USA > Vermont > Washington County > Waterbury > History of Waterbury, Vermont, 1763-1915 > Part 18
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extract: "Colonel George Harvey seems to be very serious in the suggestion he made at a recent dinner when he named Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, as a good man for the Democrats to run for President of the United States. The suggestion has set people thinking and the com- ments of the press should be very pleasing, both to Mr. Wilson and Colonel Harvey."
The event showed that the people who had been set thinking, must have thought to some purpose. Judging from present indications, however, it is not at all improbable that the his- torians of the first quarter of the twentieth century will speculate as to the exact reasons why king-making Warwick Harvey should have evidenced such great dissatisfaction with his own handiwork when the people of the country were blessing him for it.
The industrial and commercial life of Waterbury has been such as might well be predicated of other towns of its size and make-up in the state. One cannot help deploring, however, the fact that the fullest and most profitable development of the easily adaptable water powers on the rivers and streams flowing through the town could not have been made more fully to inure to the use and benefit of the town.
The early users of water power did what they could with what they had and showed very creditable results. Mill Village and Colbyville were the centers of industrial activity for many years.
Early in 1800 the lower fall in Colbyville was utilized by a machine for carding the wool raised by the people of the vicinity and those living at some distance. It was not long before the potentialities of the spot appealed to O. C. Rood who there erected a potato whiskey distillery and, as says an un- conscious humorist of the vicinage, "ran it as long as self- interest or a true sense of moral propriety, in his judgment, rendered it advisable." One is naturally led to wonder whether the two considerations named animated the ultra- respectable grocers who sold the product at retail and if so, which of the two was deemed by them the weightier. Fol- owed then the erection, by E. P. Butler and Erastus Parker,
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of a factory for a less objectionable utilization of the humble potato-the manufacture of starch. Then Mr. Butler built a saw mill on the upper fall which was operated for over forty years. It was at this mill that both Grow Butler, son of E. P. Butler, and George Rood, son of O. C. Rood, lost their lives; the first by drowning in the mill flume, the second by being crushed by a log. S. S. Spicer took over the building, after its use as a starch factory had been discontinued, for the pur- poses of a tannery. Shortly after this the building was burned.
The village took its name from the Colby brothers, George J. and Edwin A., who came from Bolton in 1856. The broth- ers purchased of Deacon Erastus Parker the old starch fac- tory and a tract of land which the former owner had long before planted to willow trees. The tract included a water privilege on the stream and about thirty acres of land. The purchase price for the whole was $5,500. The young men, then twenty-three and twenty-one years of age, respectively, paid $1,000 down and gave notes and a mortgage for the bal- ance. They had already experimented with basket willows and thought they saw an extension of the market for willow ware. In 1857 the brothers started in a modest way with a single small wheel at their plant. Soon they were able, through Deacon Parker, to get the use of some mill machinery belong- ing to a defunct company in St. Johnsbury, which they trans- ported and set up in the willow peeling plant. After this, custom machine work began to come in and the business of manufacturing willow peeling machines, the invention of George Colby, began in earnest.
Perceiving the utility of willow in the making of willow cabs, the Colbys engaged the services of a Mr. Landt as an expert willow-worker and began the manufacture of .cab bodies. From this it was an easy transition to the making of cab wheels and gearing. The business flourished and a ready market was found for the finished vehicles.
In the fall of 1859 the firm was reorganized by the addition of Messrs. Howden and Bosworth, who contributed $5,500 cash capital. In 1860 the business was extended to include the manufacture and sale of the Colby clothes wringer, a
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device well remembered by many as a time, labor and clothes saving machine invented by George Colby and patented by him in 1860. Soon the infant industry was swamped with orders. The plant was operated day and night with two shifts of workmen in order to turn out one hundred wringers per diem. This period of prosperity was suddenly halted by the breaking out of the Civil War. Workmen enlisted, orders fell off, or were countermanded and the business reached a low ebb. After this, as normal conditions asserted themselves, the business revived and was reorganized under the name of Colby Brothers, continuing until 1865 when it was incor- porated with an authorized capital of $75,000, afterwards increased to $85,000. The board of directors included George J. Colby, Jesse J. Colby, Erastus Parker and A. Landt. The whole plant numbered about fifteen buildings besides ten dwelling houses.
"Enterprise" was the watchword of the Colby brothers. Not content with their willow ware, wringer and cab products, they began the manufacture of children's vehicles and equipped and maintained a job printing establishment. Starting with practically nothing, the founders built up a business within ten years that paid from sixty to one hundred employees $2,000 to $3,000 a month in wages, with sales from December I, 1863, to June 30, 1867, amounting to over $320,000; the amount paid for labor for the same period was $96,387.62. Internal revenue tax to the government from September I, 1862, to June 30, 1867, was $13,282. In these days of fabu- lous receipts and Midas-like industrial operations these figures may not seem imposing, but the example of persistence, enter- prise and courage under seemingly insurmountable obstacles has remained to succeeding generations. The business was literally built up from the putting to work of a certain mechan- ical and inventive gift of one of the brothers, aided by the energy and business capacity of the other two, with next to nothing in the way of financial assistance. The business continued in the hands of the Colbys until their sale to the Montpelier Manufacturing Company in the early 70's.
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PERIOD 1900-1915
One of the enterprises that ultimately flourished and brought wealth and prosperity to its projectors and owners was the proprietary medicine house of Henry & Company. About the year 1845 James M. Henry became associated with the proprietor of certain patent remedies which he sold throughout the country on a salary. In 1850 Mr. Henry obtained the general agency for a certain widely advertised liniment and from this beginning he founded the wholesale drug house of J. M. Henry & Sons in 1857, having purchased the drug store, in the village, of J. B. Braley which stood at the corner of Stowe and Main Streets. The fortunate purchase of all manufacturing and selling rights of another widely known proprietary elixir gave an added impetus to the business. Possibly the fact that the peculiarly curative properties of the elixir were advertised to have been lost only to be restored by the then owners did not diminish the sales of the article. In 1860 John F. Henry withdrew from the firm, E. B. John- son taking his place. In 1861 William W. Henry sold his interest in the firm and entered the Civil War. Various other changes were made in the firm. In 1866 the personnel of the firm was John F. Henry, General W. W. Henry, General William Wells, E. B. Johnson, B. H. Dewey, Doctor Simpson, E. D. Scagel and A. E. Richardson. Later John F. Henry withdrew and went to New York where he became associated with the house of Demas Barnes & Company. The old drug store in Waterbury was finally purchased by Doctor Horace Fales and E. D. Scagel in 1867.
The industry of tanning leather has long been operated in Waterbury in a varying scale of activity. At the site of the old saw mill, built by N. A. Rhoades in the middle 30's, a tanner named P. Brown established a tannery on the falls in Mill Village to supply his principal yard in the village. On the west side of the branch at the south end of Mill Village Samuel Dutton started a tannery on a small scale to supply leather for his boot and shoe business. This tannery on "Peg Island," socalled, came into the hands of his sons, Thomas, David and Harper, and from them passed to William W. Wells who enlarged the plant and sold out to D. &. V. R. Blush. A
14
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disastrous fire destroyed the works and the real estate, and a few unconsumed outbuildings then passed to Sylvester Henry. Mr. Henry and his son rebuilt the tannery on a larger scale and put into operation a well equipped plant, then considered to be one of the largest and best of the kind in the state.
In 1870 Mr. C. C. Warren took over the plant by lease. From this time until the plant burned, leather continued to be manufactured at the old site on a much larger scale than before. Mr. Warren had previously had experience with his father in the tanning business in Hartland before coming to Waterbury. When the Mill Village tannery burned in 1899 Mr. Warren organized, in Morrisville, the Warren Leather Company. He became President of the Company and has continued the business up to the present time. Mr. Warren was born at Hartland, Vermont, February II, 1843, and came to Waterbury in 1870. Before coming to Waterbury, and about the time of the discharge of the Civil War regimental bands, Mr. Warren was leader of the Hartland Brass Band. He was offered second leadership of the Vermont Brigade Band, Second Division, Sixth Army Corps, then being or- ganized in Burlington, which was to take the place of the six regimental bands discharged from this brigade. He served in this capacity three years. After coming to Waterbury he became the leader of the local cornet band and continued leader for more than fifteen years.
In 1889 he assisted in locating the Vermont State Hospital in town by selling to the state the farm and grounds they now occupy. As state fish and game commissioner he located and erected the state fish hatchery at Roxbury and, with the late Joseph Somerville, supplied the village of Waterbury with their first system of water-works.
On December 15, 1873, he was married to Ella F. McElroy. The family consists of two children: Katherine Grace, who resides at Mt. Vernon, a suburb of New York, and Charles Carlton, residing at 136 West 44th Street, with business address at 7 Wall Street, corner Broadway, New York City.
There were other tanners who began in the early days of the industry in Waterbury on "Peg Island." Such was Henry
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PERIOD 1900-1915
Kneeland, and, as early as 1834, M. and J. H. Lathrop were engaged in tanning in the village. Their works were destroyed by fire and were never rebuilt.
The firm of Thompson, Seabury & Blanchard was organized in 1845 to manufacture woolen cloths and flannels. Their plant was located on the site of the property now owned and occupied by the W. J. Boyce estate as a box factory. Their successor was George D. Joslyn, in 1862, and he in turn was succeeded by Selleck & Joslyn in 1865, and they by A. H. Selleck until the factory and machinery were destroyed by fire in 1875. The present building was built by Mr. Selleck in 1876, he using the first floor for the manufacture of fork handles and the second as a tenement. The Selleck estate sold the property to M. Davis in 1905, and he to Boyce & Perkins in 1908. Mr. Selleck spent a year after the burning of the plant in 1875 in Montreal, Province of Quebec. The present butter box factory of the Boyce estate was erected about one year thereafter. Mr. Selleck died in Needham, Massachusetts, in 1884 at the age of forty-three. His remains were interred in the Waterbury cemetery.
Daniel Stowell was the first machinist in Waterbury. His shop was situated on the present site of the Methodist Church. He began here between 1845 and 1850. His business was. in repairs and dressing lumber. He used the first stationary steam engine in the town. He joined Henry Carter in the building of a structure, afterwards the property of the State Reform School.
C. Blodgett & Son started soon after the coming in of the railroad. They dealt in lumber and shingles, with yards north of the railway station. They did a large business in groceries and farmers' supplies, etc. They afterwards re- moved to Burlington where Calvin Blodgett, Jr., became mayor of the city.
Cook & Thompson built the first foundry in Waterbury, just south of the passenger station, which still stands. They manufactured stoves and were in business during the period of 1857-1862. They were succeeded by Hewitt & Jones and Hewitt & Meeker. Then came in succession Daniel K.
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Adams, Adams & Wells and Horatio Moffitt & Company, all in the business of manufacturing stoves between 1855 and 1875.
J. Crossett and E. W. Corse, both of Duxbury, were both engaged in the lumber business in Waterbury at about this period, also M. W. Shurtleff.
Deacon Erastus Parker, besides being one of the early pillars of strength to the town by reason of his sagacity, judg- ment, energy and good counsel, was also the pioneer manufac- turer of starch at Colbyville. He sold his plant and privileges to the Colby Brothers and had the satisfaction of seeing his young friends build up a prosperous business from small beginnings.
Wells & Sherlock were engaged in the flour business, in 1850 and 1855, at the mill now known as the Seabury mill in Mill Village. Their former storehouse is now occupied by Wallace Green and O'Brien, the barber, on Park Row.
E. W. Ladd and Walker & Fisher were dealers in monuments and gravestones at a shop located in the yard of the James Burleigh place.
W. F. Hutchins was a dealer in boots and shoes, also a manufacturer of footwear. He built the house where "Peg- leg" Minor once lived, and now owned and occupied by Mrs. Maxwell.
Another well known maker of boots and shoes and a promi- nent citizen was Lucius Parmalee, whose shop and store ad- joined Lease's harness shop on Main Street. This place was the home of the first Library Association, the nucleus of the present Village Library. Mr. Parmalee was the custodian in charge. Crawford & Townshend were also makers of and dealers in footwear in 1862.
G. H. Lease succeeded his father in the business of harness making and saddlery, and occupied a shop adjoining the old hotel building, long since razed to the ground, on Main Street and on the site of the present Parker Block. This was moved to the present site of M. Messer's building and is a part of it. Here Mr. Lease continued the business as long as he lived.
George H. Atherton, Justin Hinds and M. E. Smilie were
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PERIOD 1900-1915
respectively engaged in the business of cabinet making, elec- trotyping and making stoves d uring a part of this period.
The Waterbury Manufacturing Company manufactured and dealt in sash, doors and blinds.
The far-famed Thomas inks were first made at the barn on the George Moody place, now owned by Mr. O'Brien. Thomas moved to Michigan and continued to make a superior quality of ink that soon became widely used in the middle west.
O. E. Scott, maker and dealer in clocks and watches, and optician, began business in the George H. Atherton building. He then removed his place of business across the street to the Graves block, now owned by Mrs. Daniel Chase, where he remained until about two years ago when he moved to his present store in the Knight Block. Mr. Scott's business house is said to be the oldest in town today.
The manufacturing firm of Case & Thomas were engaged in making mops, which business was afterwards merged into that of the Waterbury Manufacturing Company. They also manufactured sash, doors and blinds. Their steam mill was the old one formerly occupied by Carter & Stowell and used by the Reform School for making chair seats.
Mr. William W. Wells organized the firm of Wells & Mc- Murphy, makers and dealers in mops and chair stock. The mill, owned then (1865-1866) by Mr. Wells, was just south of the Seabury mill and derived its power from the same dam. It was taken down years ago.
One of the industries of the town which, if properly devel- oped, might well have yielded large returns was that of brick making. An early pioneer in the industry was J. McMurphy whose yard and kilns were at Mill Village, near the Perry Hill railroad crossing.
George C. Ames was a monument and gravestone worker in a shop near the station where Miss Shaw now lives.
A. C. Atherton was a maker and dealer in paper, whose place of business was in a wooden building where Perkins' store now stand's.
One of those engaged in the iron business was Cecil Graves. His place was at the present site of Lamb's store. He built the
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY, VERMONT
block known as the Graves block. He was succeeded by his son, Charles.
The above enumeration will convey some idea of the prin- cipal industries in Waterbury from the beginning down to a point well within the memory of those now living.
The town of Waterbury has been singularly free from litiga- tion, at least of the kind that is fought through the Supreme Court. However, an interesting question arose when John S. Ladd, a highway surveyor, sought reimbursement for damages he was obliged to pay for certain acts of alleged tres- pass. The selectmen had given Ladd a tax bill and warrant for his highway district and described the road on which his tax bill was to be worked out as follows: "Beginning at the school house on Demeritt's land at the junction of the roads, thence to John S. Ladd's house." A part of this road crossed Rowell's land; he denied that it was a public highway and objected to Ladd's working out the tax on it upon his land. The selectmen directed Ladd to proceed under the authority of his bill and warrant and repair the road. He did so in good faith. Rowell sued him in trespass and recovered. Ladd then sued the town upon the ground that the town was bound to indemnify him. The court held (Aldis J.) that if the selectmen of a town describe, in the tax bill given by them to a highway surveyor, as within his district a highway which, though never legally established as a highway, has been recognized and repaired as such by the town and used by the public, and the surveyor proceed to repair said highway, and, in consequence of its never having been legally established, is obliged to pay damages in trespass for working the same, he is entitled to be indemnified by the town for such damages; and is not obliged to look beyond his tax bill and warrant to ascertain the extent of his district and the roads which he is to repair. [Ladd vs. Waterbury, 34 Vermont 426, 1861.]
Another case determined by the Supreme Court at the August term, 1865, was Loren D. Watts vs. Town of Waterbury.
This action against the town was for damages suffered by the wife of the plaintiff, from injuries received by reason of the
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PERIOD 1900-1915
insufficiency of a highway. The accident occurred just east of the railroad track and Doctor Horace Fales was called in attendance a few minutes later. Upon the trial, counsel proposed to ask Doctor Fales, upon cross-examination, if, in conversation with Watts and his wife about the matter, he did not tell them if they could get $100 they would better settle it. The question was excluded upon objection. The judgment against the town was reversed, the court holding that in this suit for injury on a highway, the physician who attended the plaintiff for the injury being a witness for the plaintiff on the trial to show what injury was sustained, may properly be asked, on cross-examination, the question as to whether he had not advised settlement for $100.
Wrisley vs. Waterbury (1869), 42 Vermont 228. Jacob Wrisley was a soldier in the service of the United States in Virginia in the winter of 1863-1864. At this time the govern- ment was offering $402 as bounty and a furlough to those soldiers who should reenlist; that prior to February 1, 1864, he was informed that the town of Waterbury was paying a bounty of $300 for volunteers to its credit; that, in consequence of this information, relying on having $300 from Waterbury, together with what the United States offered, he reënlisted February 1, 1864. Wrisley soon took his furlough and natur- ally wanted his bounty. Mr. Janes, the first selectman of the town, told him the quota was full but said if he would let his name remain to the credit of Waterbury, "if they had another call and raised any more men and paid a bounty, they would pay him as much as they did them, and that if they had to raise any more men, if they paid any bounty, they would pay the plaintiff as much."
The application for the town meeting in the month of Novem- ber, 1863, was "to see what course the town will take to fill the quota of men required of the town of Waterbury, under the last two calls of the general government for soldiers." The warning was to see if the town will pay any additional bounty to volunteers from said town, and if any, how much, and the vote was "to pay each volunteer from this town a bounty of $300 when mustered into the United States Service."
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The court held (Wilson J.) that under the circumstances existing the $300 bounty was confined to such as should enlist to the credit of the town on the quota under the call or calls made before the date of the vote, and also that the unauthor- ized promise of the selectmen to pay a soldier such bounty as the town might pay to others on future calls would not bind the town, though it paid a bounty to others on future calls.
This very question was raised in the case of John P. Jones vs. Waterbury, 44 Vermont 113, 1871, and decided the same way.
In Topsham vs. Waterbury, the plaintiff sought to collect by suit money expended in support of one P. and his family while in Topsham. P. had resided in Waterbury for three years and had declined the town's assistance in supporting himself and family. Repeated offers were made by Water- bury's overseer to support P.'s family in the town poorhouse; the overseer of Topsham had no notice of the last offer; Waterbury continued to support the family until October, 1899, and then the family was supported by Topsham. It was held by the court that a determination by a town that it will support one of its paupers within its own limits, as upon its poor farm, will not relieve it from liability for assistance furnished to such pauper in compliance with the statute by another town in which such pauper comes to need, unless, upon receiving the required notice from such other town, it in return notifies such other town of said determination. [73 Vermont 185, 1901.]
VARIOUS LEGISLATIVE ACTS AFFECTING WATERBURY
An Act to incorporate the Waterbury Falls Manufacturing Company. The following were named in the charter as incor- porators: Ithamer A. Beard, William Carpenter, Ferrand F. Merrill, George W. Collamer and William Howes. The company was empowered "to construct and make such dams and canals and aqueducts on lands owned by said company as may be necessary for the use and improvement of the water power at said Falls and to rent the use of such water power or any part thereof," etc. (October 31, 1849.)
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PERIOD 1900-1915
An Act to incorporate the Waterbury Quarrying and Mining Company. The following were named as incorporators in the charter: S. H. Stowell, S. L. Cole, H. M. Bates, Perley Belknap, George W. Dana, T. P. Redfield and H. P. Allen. The object was quarrying and working soapstone, lead, and other minerals and stone in the State of Vermont. (Novem- ber 13, 1856.)
An Act to incorporate The Waterbury Hotel Company. The following were named as incorporators in the charter: J. C. Batchelder, Sidney Brown, William Moody, Curtis N. Arms, Paul Dillingham, Luther Henry, W. H. H. Bingham and L. L. Durant, "for the purpose of purchasing, repairing or building a house of public entertainment in the village of Waterbury," etc. (November 21, 1860.)
An Act to incorporate the Waterbury Falls and Crouching Lion Hotel and Road Company. The following incorporators were named in the charter: Samuel Ridley, Jesse J. Ridley and Dunning Steward of Duxbury, Eastman W. Case, Cecil Graves, I. C. Brown, Sidney Brown and Curtis Arms of Waterbury, and Calvin Blodgett, Sion E. Howard and George H. Bigelow of Burlington, for the purpose of "purchasing, building and furnishing upon the mountain, called Camel's Hump, or Crouching Lion, a house or houses of public entertainment, and of building and repairing a public road from Ridley's Mills in Duxbury to the summit of said mountain," etc. (November 6, 1865.)
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