USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 61
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John D. Loughlin and T. D. Scott came to Sidney in 1880, pur- chased a factory site north of the canal between Main and Ohio avenues, and erected office and factory structures which they opened in February, 1881, for the manufacture of school furniture. The leading line was the fashion pupils desk, but the output included recitation benches, teachers' desks, and other items of school fur- niture. The industry prospered in almost fabulous manner, and its products were shipped over many states. Mr. Loughlin's first partner had been a man named Beardsley, and his own trade was that of a molder. After several years T. D. Scott retired from the firm and Loughlin became sole owner. During the most pros- perous days of the furniture works, Mr. Loughlin built the residence which crowns the top of the hill on Walnut avenue, naming it Bonnyconnellan. In 1891 the original school-desk plant was de- stroyed by fire, but was immediately rebuilt of brick, and since then has not needed enlargement for any purpose until now. About 1901 Mr. Loughlin sold out the business to the school-desk trust at a high figure and retired from the plant, which soon after languished.
Mr. Loughlin invested large amounts of money in the once famous Mary L. poultry plant, on the east side of the Miami on what is now Brooklyn avenue, in which, it might seem, a fortune should have been made, rather than lost, in the wholesale breeding of chickens for market. But it proved otherwise. The wonderful plant, then the largest poultry plant in the world, and visited by people from afar, became a quicksand in which the entire Loughlin estate was drawn to ruin; the castle, Bonnyconnellan, mortgaged to the German-American bank, went first, and the rest, including the Mary L., followed. Miss Mamie Loughlin, the only daughter, mar- ried Mr. John Kauffman of the school furniture trust, and Mrs. Loughlin now resides with them. Mr. Loughlin died a year or so ago.
J. B. Tucker, of Urbana, Ohio, came to Sidney in 1901, and bought out the Loughlin plant, in which the manufactures had been varying rather unsuccessfully, and converted the shops to the exclu- sive manufacture of bicycle rims. This line advanced so rapidly that it soon became known as one of the most successful of its class in a large district, and was second to no industry in Sidney for a time. The average production was 1,000 rims per day. The factory was known at this time as the Tucker Bending works.
Auto manufacture becoming a leading consumer of bent work about this time, the change in the tide was met by the immediate change of a part of the plant to the manufacture of steering wheels, a department which grew so rapidly as to absorb almost the entire capacity of the factory. At this juncture, when at the top crest of success, Mr. Tucker's death occurred, and while the work of the establishment never stopped, being carried on during the re-adjust-
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ments and sale of the property, by old line employees and depart- ment heads, the plant was taken over by a new company, and is now the Mull Wood Work company.
Mr. Edward B. Mull, president and general manager, came to the new company with the distinction of being the oldest man in length of service in the employ of the Willys-Overland people. The other officials of the company are Mr. Royal Scott, vice-president ; Mr. Floyd G. Hutchins, secretary and treasurer ; and D. R. Shelton, cashier, the latter retiring from five years service in the First Na- tional Exchange bank, of Sidney.
When Mr. Tucker undertook the manufacture of steering wheels only three manufactories of this commodity were in existence in the United States, and the Sidney plant has since become the second largest, in production, of them all, with business growing in pace with that of auto building. The plant is now increasing its capacity at top speed to meet coming emergencies. Two of the old and trusted department heads who came to Sidney with Mr. Tucker are still valued employees of the new company.
In 1883, a branch of the New York Spoke works was set up in Sidney, under the firm name of Crane & McMahon, with James O'Neill as the local manager. Rapid manufacture of spokes from second growth white oak was the object, and after the abundant supply subsided, the plant moved on.
The Buckeye Churn company, a partnership concern in 1888, originated in Carey, Wyandot county, where James Anderson and Wilson Carothers were, previous to that date, engaged respectively in coal and oil and the drug business. The line of manufacture was the Buckeye barrel churn.
Needing more space, which was unobtainable in Carey, while Sidney was offering free factory sites to desirable parties, Messrs. Anderson and Carothers located permanently in this city in 1891 and enlarged their line of manufacture to include a hardwood saw- mill and general lumber working establishment. Primus cream separators were also partly made here, and during the war a large amount of hardwood airplane stock was turned out by the factory for government use. In 1904 the company was incorporated under the state laws, Anderson and Carothers still owning all of the stock. The firm continued in this form until 1911, when Anderson bought out Carothers. Both partners had families of boys, and the rising generation needed more room than the single factory gave them. The Anderson sons remained with the churn company while the Carothers group took up confectionery manufacture.
Without change of name from the original Buckeye Churn company, the corporation now consists of Mr. Anderson and his three sons, Lawrence B., Thomas F. and Robert J. Anderson, who together own 70 per cent of the stock and control the manufacture. The capital stock has been increased from $70,000 to $250,000. About eighty persons, exclusive of the office force, are employed, and the plant is running to its capacity.
In 1917, R. J. Anderson, fourth son of the house, invented and patented the Prima domestic laundry machine, which has been so successfully demonstrated and put upon the market, that it is now
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
the chief output of the factory, which is disposing of the other wood- working interests and planing-mill business as rapidly as possible, in order to devote the entire forces of the plant to the manufacture of the laundry machine, every part of which, except the electric motors and wringers, is made in the churn plant.
Already the contracts of the company demand an output of fifty of the machines daily, and within a year it is expected that the factory must be enlarged to produce one hundred daily, with three hundred hands at work, and the capital increased to $3,000,000.00. The Dayton Domestic Engineering company use the Prima washer exclusively in their contracts.
The washer, which is the invention of a boy brought up and educated in Sidney schools, accomplishes its work by surface ten- sion of water only, with no rubbing devices, the only force being that of water stroke in the elliptical cylinder, and the contrary suc- tion of air through the fabric, which cannot be torn nor injured in any way. It is made in but one size, one style, and one price, and that aimed to be the most practical, neatest and lowest possible, re- spectively. The Anderson family are all strongly inclined to things mechanical, and are "to the manufacture born," three sons and six- teen grandchildren growing up to the business. The company is organized thus: James Anderson, president ; R. J. Anderson, vice- president ; Thomas Anderson, secretary ; and Lawrence D. Ander- son, treasurer.
Beginning in 1890, under the name the Commercial Pole and Shaft company, this company, whose factory is at the corner of Park street and the B. & O. railroad, engaged in the manufacture of poles and shafts. Mr. A. R. Friedman of Cincinnati became con- nected with the firm in 1892, and at that time the business was incorporated as the Sidney Pole and Shaft company, the directors being J. H. Smith, of Muncie, Indiana; W. A. and A. G. Snyder, of Piqua, Ohio; H. A. Lauman, of Columbus, and F. G. Waddell, of Akron, Ohio. The capital stock was $20,000, and the manufac- turing purpose was the making and ironing of carriage poles and shafts, from the raw materials. Clyde C. Carey entered the employ of the firm in 1893, and has for some years past been manager of the works.
About 1903 the establishment was absorbed by the Pioneer Pole and Shaft company, of Piqua, Ohio, and while much enlarged and employing many more men, it is operated as a subsidiary factory to the plant at Piqua. No pole nor shaft making is done here now, the local labor being devoted to a general line of detail forging, with strap and leather cutting of all sorts, valve and pump cups, etc., while carriage irons are forged for the Piqua factory. At present the plant is not running on normal schedule, not having recovered its balance, as yet, from the war work, which was nearly 100 per cent government contracts. Business is slowly but steadily recovering tone, although only about thirty-five to forty men- barely one-third of the wartime payroll-are busy at present. The outlook for the immediate future is an enlargement of the market for small iron forging, which is being pushed. Mr. A. R. Friedman is president of the company.
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The Underwood Whip company, once of Sidney, was a trans- planted industry, coming from Wooster, Ohio, in which city it was established in 1864. It was lured to Sidney in 1891, at a time when Sidney first began to attract general attention as a manufacturing center. Within two years after its establishment here, the concern became a part of the United States Whip company, a trust, and for the next twelve or fifteen years was operated at full speed and the factory enlarged to double its former capacity. Eventually, the trust did what trusts usually do, and removed the plant to a Massa- chusetts center, leaving its large buildings empty. However, all things seem to work together for the good of Sidney, and the vacuum is now filled to its limit with one of Sidney's new (and native) industries.
An old and almost forgotten shop devoted to a branch of wood- working was built in the seventies, on South Main avenue, by James Van Gorder, whose parents owned, then, the house one door north. The business of the shop was the manufacture of dowel pins for indoor woodwork and furniture construction, cask heads, and similar work. The shop and house were afterward occupied by Toy & Son, and the house, modernized, is now the home of Edward McClure. A large, fine old orchard flanked the premises toward the river at that date. Hickory timber was still so plentiful then, in Shelby county, that it excited no comment, when the Van Gorder shop was closed, that the store of fine straight-grain hickory stock left on hand was sold as cord wood to feed a neighbor's hearth fire. James Van Gorder is recalled as having owned the first bicycle in Sidney. It was a crude affair, and had no pedals.
Steel and Iron Industries. Whoever was the first village black- smith of Sidney cannot be answered. His name has not been spe- cifically preserved, and it is more than probable that there was more than one disciple of Tubal Cain in the wilderness seat of justice. At all events, the blacksmith's forge being a prime necessity of civilization, smithing and forging and plow making, and similar useful arts, were practised wherever the necessity of the settler pointed the way or led it, as not a few did, at his own anvil. The industry received an impetus in the approach of the canal, which demanded shops for the making and repairing of earth-working implements, and irons for the locks and floodgates. Except for the influx of laboring population in the open season, Sidney did not at first receive the chief industrial benefit from the construction period of the canal era. That went to Port Jefferson, which threatened to outgrow the county seat, and even cherished for a few years secret hopes of a transfer of the honor. The crisis passed, however, and not long after the sale and removal of the temporary courthouse from Ohio to West avenue, the building became the headquarters of at least one of Sidney's blacksmiths, whose name is doubtless a well-known one in Sidney's after history in some other capacity. The Kingseed shop, located at the northwest corner of Ohio avenue and North street, was established as early as 1846, and plows were the principal output there, while to the north other smithing estab- lishments began to gather closer to the canal. Up to 1848, when Dan Toy, sr., arrived in Sidney, the industry was confined to iron
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working, steel being as yet a new development in American manu- facture.
Daniel Toy was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, No- vember 24, 1821. He learned plow making as a lad at Jacobstown, New Jersey. In 1843 he came to Mansfield, Ohio, traveling all the way on foot, and from Mansfield made his way to Mason, Warren county, to engage in work on wagons designed for use in the Mex- ican war. About this date, William Wood, a steel worker under James D. Quigg of Pittsburg, rolled the first slab of steel ever made in the United States, and shipped it to Thomas Wilmington, a railroad construction engineer then located at Brant, Ohio. Mr .: Wilmington engaged a Dayton man to make some heavy breaking plows from the steel, but he failed in the attempt. Mr. Toy was then recommended as a plow maker, and succeeded in converting the steel into plowshares, winning the honor to be named the first man in Ohio, if not in the United States, to make a steel plow. In company with William Swain, Mr. Toy opened a plow works in Troy, Ohio, about 1846, and while working at Brant met and married Miss Eliza Jane Hoover, with whom and their infant son, William Miner Toy, he came to Sidney to make a permanent home some time in 1848. Here he established a plow works in the old court- house on West avenue, where (and also at Troy) he made many of the plows that were used in the grading of both railroads, and also manufactured agricultural plowshares, while carrying on the gen- eral work of a smithy, in which, within a few years, David Edgar, then a hardware dealer on Ohio street, became a partner, with the style of Toy & Edgar .*
Mr. Toy was a man of extraordinary size and strength, and given, after the manner of the times, to wrestling, in which his prowess was sometimes useful and sometimes amusing. An in- stance of the first quality may be noted in the reminiscence of occasions when he, single-handed, defended his shop from being wrecked by gangs of drunken railroad laborers ; while of the second, a friendly wrestling bout with David Edgar, his partner, was so engrossing that the contestants wrestled themselves off the Court street bridge and into the canal, where the town marshal, to pre- serve his dignity in the face of a crowd of onlookers, placed both men under arrest for quarreling. Seeing that they were in for retribu- tion, the friends stayed in the water until the bout was finished to their satisfaction, and then delivered their dripping persons to the strong hand of the law, were marched to court and fined, each paying the other's penalty, and shaking hands, to the marshal's discomfiture.
From the West avenue shop Toy went to the Kingseed shop and continued the business for several years, then retired tempo- rarily to a farm, but returned to Sidney the following year and built new plow shops on North Main street. These he only operated personally for a year or two, leaving them to enter the Slusser Sulky Plow works. When that company dissolved, he embarked in
* See end of sketch.
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
the new plow works of Haslup & Toy, this again being of but few years' duration, Mr. Haslup retiring to engage in other business.
In company with his son, William Miner Toy, a plow works , was opened on South Main avenue in 1878, at a site immediately north of the old Starrett burying ground. The residence of the late John Oldham now occupies the spot, and the family residence of the Toys was the little cottage which, remodeled into a modern bungalow, is now the home of Edward McClure. Mrs. Toy, sr., died in 1886, Daniel Toy surviving her until 1903. W. M. Toy became sole owner of the plow works in 1881. They were removed in later years to the old McClure shop on the river flats east of the Presbyterian burying ground, remaining there until the site was needed for an athletic field, when it was taken to its present location in the substantial old foundry building, once a part of the agricul- tural works of a past day. This change was made about six years ago (1913), and after some vicissitudes the business is now pros- perous and quite extensive, structural and ornamental iron work and general foundry business being carried on in addition to the regular line of plows. W. M. Toy is the father of four sons, all of whom are trained in steel craft-Dan and Robert, both with the Sidney Steel Scraper company, Hugh, associated with his father, and William, jr., just returned from fifteen months' service in the army. Mrs. Toy, who was Miss Mary Haslup, died in 1918.
Christian Kingseed, builder of the plow works at the corner of Ohio and North streets, came to Sidney about 1846 or 1847. The shop, as first erected, was but one story, and was practically demol- ished by a fire, at which time the Kingseed home was threatened, also, because of a high wind blowing the burning shingles from the roof. The shop was rebuilt, of brick, and a second story was added. Conditions at the date of Mr. Kingseed's arrival in Sidney were difficult in the extreme. Iron was hard to get, and every scrap of waste iron had to be utilized and treasured to provide the where- withal for manufacture. The shop, which was afterward the prop erty of John Heiser, was left unchanged by him, and others of the earlier moulders and plow makers operated in the same building. It was the age of milk-sickness and the deadly ague, and strong men came and went-many of them to their "long home"-not even great physical might being immune to the ravages of malaria, which undoubtedly had much to do with the fact that the descendants of the pioneers are not their physical equals. Christian Kingseed, builder of the familiar old shop, was noted as one of the "strong men" of his day.
On the corner where the postoffice stands a little stove foundry stood in the fifties, just how long was its tenure of existence being a matter of mere conjecture. George D. Lecky owned the land at that time, and it is suggested that the builder of the foundry may have been his son, S. Alex. Lecky. It was a wooden building and probably was destroyed by fire. Few persons now living remem- ber it.
A much larger foundry, also of wooden construction, stood at the site now occupied by the Philip Smith Manufacturing company, which is believed to have been erected by the Edwards brothers,
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but the line of product is not remembered. It was vacant in 1858, when Mr. G. G. Haslup came to Sidney from Springfield and Dayton, and was rented by him in company with young Philip Smith, the two conducting business together until the burning of the plant, after which Mr. Haslup built an independent smithy where he oper- ated until the Miami avenue machine works was erected. He was a workman of ability and a man of fine sturdy character, whose life, long and honorable, left its mark on Sidney industry and society.
Philip Smith, the son of an honest but unlettered emigrant named Reinhardt Schmidt, who had settled first in Pennsylvania, afterward migrating to Indiana, and then to Dayton, Ohio, where he entered a foundry and trained his sons in steel craft, came to Sidney in advance of his father ; but, after the fire was followed by the remainder of the family, Mr. Schmidt ("Smith"), senior, assist- ing in getting the new foundry built on the site of the old. The elder Smith lived, active in the business of the foundry, until 1875, and was no small part of his son's success. Philip Smith, little better educated than his father, had a very engaging personality and possessed a marked degree of diplomacy as well as mechanical genius, all of which was employed in enlisting the help which he often needed in financial straits; and by the advice and good offices ot several able financial heads in Sidney, he was enabled at last to withdraw from the manufacturing field a wealthy man. He died in 1914. Rhinehart Smith, a brother, was long associated with him in the business.
In the Philip Smith foundry and machine works, where were manufactured many different grain-handling machines for farmers' and warehouse use, with other machines of various character, sta- tionary engines, and all sorts of foundry products for which the plant was available, a number of Sidney's best men have from time to time exerted a saving hand. But it has been a valuable institu- tion and an asset to the town well worth the saving.
It was here, in 1864, that the little cannon intended to figure in the political demonstration in favor of Vallandigham, candidate for governor, was cast by the ardent young Democrat, Phil Smith.
About 1904 the industry was put upon a sound financial basis by the formation of a stock company, the partners being Lafayette M. Studevant and B. D. Heck, Mr. Smith becoming manager until 1907, when he resigned. Since that time the business has had a splendid growth, the receipts having more than trebled in the years between 1915 and 1918.
Mr. G. G. Haslup in 1868 built, or had built for him by the Careys, the machine works where the elevator company now oper- ates; and there began the manufacture of agricultural implements. Three years later he vacated to permit the Slusser sulky-plow works to occupy. In 1872 Mr. Haslup again occupied the building in part- nership with Dan Toy, sr., in the manufacture of plows ; but in 1879 the place was bought by the Sidney Agricultural Implement com- pany, with O. O. Mathers, president ; John Hale, secretary and treas- urer; R. O. Bingham, superintendent ; and John Brubaker, J. A. Lamb, Wilbur E. Kilborn, and the S. A. Lecky estate, directors. This company at once erected a foundry building on Shelby street,
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east of the works (now the location of the Toy Plow works), and embarked in the extensive manufacture of agricultural implements, mill machinery, and all sorts of castings and foundry work. The Miami Valley hay rake, the Slusser excavator, and the Valley Chief reaper all were manufactured in this plant.
In 1902, the agricultural works having declined locally, Mr. Walter R. Blake purchased the buildings and plant and began the manufacture of elevators and elevator machinery of all descriptions, specializing in freight elevators, also power and hand elevators, and dumb waiters for hospital, hotel and private home use. The firm, known as the Sidney Elevator Manufacturing company, uses the trademarks: "Semco" and "Sidney." Mr. Blake is sole proprietor.
Broom manufacture was carried on in both buildings prior to this, afterward being confined to the foundry structure, but declined with the failure of the broom corn harvests, and was abandoned.
Hollow Ware. The Wagner Manufacturing company, makers of high-grade cooking utensils, is one more monument to the success- ful business initiative which is Sidney's characteristic as a manu- facturing town. Originally founded in 1891 for the purpose of man- ufacturing cast iron ware of a better grade than was commonly to be found in the market, the industry began in a small plant which served the successful and growing industry but a year or so, when enlargement became imperative, the history of nearly every year for twenty-five years recording successive enlargements, until now the plant is thirty times the size of the first little foundry, with plans in preparation for still further extension.
The Wagner brothers began with an ideal which makes exten- sion inevitable. Stated simply, that ideal is to make Wagner ware better than any other ware, and stands for constant striving to produce articles of "quality." In the twenty-nine years of striving, the ideal has become a habit of the house, which is the pioneer of cast aluminum ware, the manufacture of which was not entered upon until Wagner hollow ware in iron had become a synonym for "the best."
The original venture was simply an attempt to supply a "com- monplace but vital want" of the American housewife, made clear to the manufacturers by their own experience in the retail hardware trade. For two years "better cast iron ware" was their output. Success in this line led to the introduction of still further improved lines of nickel-plated hollow ware, which greatly increased the repu- tation of the firm and led to the development of an idea which was at that time, 1894, very advanced indeed.
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