Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 71

Author: Nelson, John, 1866-1933
Publication date: 1934
Publisher: New York, American historical Society
Number of Pages: 700

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AXEL MAURITZ ROSENLUND-As a representative of steamship companies in arranging the passage of persons and groups of tourists to foreign countries and as a member of the banking profession, Axel M. Rosenlund has taken his place among the leaders in these lines in Worcester. A former newspaperman, he is now the head of the Rosenlund Ticket Agency and Travel Bureau and teller of the Mechanics National Bank. He is also active in Republican affairs in Worcester and Mas- sachusetts.

Axel Mauritz Rosenlund was born in Helsing- borg, Sweden, August 19, 1884, the son of August and Amelia (Axell) Rosenlund and received his education in the public schools of the homeland. In 1903 he came alone to America and took up his residence in Worcester. To this city also came his parents in 1928. He went to work as a book- keeper in the business office of "Skandinavia," a newspaper published at that time in Worcester, and was promoted to assistant editor and manager. He continued with this paper until 1918, in which year it merged with the Swedish newspaper, "Svea," and he resigned. It was then that he became asso- ciated with the Mechanics National Bank, first as a bookkeeper and later, by promotion, as teller, which post he has since filled.

Mr. Rosenlund established his ticket agency and travel bureau in 1916. His connections include the leading steamship companies and he has built a large and profitable business. Hundreds of clients have passed through his office, to repeat his praises and thus add to the reputation of the bureau for the fine service it renders.

He has taken an active part in Republican politi- cal proceedings, and held the office of secretary in the Swedish-American Republican League of Mas- sachusetts for some time. He is affiliated with the Free and Accepted Masons, Royal Arch Masons and Knights Templar; Thule Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; the Order of Vasa; Quin-

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sigamond Lodge, Independent Order of Good Tem- plars ; and a number of other societies.

Mr. Rosenlund married, October 10, 1911, Esther Elizabeth Svenson, a native of Sweden, and their children are: I. Evelyn, born August 8, 1912. 2. Iver Theodore, born July 8, 1914. The family lives at No. 16 Dayton Street, and Mr. Rosenlund's travel bureau is at No. 311 Main Street, Worcester.

AMERICAN OPTICAL COMPANY-Four out of every ten persons in the United States own glasses, and seven out of every ten need aids to their vision. These significant facts form the back- ground against which the rise and growth of the American Optical Manufacturing Company, of Southbridge, stands out. It is the oldest optical company in the country, and one of the largest in the world. Ingenious and courageous men laid the foundations of the industry, and great men have builded well upon these foundations. In 1933 the American Optical Company celebrated a century of progress; during this hundred years three gen- erations of the Wells family have led the company for eighty-two years.

Eyeglasses or spectacles have been in use for many decades. A forerunner of the very modern bifocal was made by Benjamin Franklin in the late 1700's by the simple process of cutting lenses of different powers in halves and mounting them together. Unfortunately spectacles, for which the Americans depended upon foreign countries, were so costly as to be in the luxury class. In 1826 William Beecher, a native of Southbury, Connect- icut, born in 1805, came to Southbridge, Massa- chusetts, to start a jewelry and watch business and, possibly, to give rein to his Yankee ingenuity. He believed that New England workmen could make spectacles fit to compete with the expensive foreign variety and branched out along this line in 1833. Silver was used for frames because it was so readily worked, but it had many obvious disadvantages. No particular progress was made during the first Biblical seven years of what was to be the great American Optical Company. In 1840 Beecher sold his business to Ammidown and Putney, remaining a year in the employ of this firm to teach what he knew. In 1842 the con- cern was owned by Holdridge Ammidown and his son, L. H .; Robert H. Cole, in 1849, came in to form Ammidown and Company. In 1851 Mr. Beecher purchased an interest in the business, then controlled by L. H. Ammidown and R. H. Cole. Hiram C. Wells joined the firm in 1852, the first of many members of the Wells family associated continuously with the industry to the present day. William Beecher retired in 1862, and the firm became Robert H. Cole and Company.

Southbridge might well have disappeared from the map as a spectacle making center if an inex- pensive method of making steel-rimmed glasses had not been worked out. The layman may not realize that steel-framed spectacles outranked all others in demand for more than sixty years. In 1843 the first steel spectacles were made in Amer- ica by William Beecher in Southbridge. No great fortune came from this advance, because it was still the policy of Old World countries to dis- courage any progress at manufacturing in the United States by dumping its competing products in this country, until it had smothered the new- born industry. Not until America learned to use

the tariff, was the spectacle business, and many other industries, able to survive sufficiently long to be able to meet all competition. Gold rimmed glasses were made in 1848.

The Southbridge optical industry was still a comparatively puny infant as late as 1864, when George W. Wells, a lad of eighteen, entered the employ of Robert H. Cole and Company. He was a genius in mechanics and in many other fields, an inventor with sound business sense. Instead of having to serve a long apprenticeship he made com- plete spectacles within a month, a thing no other worker ever did except William Beecher. Like any other young man who learns and does things easily, he had little patience for lack of progress and promotion. He went with another firm in the village and returned again to the Cole Company, and when he reached the mature age of twenty- one, quit the business and went to California where he soon was manager of a large machine-building plant. In August, 1867, he was persuaded to return to Southbridge to work for R. H. Cole and Company, but left it from time to time to find scope for his ideas and energies in other optical shops. Then came a chance to buy the controlling interest in H. C. Ammidown and Company, wherein he became associated with his oldest brother, Hiram C. Wells and C. S. Edmonds. The Cole concern offered him a partnership to include Hiram C. Wells also, and negotiations led to the merging of all interests and incorporation under the name, American Optical Company.

George W. Wells was twenty-three years old at this time, and throughout his long connection with the company he was one of the chief contributors to its growth and success. There seemed to be no manufacturing problem that he could not solve.

Some of the very machines he built at that time are in partial use today. Most of the principles he developed are still the basic principles of certain methods of manufacture throughout the optical industry.

He discovered a new method of edging split bi- focal lenses. He made eccentric rolls, to taper spectacle stock, he built the first lens cutting ma- chine, even now only slightly modified, he built an apparatus for fitting in endpieces, another for auto- matic milling and tapping of spectacle endpieces, another for jumping and forming spectacle bridges and many other developments to shorten and im- prove the method of manufacture.

The American Optical Company was organized on February 26, 1869, "to manufacture and sell spectacles of gold, silver, steel and plated metals, also rings and thimbles, and such other articles as said company may from time to time desire to make." R. H. Cole was made president, an office he held until his retirement in 1891; George W. Wells was clerk (secretary), and E. M. Cole treasurer. The other members of the corporation were, Hiram C. Wells, A. M. Cheney and C. S. Edmonds. George W. Wells was in charge of the manufacturing and distribution departments of the business, and more or less continued in this respon- sibility until his sons, Channing M., Albert B., and J. Cheney, who came into the business in the early 'nineties, were able gradually to relieve him of some of his responsibilities.

The expansion of the company from its inception to the present day can only be outlined under the heads, plant, product and personnel. A new site on the Quinebaug was chosen in 1871 and a new factory built in 1872, a three-story wood affair

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providing 20,700 square feet. It cost $35,000 and George W. Wells was criticized for mortgaging the future by the erection of a plant which would be too large for the company's purposes for many years. The present American Optical Company's plants are thirty-five times as large. In 1882 an ell and a wing had to be added to the building supposed to have been oversized ten years earlier. The first of the present group of modern brick structures was erected in 1900. The "New Lens- dale" plant, a huge building entirely of concrete, was completed in 1910, an expansion of the "Lens- dale" of 1888. It was designed and built by Amer- ican Optical Company engineers under the direc- tion of Albert B. Wells. The original "Lensdale" building, since enlarged, is the present day "Case- dale." In 1933 the American Optical Company's plants covered seventeen and a half acres of floor space in some thirty-six connected structures, lo- cated on the banks of the Quinebaug River, not far from the center of the town where the com- pany owns upwards of fifty acres, providing ideal conditions for its workers and for maintaining the high quality merchandise for which the company is noted.

The increase in products has been marked through the years, and outlines the history of the development of glasses. Not until 1874 were rim- less goods made in Southbridge. In 1883 the com- pany began making ophthalmic lenses, which here- tofore had been manufactured only abroad. In 1893 the manufacture of cylinder and compound lenses was begun and the dioptric system adopted. At the beginning of the century the American Optical Company brought out the toric lens. Nine years later the research department was estab- lished by J. Cheney Wells. In 1913 the Crookes absorption lens was introduced to the American public. Then came the company's contribution to World War requirements, in the quickly invented and manufactured bomb sights, telescope sights, panoramic sights, and thousands of lenses, frames, goggles and the like. It completely equipped eight mobile optical units for the American Expedi- tionary Forces in France. Other improvements offered by the Southbridge works were the Len- someter, 1921 ; Tillyer Lens, 1925; Ful-Vue frames, 1930; and the Ful-Vue bifocals, 1931. Only the scientist and the optician can estimate the value of these changes, improvements and inventions to man's priceless faculty-eyesight.

Only the constant increase in the amount of business done made possible the extraordinary increase in the variety and perfection of products and in the number of men employed. The two dozen men who, in 1869, could turn out as much as the American Optical Company could sell, has became a close knitted force of three thousand arti- sans in Southbridge, and nearly as many more in all parts of the United States and other countries. There are few parts of the globe in which its products cannot be purchased. There are nearly two hundred branches in this country, nineteen in Canada, and agents in all the important nations of the world. Besides the main Southbridge plants there are others in Nicolet, Province of Quebec, and Belleville, Province of Ontario, Canada. In 1923 the national distributing organization was acquired, a group of twenty large wholesale optical houses with branch offices in every center of popu- lation. There are, today, 25,000 oculists, optome-

trists and opticians in the United States and Canada who use the products of the American Optical Company, and 30,000 in the world at large.

Men of ability and leadership have been the prin- cipal factors in all this growth. George W. and Hiram C. Wells, R. H. Cole, Henry Cady, Alpha Cheney and Charles Edmonds of early years, and Channing M., Albert B., and J. Cheney Wells and others since the 'nineties. George W. Wells suc- ceeded to the presidency of the company in 1891, although he had almost complete supervision of the works from the early 1870's. Albert B. Wells spent several years mastering the lens end of the business and finally became treasurer of the com- pany, which office he held for many years. Dur- ing this time he directed most of the construction of plants and their equipment. He is now chairman of the board. J. Cheney Wells inherited his father's mechanical and inventive ability and was his father's able assistant in all manufacturing problems. He is still continuing to direct this work. He is now executive vice-president of the company. George W. Wells, like all the execu- tives which followed him, had the wisdom to choose able lieutenants and to retain their loyalty. Chan- ning M. Wells, after experience in nearly all de- partments of the business, in 1893 was leading the sales force. He has been president of the company since 1912. Among the other executives are Ira Mosher, vice-president and general manager ; Fran- cis M. Shields, vice-president in charge of man- ufacture; Charles O. Cozzens, vice-president in charge of sales; Edward E. Williams, treasurer ; John M. Wells, secretary and manager of research ; George B. Wells, assistant treasurer ; W. W. Craw- ford, assistant treasurer ; Harry C. Ray, advertis- ing manager; Harry W. Hill, general manager of lens plants ; Elmer L. Schumacher, general man- ager of metal plants; Walter G. Buckley, produc- tion manager of lens plants; Ercell A. Teeson, production manager of metal plants; Arthur J. Pratt, manager of case plants. American Optical Company has been a voluntary association since 1912 and the trustees are: Albert B. Wells, J. Cheney Wells, Channing M. Wells, John H. Har- din, John M. Wells, George B. Wells, C. Mc- Gregory Wells, and A. Turner Wells.

Membership in the following organizations is held by company executives for the primary pur- pose of keeping constantly in touch with world industrial progress : American Bar Association, American Ceramic Society, American Chemical Society, American Management Association, Amer- ican Physical Society, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Better Vision Institute, Boston Credit Men's Association, Boston Patent Law As- sociation, National Chamber of Commerce, Comp- trollers Institute of America, Home Market Club, National Safety Council, National Association of Cost Accountants, National Industrial Conference Board, National Association of Manufacturers, National Society for Prevention of Blindness, Inc., New England Purchasing Agents, Optical Society of America, Southbridge Manufacturers and Mer- chants Association and many other associations throughout the country.

The one hundredth anniversary of the optical industry in Southbridge was celebrated fittingly in September, 1933. It was gladly admitted by speakers that the American Optical Company had been, and was, "the backbone of life in the com-

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munity for the greater part of a century" and that "the accomplishment of such firms contribute to the stability of the Nation." A fitting climax to a week of congratulations and rejoicing came in the announcement that the members of the Wells fam- ily, directing executives of the company, would establish a foundation, eventually to amount to half a million dollars, for the aid of company employees and to assist in charitable, educational and religious work. It is to be named the George W. Wells Foundation.

GEORGE W. WELLS-In 1933 Southbridge celebrated a century of the making of spectacles. Not more than three other communities in the world compare with this town in the knowledge of optical manufacturing and, as is well known, it is the site of the large plant of the American Optical Company. Three generations of the Wells family have been in the lead in this industry, cover- ing a period of eighty-two years. For a half of this hundred years, the genius and labors of George W. Wells contributed more than any other factor to the building of the business and to raising it to the ranks of the great industries of the country.

George W. Wells was born at Woodstock, Con- necticut, April 15, 1846, the youngest of a family of nine. His parents were John Ward and Maria (Cheney) Wells, and his ancestry traces back to some of the earliest colonists of New England. After attending the district school and Woodstock Academy, George W. Wells worked on his father's farm until he was sixteen, when his father was disabled and the responsibility of making the farm pay rested upon the shoulders of the sons. It soon was clear that agriculture was not the road to wealth or even comfort. George W. Wells, in 1863, started out to make a livelihood in some other vocation. He taught school in Neversink High- lands, New Jersey, for a year and then tried to enlist in the Union Army for Civil War service. Rejected because of a childhood injury to his leg, he came to Southbridge, on April 2, 1864, enter- ing the employ of Robert H. Cole and Company as a hand in the optical shop of this concern.

Only the highlights of his career from this time need to be mentioned to reveal the genius and the indefatigable energy of Mr. Wells. He was prob- ably the first boy to be a spectacle maker with- out a three years' apprenticeship. Before he was of age he had invented and made machinery for manufacturing improved spectacles, machinery in partial use even to this day. He discovered a bet- ter method of edging split bifocal lenses. He made eccentric rolls to taper spectacle stock; built the first cutting machine, still in use in a slightly modified form. He constructed an apparatus for fitting in endpieces, another for milling and tapping spectacle endpieces, another for jumping and form- ing spectacle bridges, and many other developments to shorten and improve methods of manufacture.

The continuity of Mr. Wells' association with the Cole Company was broken in 1867 by a trip to California, where he was soon employed in full charge of a machine shop at twice the pay he had received in Southbridge. He returned East, how- ever, in the fall of 1867, a man now aged twenty- one and ambitious to be something more than an optical workman. He purchased control of the H. C. Ammidown Company, and the Robert H. Cole and Company promptly offered him a partner-

ship. The result of negotiations at this time led to the merger known under the name of the Amer- ican Optical Company. George W. Wells was only clerk (secretary) of the new company and only held ten per cent. of the shares issued.

The genius of Mr. Wells is forcibly attested by the wonderful growth that the American Optical Company enjoyed during his services as clerk, treasurer, and later as president and director. He was elected treasurer in 1879 and president in 1891, holding both these offices until 1903 when one of his sons was chosen treasurer. Mr. Wells gave practically all his time to the upbuilding of the American Optical Company and met with excep- tional success. He created a business ranking with the leading industrial enterprises of the nation, whose products are favorably known throughout the optical trade in every country on the globe.

Mr. Wells' mechanical ability and ingenuity was shown in the many important inventions that he has given to optical art. There are recorded in the Patent Office more than thirty patents in his name. These activities directed mainly towards improv- ing and increasing the production of optical goods, have given a great impetus to the optical industry in America.

In connection with the selling side of the Amer- ican Optical Company's business, Mr. Wells trav- eled extensively until 1893 when he turned this work over to his eldest son, Channing M. Wells. He rendered valuable services to the optical indus- try in America by energetic support of protective tariff legislation, representing the American Optical Company before legislative committees of Congress. He never was an office-chair employer of labor. He had been a working man and understood them, even as they understood him. Always he had able and loyal assistants. "In the early 'nineties" as he said in later years, "I began to get valuable assistance from my sons, Channing M., Albert B., and J. Cheney Wells."

Mr. Wells was always public-spirited and took a great deal of interest in the affairs of the com- munity. He was a member of the fire depart- ment, which he completely reorganized. He looked into the matter of a water supply and was one of the founders of the Southbridge Water Com- pany. Later he was a leader in the introduction of gas, electricity and street railways. His reli- gious affiliations were with the Baptist Church, and for a considerable period he was a member of its choir and at all times a generous supporter of religious and welfare activities. During the first eleven years of the Southbridge Young Men's Christian Association he served as its president and later stood strongly behind its work. In July, 1898, he was appointed by Governor Wolcott and reappointed by Governor Crane a trustee of the Worcester Insane Asylum. He was a Mason, member of the local lodge and the Worcester Commandery, Knights Templar, and the . Massa- chusetts Consistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. Perhaps the best method of showing Mr. Wells' prominence in all kinds of circles is to list some of the offices he held, which included: President of the American Optical Company, Harrington Cutlery Company, Central Mills Company, South- bridge National Bank, Home Market Club of Bos- ton; director of the American Optical Company, Southbridge Water Supply Company, Southbridge National Bank, Harrington Cutlery Company, Cen- tral Mills Company, Warren Steam Pump Com- pany, Worcester Trust Company, Worcester Man- ufacturers' Gas and Electric Company, and Na- tional Shawmut Bank of Boston. He was a mem-

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ber of the investment committee of the South- bridge Savings Bank; a trustee of Worcester Academy and Worcester Savings Bank; a member of the Squantum Club of Providence, American Academy of Social and Political Science, Worces- ter Continentals (honorary) and Optical Society of London.

On September 27, 1869, George W. Wells mar- ried Mary Eliza McGregory, daughter of Dr. John McGregory, substantial citizen of South- bridge. Mr. and Mrs. Wells were the parents of three sons : Channing M., Albert B., and J. Cheney, biographies of whom may be found following this ; and a daughter, Mary E.

On September 30, 1912, this leader of the optical industry, foremost citizen of Southbridge and one of the great manufacturers of the Nation, passed away at the age of sixty-six years. In the autumn of 1933 members of the Wells family decided to establish a foundation for the aid of the employees of the great company, of which they were execu- tives, and to assist in charitable, educational and religious work in Southbridge. The foundation will be named in honor of the late George W. Wells, founder of the American Optical Company, the endowment to reach eventually half a million dollars. It is the type of memorial that George W. Wells would appreciate most highly. To many the enduring monument to his memory is the com- pany which he founded, and his true epitaph is written deepest upon the hearts of the men with whom he associated and labored and whom he helped.

CHANNING M. WELLS-Best known for his connection with the American Optical Company of Southbridge, Channing M. Wells has been pres- ident of the company since the death of his father in 1912.

Mr. Wells was born at Southbridge on August 13, 1870, a son of George Washington and Mary Eliza (McGregory) Wells and a descendant of old American families long prominent in New England. He was educated at Nichols Academy, Phillips Academy and Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, where he received the technical training which prepared him for the responsibilities he was later to assume. In 1891 he entered the employ of the American Optical Company and after ten years, in 1901, was elected a director of that enter- prise. Meanwhile he mastered the many details connected with company operations. In 1903 he was elected treasurer of the company and in 1908 became vice-president. Upon the reorganization of the company in 1912 he was appointed a trustee. With the death of his father in the same year, he succeeded to the presidency, which office he has filled with distinction since that time. Mr. Wells has other connections with important Massachusetts business institutions. He is a director of the Gil- lette Safety Razor Company; vice-president and a director of the Southbridge National Bank; and a director of the Russell Harrington Cutlery Com- pany and the Southbridge Water Supply Company. He is also a past president of the Home Market Club of Boston, where he has been an influential figure for many years.

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Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 71

Author: Nelson, John, 1866-1933 Publication date: 1934 Publisher: New York, American historical Society Number of Pages: 700

Author: Nelson, John, 1866-1933
Publication date: 1934
Publisher: New York, American historical Society
Number of Pages: 700