USA > New Jersey > Passaic County > Paterson > History of Paterson and its environs (the silk city); historical- genealogical - biographical > Part 44
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21,000
Grimshaw Bros.
350
300
400
500,000
250,000
Haenichen Bros.
30
45
14,000
41,250
Robert A. Haley
15
30
3,200
18,000
10,000
Hamil & Booth
500
425
70
15,000
600,000
250,000
Hamilton Silk Co.
25
I5
30
25,000|
11,000
John Hand & Sons
150
I50
100
68
140,000
170,000
Helvetia Silk Co.
100
100
81
60,000
100,000
Hess, Goldsmith & Co
So
100
160
80,000
115,000
*Highland Water Co.
100,000
Hitchcock, Meding Co.
300
500
300
140
600,000
250,000
W. D. Holmes.
40
60
II4
50,000
51,000
Hopper & Scott.
85
85
II,000
100,000
48,000
Jacob Horandt & Son
125
75
63
220
100,000
90,000
A. P. Husted.
7
I
7 chenille machines
8,000
3,000
Inglis & Co ..
30
70
10,000
40,000
40,000
Isleib & McLean
13
32
2,600
14,000
15,000
Johnson, Cowdin & Co.
300
500
207
12,000
250,000
340,000
Kattermann & Mitchell.
30
IO
25
11,000
14,000
*Enoch Ketcham
Gustav Klinge
8
5
5
20,000
8,300
90
2,400
40,000|
30,000
Gallant Brothers
75
50
200
*Benjamin Eastwood
40,000
Cornforth & Marx
80
40
S. Dime & Co
2
15
30|
70,000
Gregory Silk Co
300
36
150,000
Machines.
30,000
36,500
350
PATERSON AND ITS ENVIRONS
Employ- ees.
Looms.
Male.
Female.
Broad
Goods.
Ribbon.
Braiding
Machines.
Spindles.
Capital
Invested.
Annual Wages.
R. Lackman & Son.
5
4
7
7,000
4,200
*G. W. I. Landau
40,000
*Jacob Levi
55,000
Levy Bros.
250
250
85
30,000
200,000
135,000
W. Little & Co
IO
40
40
25,000
25,000
Mackay & Rowson ..
30
40
3,800
20,000
15,000
James McAlister & Co
29
39
3,400
20,000
16,000
Mclaughlin Braid Co.
25
100
200
4,000
25,000
30,000
Samuel Meredith
2
6
160
3,000
2,100
Miesch Manufacturing Co.
60
65
52
100,000
91,000
James Miller
3
3
I2
2,000
2,800
Mills & Van Horn.
I5
35
5,000
15,000
12,000
W. T. Milton & Co.
5
IO
800
2,500
5,000
Murphy & Aronson.
IO
15
15
7,000
5,000
John T. Murphy
5
I3
1,400
6,000
6,000
Naef Bros. & Co.
60
I20
100,000
60,000
Nightingale Bros. Co.
40
40
6,000
22,100
New Jersey Silk Co.
30
55
83
50,000
25,000
Neuburger Silk Co
45
75
15,000
80,000
35,000
Oldham Mills
50
100
150,000
76,000
W. H. Oliphant
30
15
18
15,000
23,500
O'Neill & Kuett Co
90
35
30
70,000
70,000
Paragon Silk Co.
I50
200
284
100,000
55,000
Paris Silk Co.
40
42
400
15,000
30,000
Joseph Parker
8
7
65
250,000
I 30,000
Paterson Woven Label Co.
8
2
5
5,000
7,800
Peerless Plush Manufacturing Co
170
30
70
200,000
91,000
Pelgram & Meyer.
325
325
159
750,000
260,000
Phoenix Manufacturing Co.
350
350
495
500,000
200,000
*A. W. Piaget.
250
250
250
250,000
250,000
*Pope Estate
26
14
4,000
18,000
12,000
Ramsay & Gore. .
100
108
14,000
144,000
55,000
C. F. Reiher
4
II
168
1,800
4,100
F. C. Reinhart
8
6
2,500
4,500
Rettger, Allen Co.
6
60
25,000
32,000
*John Ryle Real Est. Association
125,000
Shaw Bros.
15
15
II
11,000
16,000
J. Silbermann & Co.
150
50
160
60
160,000
155,000
James Simpson & Co.
175
175
205
18
6,000
300,000
182,000
G. W. Smith Silk Co
30
15
IO
15
15,000
22,500
William Strange Co ..
435
435
230
2.12
1,250,000
400,000
South Paterson Silk Co
40
40
58
40,000
31,200
John Swift & Co.
13
22
1,200
7,000
10,000
Swiss Knitting Co
8
22
22 knitting machines
18,000
13,000
Taylor Silk Co.
18
12
26]
9,000
14,000
Thomas & Harper
56
16
52
18,000
50,000
Toner & Drescott.
5
5
5
4,000
6,000
Joseph E. Tynan.
20
15
4,080
20,000
9,000
*G. D. Voorhis
30,000
*Jacob Walder
50,000
A. D. Winfield
12
I3
65
6,000
9,000
Totals.
8610 8915 7139 2454 1486
246,703|$13,505,800|$7,266,750
*Owners of real estate used in the manufacture of silk.
8
8,000
15,600
Paterson Ribbon Co ..
125
125
72
15,000
Pioneer Silk Co.
80
30,000
Post Throwing Co
41
44
*William Ryle & Co
50,000
60
100
20
300
5
PUBLIC LIBRARY
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35 I
INDUSTRIES
CHAPTER V.
Locomotive building one of the early industries of Paterson-Rise and disappearance of the Grant and Rogers works-The Cooke works only such in name-Machine shops, brass works and other metal working establishments.
Walking down Market street, facing Spruce, the traveler about a score of years ago would have found himself in a veritable hive of industry, for he saw about him buildings and men who could and at times did turn out forty locomotive engines a month. On the right stood the Grant works; on the left and right the Cooke works ; the Rogers works occupied both sides of Spruce street and extended up as far as Mill street. Where Grant and Cooke formerly built engines may now be heard the hum and whirr of silk machinery; in the buildings still known as the Rogers works the hammer lies idle, the lathe is still and the weird-like arms of the giant cranes stretch out in vain for something to grasp. For there has been a great change in the locomotive industry of Paterson within the past two decades. The first to go were the Grant works; a heavy loss had been sustained in a contract for engines for the Russian government, from which the works never fully re- covered ; what with limited capital and sharp competition from those who had plenty of surplus cash, the owners of the Grant works sold their machinery to a concern in Chicago and the Grant works are only a memory at present. The Cooke works moved away from the place where they had flourished for so many years and the works are now located at the southern extremity of the city along the tracks of the Erie railroad; the name still appears on the buildings, but from larger letters the passerby gains the information that the works are a part of the works of the American Locomotive Company. The Rogers works were the last to go, and they went unexpectedly. The name Rogers had for many years been a name to conjure with in the locomo- tive industry and the works were busy, when the owner suddenly clamped down the lid and put a stop to everything. From him the works passed into the hands of speculators, then into the American Locomotive Company and then into history.
Thomas Rogers, the founder of the Rogers locomotive works, was born in Groton, Connecticut, March 16, 1792, and died in New York City, April 19, 1856. Among his forebears was a Thomas Rogers who came to these shores in the "Mayflower." The future locomotive builder in early life was a carpenter ; he served through the war of 1812 and then went back to the bench, this time in Paterson. He was employed by a Captain Ward to make some patterns for power looms for weaving cotton. Captain Ward had taken out a patent on the power looms, but he did not estimate the value of the invention as highly as did Thomas Rogers and the patent changed hands. Rogers then formed a partnership with John Clark, the son of the pioneer who built the Beaver mill, and, taking Abraham Godwin into the firm, estab- lished the manufacture of cotton power looms under the name of Godwin, Rogers & Company. In 1831 they had two hundred hands in their employ
352
PATERSON AND ITS ENVIRONS
and were making money. Rogers took $36,266.05 for his interest in 1831 and built a factory for himself along the upper raceway, intending to make ma- chinery in the lower floor and spin cotton on the upper. But the orders that at once came in for machinery induced him to change his mind and he de- termined to devote the whole building to machinery. In the following year he formed a partnership with Morris Ketcham and Jasper Grosvenor, of New York, and the nucleus was formed of the buildings which subsequently became the Rogers locomotive works. In 1836 the Paterson & Hudson River railroad purchased an engine in England and had it sent to Paterson to be put together. The engine arrived in parts and the mechanic who was to put it together seemed in no hurry. This gave Rogers an opportunity of which he was quick to avail himself : before the engine passed into possession of its owners Rogers had drawings and patterns of every part of it. On Octo- ber 6, 1837, the first locomotive engine built in Paterson was ready for a trial trip. Mr. Rogers and a few friends used it for an excursion to New Brunswick by way of Jersey City and there was a great deal of happiness when the party returned. The two driving wheels of the engine were four and a half feet in diameter and were located forward of the furnace; there were four thirty-inch wheels on the truck. The cylinders were eleven inches in diameter with a sixteen-inch stroke and altogether the contrivance looked like one of the engines which years afterwards were used on the New York elevated railroads. The engine was sold for $6,750 to the Mad River & Lake Erie railroad, taken apart and shipped to its destination by schooner and canal boat. Thomas Hogg, who had worked at building the engine, went with it for the purpose of putting it together; he showed its new owners how it worked, but they declined to entrust it to any one but Mr. Hogg and they treated Mr. Hogg so well that he did not leave their employ for forty years. Stich was the humble beginning of what was for many years the most im- portant locomotive works in the country. Mr. Rogers devoted his whole attention to building locomotives ; he invented the counterbalancing feature of the driving wheels and the hollow rims and spokes ; in fact, the engine of the present day is substantially the engine that was built in the Rogers loco- motive works in the early forties. Among those employed by him was his son, Jacob S., to whom he paid ten dollars a week until he had thoroughly mastered every detail of the industry. At the death of the elder Rogers his son was ready to step into his shoes and he found them an exact fit. The works were enlarged and improved until they turned out in a month as many engines as there were days. In a litigation some years later it was shown that for a long time the cost of an engine to the works was about eight thou- sand dollars ; the selling price was anywhere between twelve and fifteen. It was consequently not at all a matter of surprise, when the panic of 1873 came and nobody wanted to buy engines, that Mr. Rogers betook himself to Paris and there lived with a lavishness of luxury and hospitality that made the Frenchmen stand aghast and then write articles on the wonderful wealth of Americans. On February 13, 1879, a large part of the works burned down ; there was not a cent of insurance and not the slightest indication of an
Thomas Roger
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353
INDUSTRIES
order for an engine in sight. Mr. Rogers was informed of the disaster by cable ; he cabled back, "Send me a photograph of the ruins and put the build- ings up again just as they were." This cost several hundred thousand dollars, but Mr. Rogers had confidence in the future of the American locomotive in- dustry and so when prosperity returned, the Rogers locomotive works were open for its reception. Mr. Rogers then returned to Paterson and divided his time between his works and his office in New York; in the metropolis he lived at the Union League Club, in New Jersey at his residence in Paterson and his country seat at Pompton. He distanced competitors, for he had wealth and also influence in railroad circles, being a director in several rail- roads. Not satisfied with supplying a large percentage of the domestic market he invaded foreign fields and fairly astonished the world by furnish- ing engines for English dependencies. How could he do that with a handi- cap of forty per cent. on foreign iron and steel, and most of the iron and steel he used was imported? He answered this question one day to the writer: "Foreign-built engines are as stiff as a bar of steel; the curves on the roads they run on are necessarily of a very obtuse angle and there can be no high grades. When I build an engine I make it as wobbly as necessary by using trucks with a great deal of play ; in other words, I build the engine to, suit the road. The result is that my engines turn all sorts of corners and climb grades which would be considered impossible in Europe. The cost of a road using my engines is a trifle of the cost required to build a road for foreign engines. The Englishman has always been noted for his tenacity of purpose, and his most delightful stubbornness is his refusal to learn anything from an American. He makes fun of my engines, calling them 'basket' work ; I hope he will continue to do so."
One morning-August 28, 1900, to be precise-when the Rogers works were at least as prosperous as any similar establishment in the country, Jacob S. entered his office in Paterson and inquired how long it would take to fill the orders on hand. He was told that all orders could be filled by the first of December, but that there were numerous inquiries for more engines. "Take no more orders," was his reply; "these works will close on December I." Those who heard him were astonished, but not surprised, for Mr. Rogers frequently indulged in actions for which the average man could find no explanation. To his friends he explained that he had tired of building engines, and that industrial establishments would sell better when times were good and when they had a full complement of hands than when opposite conditions prevailed. Meetings of people interested in the welfare of Pater- son were held and Mr. Rogers was besought to change his mind ; but he re- mained obdurate and the Rogers works were closed on December 1, 1900, in the midst of a season of prosperity. Speculators from Wall street bought the works and ran them for a short time, when they sold them to the Ameri- can Locomotive Company, the corporation which already owned all the loco- motive works in the country with the exception of the Baldwin works in Philadelphia and the Rogers works in Paterson. The big corporation ran
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354
PATERSON AND ITS ENVIRONS
the works, but in a rather perfunctory manner; then they moved the most valuable machinery to the Cooke works and to-day what was once the Rogers works is the scene of desolation, spoken of as people speak of things the glory of which has departed.
Jacob S. Rogers never married ; he had a child in France, a daughter, for the custody of which he fought for many years in the courts, but the French law was against him; he was a man of many strange whims and notions, with the liberality of a spendthrift at times and the penuriousness of the miser at another; but these are matters, highly interesting though they might be, which do not belong to the realm of Paterson history. On the morning of the second day of July, 1901, he was found dead in his room in the Union League Club in New York and then followed the denouement of the last and most successful surprise to all who knew him. If there was any- thing about which Jacob S. Rogers knew nothing it was art; he enjoyed the rudest woodcut more than the finest production of the engraver's skill. The pictures which hung in his rooms in Paterson looked as if they had come as premiums from the tea store on the corner. Yet he left all his fortune-with the exception of a few legacies, $100,000 to a favorite nephew-to the Metro- politan Museum of Art, and that institution reaped the result of the brain and energy of Rogers and the brawn and skill of Paterson mechanics to the extent of five million dollars. The directors of the Art Museum knew him not; as far as was known he had been there only once in his life and then to make inquiries relative to its management.
Among the provisions of his will was one by which he gave an annuity of $800 a year to the son and daughter of a nephew, children in arms. Among the properties owned by Mr. Rogers was a large undeveloped tract of land in the heart of Paterson, adjoining his residence. Mr. Rogers had dur- ing his lifetime consistently refused either to improve or sell the property ; the only use he had for it was as a pasture for two cows. In his will this property was put into a pool, together with his country seat at Pompton and certain securities, the net income of which was sufficient to pay the taxes and the two eight hundred dollar annuities. This pool was not to be touched for a long term of years, long after the beneficiaries of the annuities had attained their majority. Paterson's progress, and that of a large part of Passaic county, had been retarded by a stumbling-block which evidently appeared insuperable to Mr. Rogers. But the people of the art museum were not pos- sessed of any such whimsicalities and they readily found a company which was willing to take the property under a guarantee deed of the Museum. There are numerous houses now where in former years the Rogers cattle grazed, and the last attempt of the great locomotive builder to do something odd-outrageous, perhaps-was frustrated a short time after his remains had been consigned to the grave. It is fortunate perhaps that no other industry in Paterson has so much of romance attached to it as is told of concerning the Rogers Locomotive Works.
The history of the next important locomotive industry in Paterson is a simple tale of industry and progress. Charles Danforth was a native of
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JOHN COOKE.
355
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Norton, Massachusetts, where he was born August 30, 1797. He served during the war of 1812 and, after following various occupations, including that of sailor before the mast, he came to Paterson in 1828, and, after being employed for some time as a machinist, took the place of Thomas Rogers in the firm of Godwin, Rogers & Clark, the name of the new firm being God- win, Clark & Company. He acquired the interests of his partners in 1840 and eight years later formed the firm of Charles Danforth & Company, hav- ing associated Major John Edwards with him. In 1852 the firm began the building of locomotives and the enterprise was incorporated in 1865 as the Danforth Locomotive and Machine Company. In 1871 he was succeeded in the presidency of that corporation by John Cooke; Mr. Danforth died on March 22, 1876. Mr. Cooke was a native of Montreal, Canada, where he was born August 8, 1824. His administration of the affairs of the com- pany, subsequently changed to the Cooke Locomotive Company, was a series of successes with an almost total absence of reverses. In 1888 he found the demand for the output of his works far greater than any possible supply and so he determined to obtain more room and at the same time to relieve him- self of an incubus which had long annoyed him, the necessity of taking the product of his works to the nearest railroad, for the works were situated at some distance from the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western rail- roads. He acquired a large tract of land near the southern extremity of the city of Paterson and adjoining the Erie tracks. Here he erected works in accordance with all the modern principles of manufacturing. He continued the management until his death, February 20, 1882, and was succeeded by his three sons, John S., Frederick W. and Charles D. In 1901 the works were sold to the International Power Company, who in turn sold them to the American Locomotive Company. Mr. Frederick W. Cooke remained as man- ager until 1914, when he resigned.
The Grant Locomotive Works, the third and least of the three establish- ments which made Paterson famous as a centre of the locomotive industry, owed its inception to a partnership formed in 1842 by Samuel Smith, Abram Collier and George Bradley, the object of the firm being the manufacture of machinery. There were numerous changes in the firm, the most important being the admission as a partner of William Swinburne, formerly a superin- tendent of the Rogers works, the name of the firm then changing to Swin- burne, Smith & Company. After two years Mr. Swinburne retired in order to engage in locomotive building on his own account; he erected a works along the Erie tracks between Market and Ellison streets and continued there until 1858 when he sold the works to the Erie, which for many years used it as a repair shop. Mr. Swinburne's former partners incorporated in 1850 the New Jersey Locomotive and Machine Works and until 1863 made engines on the corner of Market and Spruce streets. The stock was bought by Oliver DeForest Grant, who took his two sons, David B. and R. Suydam, into partnership. A charter was obtained for the Grant Locomotive Works and this continued under the management of D. B. Grant until the removal of the machinery to Chicago.
356
PATERSON AND ITS ENVIRONS
The first step towards the establishment of the Passaic Rolling Mill Company was taken in 1863, when Sherman Jaqua obtained a charter for the Paterson Iron Works. The main object of the company was rolling bar iron from scrap. In the following year the name of the company was changed to the Idaho Iron Company. The enterprise, however, failed to attain pros- perity and it was soon sold to a company in California and the machinery removed thither. The shop had been closed two years when in 1867 Mr. Watts Cooke came to Paterson. He was one of four brothers, the other three being John, James and William; John at the time was devoting his energies towards establishing what subsequently became the Cooke locomotive works. Watts Cooke had been superintendent of the Delaware, Lackawanna & West- ern railroad and with the assistance of his three brothers and some capital- ists of the railroad company whose employ he had just left, bought the shop in 1868. The purchase was very beneficial for the city of Paterson, for the "hard times" in 1873 and the years following had little effect on the activities within the walls of the Passaic Rolling Mill Company, as the new company had been named. The first order for structural iron work, to which the firm devoted its entire attention, was for the building of the New York Eve- ning Post, on Broadway and Fulton street ; then came an order for the iron work at the new capitol at Albany, followed by the order for the iron work at the Centennial buildings in Philadelphia. The company built the armory for the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York, several sections of the ele- vated railroads, and Washington bridge over the Harlem river. A large number of bridges in the country, and also in Canada, were built by the com- pany, the American plan of bridge construction being followed. Previous to the adoption of this plan bridges were built by sending men and iron and forges to the places where the bridges were to be built. When the Passaic Rolling Mill Company received an order, measurements were taken after the piers had been erected; then the whole bridge was built and put together at the works in Paterson without riveting, but the construction was sufficiently complete to show that the bridge as an entirety would answer the purpose called for. It was to this system that a great deal of the prosperity of the company was attributed. After the death of Watts Cooke, on October I, 1908, the works passed into other hands.
There was a time when the Paterson Iron Company supplied an impor- tant part of the industrial life of Paterson. The founder of the company was Franklin C. Beckwith, who came to Paterson in 1853, having charge of the construction of the second track of the Erie railroad. He bought out the interest of Sherman Jaqua and Thomas W. Gillies in a corporation which had struggled for existence in manufacturing machinery on the Erie rail- road and Clay street and at once materially enlarged the buildings. He made a lucrative specialty of rolling large bars of iron and for many years had the largest steam hammer in the country, his facilities being very convenient when a break occurred in the large shaft of a transatlantic steamer or in case of any accident requiring immediate delivery of large pieces of rolled iron. After his death in 1875 the works were continued by his two sons,
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Charles D. and J. Alexander, and at the death of the latter Charles D. be- came sole owner. He continued the works until his failure in 1897, when the buildings and machinery were removed and the site they had occupied sold to the Erie railroad for a yard.
Among the early machinists in Paterson was Benjamin Eastwood, who was born in Lancashire, England, October 31, 1839. He came to this coun- tray in 1863 and was employed in various machine shops in Paterson. In 1873 he established a machine shop on Van Houten street, below Main, but the space soon proved too small for the demands made upon it. He accord- ingly began the erection, on Straight street, of what is to-day the largest establishment in Paterson devoted principally to the building of silk machin- ery. He died April 26, 1899, and was succeeded in the business by his son.
William G. Watson and James Watson, two brothers, both natives of Chorley; Lancashire, England, started in 1845 what subsequently developed into the Watson Machine Company. They occupied successively a part of the Franklin mill, the Nightingale mill and a frame shop they erected for themselves on lower Van Houten street. But none of these places were satis- factory, on account of the cramped conditions, and so in 1860 they erected the present works of the Watson Machine Company on Grand street and Railroad avenue. William G. Watson was a man of considerable prominence in the public life of Paterson, being successively alderman and mayor. He died July 7, 1889. He was succeeded in the management of the works by his son, Samuel J. Watson, who died April 14, 1915.
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