchell Manufacturing Company, at Cleghorn Street and Oak Hill Avenue, in 1900, and began to coat paper drawn from other mills. It is an important industry, and the company was employing about two hundred and fifty men a decade ago."
The Crocker family must be named again in connection with the paper business as constructors of machinery for paper mills, since 1872, although the business was started in 1867 as the Union Machine Company, for the purpose of making steam fire engines. An offshoot of this company was the Union Screen Plate Company, supposedly the largest producers of screen plates in the world. It was incorporated in 1903. The William A. Hardy and Sons Company, founded in 1850, and with the two sons, Walter A. and Frank O. Hardy, incorporated in 1902, originated and improved many processes utilized in screen-plating making, such as the Spring-Lockwood Screen-plate Fastener, of which the concern has been since 1910 sole manu- facturer. Although only indirectly a part of the paper industry, the use of steam power in such industries gave rise to several important steam engine corporations, such as the Fitchburg Steam Engine Company, dating from 1872 ; the Brown Engine and Machine Company, for the start of which C. H. Brown was responsible, himself an inventor since 1850, and the head of the company since 1899, since when the Peraults, M. J., Moses J., Sr., Joseph F., and Moses J., Jr., have been the powers behind its expansion. There is also the Putnam Machine Company, established in 1836 by J. and S. W. Put- nam, who were the creators of the Putnam Automatic Steam engine; the C. H. Cowdrey Machine Works, founded in 1875 by Charles H. Cowdrey, and continued after his death in 1896, by Henry E. and Charles F. Cowdrey, and there are many other firms that could be mentioned in connection with milling business, as contractors and makers of equipment, such as Wiley and Foss, the Jennison Company, Parks-Cramer Company, and others.
The textile industry, over a long period of varied fortunes, has been out- standing in Fitchburg's industrial affairs. The largest of the textile con- cerns, the Parkhill Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1880, by John Parkhill and Arthur Lowe, and carried on mainly under Lowe leadership, particularly Russell B., David and Arthur H. Lowe, has a nation-wide reputa- tion for its woven wash fabrics. The Grant Yarn Company, organized in 1892, in which George P. Grant, the elder and younger, have been the direct- ing persons ; the Fitchburg Yarn Company; the Star Worsted Company, are all large corporations, specializing in the manufacture of yarns and allied materials. Among the other mills using these yarns are the large Orswell Mills, built in 1886, and the Nockege Mills, a subsidiary; the Beoli Mills, a subsidiary of the American Woolen Company ; Shirriff's Worsted Company ;
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Photo by Paul W. Savage
BIRDSEYE VIEW OF BUSINESS HEART OF WORCESTER
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and the Fitchburg Duck Mills, Arden and the Rodney Mills. The Lyon Manufacturing Company specializes in the fabrication of textile machinery, and to the production of machinery and metal products such firms contribute as the L. H. Goodnow, Fitchburg, and Welch foundries; the Fitchburg Machine Works, the Fitchburg Grinding Machine Company and the Universal Grinding Machine Company.
Without attempting to name all the many manufacturing plants which have given Fitchburg its standing in the industrial world, two more will be mentioned, the names of which and their productions are famous. Wherever lumbering operations have been carried on in the United States, and in many other parts of the globe, Simonds saws have been used. The Simonds Man- ufacturing Company not only makes almost every kind of a saw, but machine knives and similar implements. It was the first company to perfect the machinery and the use of machinery to reduce the amount of hand-labor in their productions and thereby increase evenness in quality and dependability of service. The Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Works is known wherever firearms are sold, if only for the slogan "Hammer the Hammer" advertising its revolver. The company also was famous for its bicycles in the "gay 'nineties" and also after the World War it made even more of these handy means of transportation. It is the oldest company in the continued manu- facture of bicycles. The history of both corporations as told by James P. Heaton in the October 9, 1922, issue of Current Events runs somewhat like the following :
Abel Simonds, who was born in Fitchburg in 1804, formed partnership with A. T. Farwell in 1832. They purchased a mill privilege in West Fitch- burg in that year, and erected the shop with A. T. Farwell in 1832. They purchased a mill privilege in West Fitchburg in that year, and erected the shop which formed the nucleus of the immense Simonds saw-manufacturing establishment of today. Until 1851 the partners traded as A. T. Farwell and Company; from 1851 to 1864 Mr. Abel Simonds conducted the business independently. In 1864 he retired, and the firm of Simonds Brothers and Company was formed by his sons, Alvan A. and George F. Simonds, and an associate, Benjamin Snow. In 1868 the company secured corporate status, as the Simonds Manufacturing Company, the members of the firm then being George F., Alvan A., Thomas T., Daniel and Edwin F. Simonds. Until about 1878 the specialties were mower knives and planer knives. The mower- knife interest was sold in 1878, but the manufacture of saws was then taken up. Two years later, the first branch office, that at Chicago, was opened. The expansion of business throughout the world during the next three dec-
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ades made it advisable to open nine other branch offices, and innumerable agencies, and also branch factories. In 1892 a factory was erected at Chicago, and a steel mill in the same city eight years later. In 1910 the steel mill was removed to Lockport, New York, the first steel rolled in the plant being on January 1, 19II. The Fitchburg was rebuilt in 1905-06, and in 1906 a fac- tory was established at Montreal. In the same year the making of hack-saw blades and files was begun in a separate Fitchburg plant, and there has since been constant expansion of this branch. A branch factory was opened in Detroit in 1922. The factories of the Simonds Saw and Steel Company (which company was formed in 1922 to take over the assets and operations of the Simonds Company under the same executive personnel) find employ- ment for about 2,200 persons, and produce an article well known throughout the world. George F. Simonds was president from 1868 to 1888, resigning in the latter year to form a new company. Daniel Simonds was president from 1888 until his death in 1913. His three sons, Alvan T., who has been president since 1913; Gifford K., who is now general manager ; and Harlan K., who is now treasurer, were associated with him in the business for many years prior to his death. Alvan A. Simonds left the original firm in 1875.
The Iver Johnson Arms Company, which is perhaps as widely known as the Simonds Company throughout the world, was founded in 1871 by Iver Johnson and Martin Bye. The former, a Norwegian gunsmith, was then thirty-one years old, and had only been in the United States for eight years. The firm of Johnson and Bye began to make guns in a single room of a church building at Worcester. Two years later, two rooms in the Armsby Building, on Central Street were rented, and there fifty men were employed. In 1875 they purchased the whole building. In 1883 Mr. Johnson acquired the Bye interest, the trading name then changing to Iver Johnson and Com- pany. Superior workmanship, and good business ability brought the Johnson revolver into world-wide demand. In 1885 the Iver Johnson biycle was put on the market ; five years later, 15,000 bicycles were called for in one year. The need of more factory space then caused Mr. Johnson to purchase the Fitchburg factory of the Walter Heywood Chair Manufacturing Company, on River Street. To this plant he moved his Worcester equipment, and with the passing years added building after building until the Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Works became one of the largest factories in Fitchburg. Iver Johnson died in Fitchburg in 1895, but for a few years his sons Frederick I., John L., and Walter O., had been assisted with him in the business; and they, with their mother's assistance, carried forward the huge establishment to further substantial expansion. John Lovell Johnson is now the president of the Johnson companies, of which is the Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Works.
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Leominster-Whatever its future may be, Leominster will be known as the "Comb City." It may no longer have the control of comb industry- a decade ago it possessed twenty-three out of the twenty-six comb and hair- pin factories in Massachusetts, and this Commonwealth was the first among the states at that time-but this industry, older than the city, has been the means of making the name Leominster familiar to the people of the United States. In passing, however, it may be noted that the making of combs has never contributed more than a third of the values produced by the manufac- turing establishments of Leominster, which has never been a one-industry city. A list of its industrial concerns of a decade ago include : Apple-parers, the Hudson Parer Company ; automobile tops, Arvid S. Edmand ; baby car- riages, the F. A. Whitney Carriage Company; the Whitney Reed Corpora- tion ; baby toilet baskets, George W. Wheeler ; brass founders, Leominster Brass Foundry ; brush manufacturers, Leominster Brush Company ; button manufacturers, Bay State Comb Company, the Damon Company, Lees Button Company ; carriage and wagon maker, V. S. Merrill; comb and celluloid manufacturers, B. F. Blodgett Company, Cellu Products Company, the Damon Company, W. D. Earl and Company, Farrell and Hyland, Foster- Grant Company, Goodale Comb Company, Howe Comb Company, E. B. Kingman Company, Leominster Shell Goods Manufacturing Company, Model Comb Company, George Morrell, Inc., J. W. Pickering and Company, Queen Hairpin Company, Royal Comb Company, Standard Comb Company, Tenney and Porter, Tilton and Cook, United Comb and Novelty Company ; cement building blocks, Leominster Modelled Block Company, G. Rosse and Son, F. A. Savage and Son; cork goods, Consolidated Cork Company ; con- fectionery, Boston Confectionery Company, Leon B. Currier ; doors, sash and blinds, W. A. Fuller Lumber Company ; die manufacturers, Leominster Brass Foundry, Modern Tool and Die, Standard Tool Company ; enamellers, Haldie Nicholson, Woodcraft Enamel Company, Sun Enamel Company ; furniture manufacturers, Merriam Hall and Company ; horn tips and plate, Horn and Supply Company ; key manufacturers, Independent Lock and Key Company ; leather goods (artificial), Pyrotex Leather Company ; machine shops, Grimes and Harris, Standard Tool Company, Modern Tool and Die Company, Austin A. Smith; paper box manufacturers, Dodge Paper Box Company, Leo- minster Paper Box Company, Whitney and Company ; paper manufacturers, G. W. Wheelwright Paper Company ; piano case manufacturers, the Richard- son Piano Case Company, the Wellington Piano Case Company ; piano manu- facturers, Haines Piano Company, Jewett Piano Company ; shirt manufac- turers, Cluett, Peabody and Company, Gold Button Shirt Company, Wachu- sett Shirt Company ; tanners, Harrison and Company ; toy manufacturers,
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Rowley and Shaw, Lambert and Latimer, Whitney Reed Corporation ; toilet paper manufacturers, Handifold Toilet Paper Company; Worsted cloth, Leominster Worsted Company; woolen yarn, Rockwell Woolen Company ; wood novelties, the Leominster Novelty Corporation, Wood Novelty Com- pany, Rowley and Shaw.
A century ago the chief industry in Leominster was the production of paper ; in 1836 there were five paper mills. The first of these was built in 1796 by William Nichols and Jonas Kendall, near the site of the present Wheelwright mills. Fire and periodical financial panics played their cus- tomary rôles in the history of this mill, but by 1845 its successors had come into the hands of Samuel Bigelow, who, the following year leased the prop- erty to George A. Wheelwright, of Boston. Print and card papers were then the main products of the two machines in the mill. In 1865 the property was purchased by Mr. Wheelwright, and after his death in 1880, the concern
incorporated under the trade title of the George W. Wheelwright Paper Company, with George Wheelwright, son of the founder, as president. He was, in 1914, succeeded by his son, George H. Wheelwright, Jr., as head of the company. In 1886 the mill was the first in America to make bristol boards, in which, together with index boards, it has since specialized, and of which, until recent years, it was a very large producer.
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