USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 3 > Part 40
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For many years Pawtucket supplied New Bedford and Nantueket with heavy presses for pressing out sperm oil. So widespread was the fame of Pawtucket for skillful iron workers that in 1794 Colonel Bald- win came there from Boston after machinery for a eanal, in process of construction near that city. The patterns were made, and the wheels, raeks, etc., were east at Oziel Wilkinson's establishment. The same vear the iron work for a draw-bridge between Boston and Cambridge was also east by Wilkinson. In 1804 he made all the spades, shovels and picks used in the construction of the Norfolk and Bristol turn- pike, which was laid out four rods wide from Pawtucket bridge to Boston. The foundry established by Oziel Wilkinson and his son David was situated in the old coal vard at Pawtucket. Oziel died in 1815, and David continued the business until 1829. In 1832 one of his abandoned furnaces was started up by Zebulon White. In 1835 the firm of which Mr. White was the head was known as the Pawtucket Cupola Furnace Company. The present firm of J. S. White & Com- pany are the lineal successors of the original Wilkinson establishment. Speaking of the establishment while he was its manager, David Wil- kinson said: "We built machinery to go to almost every part of the country," the plaees he enumerated including manufacturing estab- lishments throughout the North and South as far as Louisiana.
In 1816 a man by the name of Dwight Fisher eame to Pawtucket and
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began the manufacture of nails, but soon failing, his machines were purchased by David and Daniel Wilkinson, and the business was carried on by them until 1829, their output being about four thousand pounds of nails daily. Eleazer Jenks built a machine shop in Paw- tueket in 1813 for heavy forge work and the construction of mule spindles. John Thorp, another ingenious Pawtucket meehanie, took out a patent for a power loom in 1814. It stood upright and per- formed its work by perpendicular aetion, but was soon superseded by the Seotch loom introduced by Gilmour. Thorp afterwards invented several other machines and applianees, including a machine for wind- ing quills or bobbins, a very ingenious braiding machine, and a spin- ning ring which is now in general use.
Larned Pitcher started a machine shop in Pawtucket in 1813. Mr. P. Hovey and Mr. Arnold were soon taken into partnership, but in 1819, when the establishment was the largest manufacturer of cotton machinery in Pawtucket, the firm was Pitcher & Gay. The latter was succeeded by James S. Brown, one of the most famous of Rhode Island's iron workers and inventors. He bought out his partner in 1842, and greatly enlarged the works. Sinee his death, in 1879, the business has been condueted by his son, James Brown.
The extensive bolt, nut and screw manufacturing establishment of the W. H. Haskell Company of Pawtucket was commenced on a small scale by Colonel Stephen Jenks in 1820. Alvin Jenks, of the original firm of Stephen Jenks & Sons, which was broken up by the industrial panie of 1829, went to Central Falls and entered into partnership, in 1830, with David G. Fales, in the manufacture of cotton machinery. In 1833 they began making Hubbard's patent rotary pump, which was eon- sidered the best pump in use for many years. This firm made the first ring spinning frames in 1845, and it was the first establishment to make ring travellers. Several years ago the company made for and sent to J. & P. Coats, the celebrated makers of Coats thread, at Paisley, Seotland, some twisters, dressers and winders, which were superior to anything in Europe, and they were made the models for machines made for other establishments of the great thread manufacturers. In 1865 the establishment was removed to Pawtucket, where it has been continued on a larger seale.
Allusion has already been made to several of the early ironworks during the Colonial period. There was a forge at Saxonville in Bur- rillville as early as 1773. A furnace to east hollow ware is believed to have been erected during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), near the Blackstone river, between Cumberland Mills and Abbott Run in the town of Cumberland. An old foundry and smelting works, a half mile south of East Cumberland, was erected in 1736, and furnished cannon for the Rhode Island contingent at the siege of Louisburg in 1745. A nail factory was operated before the Revolution on the west
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side of Diamond Hill in Cumberland, by the Tower family, and the Wilkinsons had a furnace at Manville in that town, where many varie- ties of hollow ware were cast before the war. Stephen Jenks built a machine shop at Central Falls, in 1763, for the manufacture of ship bolts and other ship iron work. Seythes and other edge tools were made at that place about the close of the Revolution by Charles Keene. Brand's Iron works at Wyoming, in the town of Hopkinton, were famous before the Revolution, and there were iron works at Kenyon's Mills in Richmond in 1772, and at Hope Valley in 1778. The Hope furnace, at Hope, Scituate, the Greene forge at Potowomut, Warwick, and another Greene foundry, near Quidnick, Coventry, also antedate the Revolution. The "Old Forge" at Woonsocket was erected by the united efforts of several Quaker families in 1720. In brief, it may be said that nearly every neighborhood had its blacksmith at an early day, and that many of these added small furnaces to their smithies and cast and forged nearly all the iron utensils and tools used in the farm- ers' houses and on the farms.
Cromwell and Perez Peek went to Anthony in Coventry in 1805, and after looking over the machinery in the Almy & Brown mill at Centreville, made similar machines for the eotton mill then building at Anthony. They ereeted their machine shop in the latter village in 1812. Perez Peck was an ingenious mechanic. He assisted Job Man- chester of Coventry in the construction of the first bed-tiek loom ever invented. Daniel Owen made ploughs, harrows, etc., in Glocester soon after the Revolution, and Oliver Owen carried on a nail factory in that town early in the nineteenth century. In 1795 Elijah Bartlett began the manufacture of scythes at Braneh Village in North Smithfield, and Nathan Darling started a scythe manufactory at Forestdale in the same town in 1824. During the Rebellion his suceessors in the busi- ness, Mansfield & Lamb, made 30,000 sabres for the government, and they were officially deelared to be as good as any ever made for the army and navy. David Bartlett made scythes and edge tools at Woon- socket in 1820. In 1811 Stephen Jenks obtained a contraet from the government to make 10,000 muskets at $11.50 each. The work was done at Central Falls, and the building in which they were finished was afterwards used as a machine shop.1 A machine shop was established at Washington village in 1817. In 1825 Joseph and Ebenezer Metcalf built a machine shop at Arnold's Mills in Cumberland, and entered into the manufacture of spinning frames and other eotton machinery. The Nichols & Langworthy Machine Company, at Hope Valley, is an old foundry which dates from about 1825. About the first large order which it filled was the construction of looms, in 1826, for the Hazard Woolen Mill at Peacedale. The Lanphear Machine Shop was another
1One of these muskets is shown in the illustration of the various arms used by Rhode Island soldiers, in the chapter The Wars and the Militia.
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old foundry, which was formerly an important establishment in the Pawtuxet Valley. It was started before the middle of the last century.
From a report prepared in 1791 by the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers for Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, considerable can be learned about the iron industry in and around the town at that time. Nails were manufactured in 1790 to the number of 3,000,000, those below four-penny in size being cut, while the larger ones were wrought. Slitting mills were in operation sufficient in capacity to supply the whole country with rods. Of edge tools, 4,500 scythes, axes and drawing knives were made, and fire engines, cotton and woolen cards, moulding tools and iron shovels were also turned out at various establishments. The edge tools were made by John Lindenberger. Charles Keene manufactured scythes and axes on Bark street, and Samuel Gorham shovels and spades on a wharf between the church and Mill bridge. In 1812 cotton machinery was made on Bark street, near Charles, by Samuel Ogden, and a large force of experienced mechanics were trained in his shop.
The oldest of the large iron foundries in Providence is the Franklin Machine Company on Charles street, which was started by Stanford Newell, Isaac Thurber and others about the year 1800. The old estab- lishment seems to have been known as the "Cupola" at the time of the War of 1812, and to have then been in charge of one of the Wilkinsons, then a youth of seventeen.
The Thomas Phillips Company has existed nearly a century ; it was started in 1804 by Josiah Keene. The Builder's Iron Foundry, which began business prior to 1820 and was formerly known as the High Street Furnace, sustained the reputation of the State-acquired by the Hope Furnace and other foundries in former times-during the Rc- bellion and the Spanish War as a producer of cannon and their accom- paniments. It cast hundreds of cannon of the largest calibre, includ- ing 11-inch columbiads and 13-inch mortars for use during the Rebel- lion. Within the last fifteen years it has assembled and built up scores of big 12-inch rifled breech-loading mortars, with their car- riages, for the rearmament of our forts, and during the late Spanish War, the establishment turned out shot and shell, firing fuses, and 7- inch seacoast howitzers.
Small arms were also made in Providence during the Rebellion by the Rhode Island Tool Company, which made rifled muskets, sabres, etc. The firm filled a large order of Peabody-Martini rifles for Tur- key in 1877, when that empire was at war with Russia. The House- hold Sewing Machine, which was formerly made by this company, now does its own manufacturing in Providence.
More screws are made by the American Screw Company than are manufactured by any other firm in the country. In fact its product
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exceeds that of all other screw makers in the United States. It began business in 1838. The Nicholson File Company of Providence, estab- lished in 1864, is also practically without a rival.
The Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, established in 1833 by David and Joseph Brown-father and son-has attained a world- wide reputation as a manufacturer of steel rules, gauges, callipers and small wares. Even as late as 1853, when Incian Sharpe became a member of the company, the firm employed only fourteen persons, and had only 30 by 60 feet of floor space. It commenced making the Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machine in 1858, and in 1865 employed three hundred persons. Its working force now numbers over two thousand persons.
All kinds of stationary and portable steam engines, fire engines and locomotives as well, are made in Providence by different establish- ments. The Corliss steam engine, constructed by the late George H. Corliss, was considered one of the most valuable inventions of the time a generation ago. Bishop's History (1864) says of it: "Of all the inventions that have been made during the last twenty years there are few, if any, that have attracted a larger share of public attention than Mr. Corliss's improvements in the steam engine-none probably, un- less it be the inventions in India rubber, that have passed through ordeals so costly and trying, or which have more triumphantly vindi- cated their claim to a high rank in the list of American inventions." The object of Mr. Corliss's improvement was to secure a more equable motion to stationary engines than had been before obtained, by rendering the regulator purely automatic and practically perfect, and to save fuel by applying and utilizing the entire expansive force of the steam. Mr. Corliss received the highest prizes at the Expositions at Paris and Vienna in 1867 and 1873, and one of his engines was used at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 to drive the machinery.
William Corliss, a brother of the late George H. Corliss, invented a burglar-proof safe, which he formerly manufactured at Auburn in the town of Cranston, but this industry was absorbed some three or four years ago by a combination of safe manufacturers which removed the business elsewhere.
The American Ship Windlass Company make improved ship wind- lasses and capstans that have come into general use both in the navy and the merchant marine. It is the standard windlass used by the United States navy, and no battleship or cruiser is without it. The windlass is the invention of Joseph P. Manton of Providence.
Stoves were formerly made in Pawtucket by the Rhode Island Stove Works. Spicer & Peckham, afterwards the Spicer Stove Company, made stoves for many years in Providence and carried on a large busi- ncss. It is now consolidated with the Barstow Stove Company, an
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old and sueeessful stove foundry, whieli is now the only one in the State.
Nearly all kinds of machinery, light and heavy castings and iron ware are made in Providence foundries and machine shops. Its iron works constitute one of its largest industries and they furnish steady and remunerative work to large numbers of skilled meehanies.
The manufacturing statistics of 1900 give the following figures re- garding the foundries and machine shops of Rhode Island: Estab- lishments, 144; average number of persons employed 8,799; wages paid, $4,638,507 ; value of products, $13,269,086.
JEWELRY MANUFACTURE.
While the matrons and maidens of the stone age doubtless worc ornaments of some kind, as perhaps did, also, their husbands and lovers, jewelry, in the common acceptation of the word, is a product of a later civilization. It is an indication of some degree of opulence. As long as the colonists in Ameriea were absorbed in the struggle for food and raiment there was little encouragement for the establishment of industries whose products were purely ornamental. Hence it hap- pens that the manufacture of jewelry in this eountry did not begin until after the close of the colonial period. Of course wateh and clock repairers, especially the latter, were necessary to the comfort of the early settlers. Although not a universal household asset, many of the first eomers brought elocks with them from over the sea, and clock tinkers found employment in every settlement. Some of the colonists also carried watehes, and as the colonial villages grew in size and became centres of traffie, watchmakers from the old country jewelry shops came over and set up shop in them, and they gradually began to make rings and ordinary ornaments of bead and metal work.
These things were a matter of course, but the establishment of shops devoted mainly to the fabrieation of articles of jewelry were unknown in this country previous to the Revolution, and it is a singular fact that the first mention of the jewelry manufacture in this country recorded by our industrial chronielers is regarding a Providenee artisan, Seril Dodge, whose shop was two doors north of the "Baptist meeting house" (which stood on the site of Roger Williams's house of worship), on North Main street, made silver shoe buekles for feminine adornment about the time of the Revolution. Other jewelers who made a specialty of the making of ornaments of a similar character in the years immediately following the Revolution were Calvin Wheaton, Ezekiel and William Burr, Caleb Wheaton, Edward Spaulding, Jolin Gibbs, David Vinton and William Hamlin. But Nehemiah Dodge may be considered as the real pioneer of jewelry manufacture in Provi- dence. He opened a shop near the Roger Williams spring on North Main street in 1794, and announeed himself as "a goldsmith and
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jeweler, clock and watchmaker." Previous to that time gold jewelry was made eighteen earats fine, but Dodge turned out a cheaper quality which sold readily. He made gold necklaces, knobs and twists, gold rings and miniature cases. His products sold readily, but in a little while parties from Attleboro, Massachusetts, succeeded in learning the seeret of their manufacture (by false pretenees, as he claimed), and they proceeded to make goods of a cheaper quality even than his.
In 1805 Providenee contained three other firms of manufacturing jewelers, namely : John C. Jenks, Ezekiel Burr and Pitman & Dor- rance. These establishments together with Dodge's employed alto- gether about thirty workmen, and made breastpins, eardrops, watch keys, and similar articles.
Information in regard to the early manufacture of jewelry is some- what meagre. The only references to the industry in Bishop's His- tory, up to 1860, are given in full in the following quotations: (1810) "The jewelry manufacture of Providenee employed about 100 work- men, and the produet amounted to $100,000 annually." (1815) "The jewelry manufacture of Providence employed at this time about one hundred and seventy-five workmen, and the value of the produets for the year was $300,000. It was nearly abandoned during the next two years, but was revived in 1818." (1820) "The manufacture of jewelry in Providence, which had been nearly abandoned in the last two years, was revived this year, and in two more years reached double its former product, or $600,000 per annum." In 1825, besides Nehemiah Dodge, the pioneer of the industry, who lived to be ninety years of age, the manufacturing jewelers of the eity included Joseph Veazie, who made gold ehains, seals and keys in a little shop still standing on the east side of North Main street, about half way up Constitution Hill; Arnold Whipple, on the corner of Stampers and Hewes streets; Frost & Mumford, makers of diamond, pearl and paste jewelry, Cady's Lane; Davis & Babbitt, on Cheapside; G. & A. Richmond, Hydraulion, now Exchange street; Jabez Gorham, who was first located on the opposite corner of Steeple street from the Gorham Manufacturing Company's late quarters; William Greene & Company, George street ; Whitaker & Greene, on the corner of North Main and Thomas streets ; Sackett & Willard, North Court street; and Bassett Nichols on Clem- ence street.
The statistics of jewelry manufacture collected in 1832 by request of the National Tariff Convention, show that there were at that time in the State (probably all in Providence) twenty-seven establishments with a capital of $100,200; giving employment to 282 persons and producing $228,253. If these figures were reliable, and if those pre- viously given of 1815 were also approximately eorreet, the faet that 175 persons at the earlier period made goods of a greater aggregate value than did the 282 workmen in 1832, would seem to indicate that
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the shops were turning out a much cheaper class of goods in 1832 than they were making in 1815. Even if this were the fact, Providence jewelers in 1832 were undoubtedly making larger profits than were those of 1815.
The census statistics of 1840 show that 172 men were then employed in the county of Providence in the manufacture of the "precious metals" and that their products were valued at $277,900. Whether these totals included all of the cheap jewelry establishments of Provi- dence, it is of course now impossible to determine.
The National Census of 1850 also failed to definitely give the status of the jewelry manufacturing industry. The tables of occupation, however, showed that Rhode Island then contained 729 jewelers, exclu- sive of lapidaries, watchmakers and gold and silversmiths, a larger number than were at work in any other state save New York and Pennsylvania.
The business in 1825 was quite different from what it is now. The heavy work was done with hand rolls and foot lathes, and there was no gilt work made. Arnold Whipple, Jabez Gorham (founder of the Gorham Manufacturing Company ), and Sackett & Willard were the only firms making solid goods, which were made of red gold. No shop had more than twenty persons. The most active members of each firm used to go to New York by stage or packet two or three times a year. The Richmonds, who were located on the corner of Westminster and Hydraulion (now Exchange) streets, with whom the late Hon. Thomas Davis learned his trade, were very progressive people and used to go even to New Orleans on drumming excursions in the winters.
The period from 1825 to 1857 was a prosperous one for the jewelry business. Men who began as apprentices, who were possessed of good artistic taste, were able in a few years to set up for themselves and acquire a competence. The increase in the number of manufacturing concerns was mainly the result of this tendency of skilled employees to start in business on their own account. Two journeymen jewelry men would form a partnership; one would manage the shop, often doing more work himself than any of his men ; while his partner would sell the goods, keep the books and do the shipping. In 1850 the in- dustry had grown to forty or forty-five shops. As a peculiar faculty, an artistic sense, and the ability to do rapid and accurate work were very desirable qualifications in jewelry makers, the man who could fill the bill could almost name his wages. No mechanical industry paid as high wages as did the jewelry business. Five dollars a day for a skilled workman was not unusual and some who worked by the piece made as much as ten dollars. As journeymen jewelers were as a rule free with their money, the industry added greatly to the prosperity of Providence.
But, as jewelry is a luxury rather than a necessity, it has always
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been one of the first industries to feel hard times and has consequently had many "ups and downs." Before 1850 the establishments had begun to eross the great bridge to the West Side of the eity, and by 1857 a majority of them were located upon Broad, Pine, Friendship, Orange, Eddy and Page streets. The panic of 1857 eaused many fail- ures among jewelry manufacturers, but the industry quickly recovered and by 1860 there were eighty-six shops, or thirty shops more than there were before the panic. The demand for jewelry fell off during the Rebellion, and by 1864 the number of establishments had dwindled to fifty-two. The war, however, was a help to some firms, especially to those which happened to have large stoeks of gold on hand when it began to rise, and to those establishments which made belt buckles, brass buttons and other military goods, including medals, badges, and artieles of a similar eharaeter.
The eensus of 1860, which only found seventy-seven jewelry manu- faeturing establishments in Providenee eounty, although the Provi- denee directory discovered eighty-six, showed the total value of the prodnets of the industry to be $3,006,678, inelnding silverware and gold refining. There were 1,498 male and 263 female employees, who were paid $697,692 in wages during the year.
In 1870, aeeording to the eensus, there were seventy-one establish- ments making jewelry in the state. They employed 1,579 persons, paid $948,201 in wages and produeed goods valued at $3,043,846.
In 1880 Rhode Island took its place at the head of the States as the eenter of the jewelry industry, both in the value of the goods produeed and in the number of persons employed and amount of wages paid, although New York had two hundred and sixty establishments to Rhode Island's one hundred and forty-eight, the latter were all in Providenee eounty, and all but six in the eity of Providenee. The produets of the industry in that eity exeeeded in valne those of any state in the country aside from Rhode Island. The one hundred and forty-two manufacturing establishments in Providence employed 2,411 men, 675 women and 178 ehildren; $1,614,836 were paid in wages ; and the prodnets amounted to $5,444,092 in value.
In 1890 Providenee had one hundred and seventy jewelry establish- ments, which furnished employment to 4,380 persons, and produeed goods valued at $7,801,000. There were six establishments in Paw- tneket at the same time; their produet was valued at $132,000, and they furnished employment to 108 persons. These statisties do not inelude those of silverware, which was considered a separate industry.
The State Census of 1895, showed an increase on all eounts. There were then one hundred and eighty-eight jewelry establishments, em- ploying 4,851 persons, disbursing $2,423,158 in wages. and produeing goods valued at $8,641,451. Providence contained one hundred and eighty of the one hundred and eighty-eight establishments, while
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Pawtucket had five and Central Falls one. The Providenee establish- ments employed an average of 4,711 persons, disbursed $2,372,434 in wages, and produced goods valued at $8,488,215.
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