![]() 3D CAD Viewer Reid Supply Company offers a 3D CAD viewer of industrial products drawings in its CAD library to help users see their parts before downloading them. Since 1914, Dillon Supply Company has had the vision to be a one-stop shopping source, providing both the products and services which have met the needs of our customers. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership. Get the latest science news and technology news, read tech reviews and more at ABC News. Liberty Tool Company online: Your source for hand tools for carpenters, machinists, blacksmiths, leatherworkers, jewelers, and other trades as well as a broad assortment of antiques, collectibles, and the unknown! F: BRAND: ITEM : facit fag falcon fawick fb kogyo fci fcs fd fdk feather feby fenwal ferraz festo fk fkd fl flexhone flexstar flon chemical flowell fluid engineering fluke foseco foster fp fp tool france bed fraser freebear. Hotter 'n' Hell Antique Scale & Tool Auction. July 21, 2012, 9:30 AM. 4835 Central School Rd. Preview Friday 2-6 PM, Sat. 7:30 to 9:30 AM) To see the photos. Goodell- Pratt Company history. The Pratt Family William M. Pratt, the founder of the Goodell- Pratt Company, was a third generation tool man; he built his business on the basis of his financial acumen and sales ability rather than an intimate understanding of tool production and design.(1)William Pratt's grandfather, Josiah Pratt, was the first of three generations of Pratts involved in tool manufacture. He was born in Mansfield, Massachusetts, on January 1. His father, a carpenter and farmer, moved the family to Buckland Center where Josiah became involved in making axes at a local blacksmith shop. Josiah liked the work, and at age twenty- one, in Stansted, Quebec, he assisted with the construction of the province's first trip hammer—a large, mechanized hammer commonly used in forging wrought iron and steel. He returned to the United States and eventually relocated to Charlemont, Massachusetts, where he set up shop in 1. United States Letters Patent No. X for an axe- making machine. Using a trip hammer, he manufactured a variety of axes and edge tools, making scythe snaths as a side line. The substantial output pf his business was valued at $7,0. Josiah Pratt stayed in Charlemont for eleven years before moving his operation to site with better water power in Shelburne Falls. Perhaps the most prominent of the Connecticut Valley's early axe makers, he was especially noted for the quality his cast steel products. He and his wife, the former Catherine Hall, were the parents of eight children. Pratt, the first of their two sons, joined the family business, it was renamed Josiah Pratt & Son. When the second, Francis R. Pratt, joined the business, it became Josiah Pratt & Sons. Josiah Pratt retired from the tool business 1. Francis R. Pratt, William Pratt's father, was the second son of Josiah Pratt and was born in Charlemont, Massachusetts, in 1. When the family moved to Shelburne Falls in 1. Francis enrolled in the Shelburne Falls Academy and on completing his education went to work in his father’s axe- making enterprise. He left the family business at age twenty- seven to take a position with W. Maynard & Company, a Shelburne Falls tool manufacturer. Pratt moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, to work in the office of Maynard’s wholesale grain dealership. Shortly after Pratt's departure, Maynard’s tool manufacturing operation became H. Shepardson & Company, a producer of such hardware items as braces, bits, awls, chisels and farm tools employing thirty- seven men. Francis Pratt returned to Shelburne Falls in 1. H. Shepardson & Company. When Shepardson died in 1. H. Mayhew, Francis Pratt stayed with the operation, adding the title of manager to that of superintendent. He became the firm’s assistant treasurer in 1. Mayhew’s death in 1. When his son, William M. Pratt, purchased a controlling interest in Albert Goodell’s Goodell Tool company in 1. Francis Pratt became its vice- president. The elder Pratt also served as a director of the Pratt Drop- Forge and Tool Company, an entity created by his son when he assumed control of Ducharmes & Company in Shelburne Falls. Pratt and Goodell- Pratt. Born in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, on August 1. William M. Pratt graduated at age sixteen from the Arms Academy, the local secondary school. He moved to Pukwana, a small town in central South Dakota in 1. Pukwana Press and as cashier for the Bank of Pukwana. The following year, he accepted a cashier position at the Case & Whitbeck Bank in the nearby town of Kimball. Life on the prairie must not have been to the young man’s liking for he returned to Shelburne Falls in 1. H. Mayhew Company, the hardware manufacturer where his father served as manager and plant superintendent. William Pratt did not stay with Mayhew long. He moved to Greenfield in 1. Wells Bros. Company, a tool producer that would eventually become Greenfield Tap & Die. With the purchase, Pratt became treasurer and manager of the operation. In 1. 89. 8, he purchased a controlling interest in the business, and in February 1. Goodell- Pratt Company. The newly named Goodell- Pratt Company company was a modest operation but nicely positioned for growth. Its factory was less than ten years old, and though its product line was small compared to such giants as the Millers Falls Company, it was fairly diverse. At the time that Pratt acquired his controlling interest in the business, the lineup included push, hand, bench and breast drills, spiral screwdrivers, a bit brace, polishing heads, hack saws and blades, glass cutters, and hollow- handled tool sets. Its hack saw operation was flourishing due, in part, to its recent acquisition of Goodell, Son & Company. Goodell- Pratt owned the rights to a recently patented bench hack saw and had just developed a belt- powered hacksaw machine. The company was especially proud of its hacksaw blades and marketed them aggressively both at home and abroad. The foreign market initiative received a boost in 1. Goodell- Pratt Company hack saw blades won a bronze medal at the International Universal Exposition in Paris. Not content with operating a successful small business, William M. Pratt began an aggressive program of expansion. In 1. 90. 0, his Goodell- Pratt Company undertook the first of several major additions to its Greenfield factory. A two- story structure measuring sixty by forty feet was built to house the Massachusetts Tool Company, a business created to support Pratt's foray into the precision tools business. The Massachusetts Tool Company. In 1. 90. 0, William M. Pratt organized the Massachusetts Tool Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Goodell- Pratt, for the purpose of manufacturing machinists’ and precision tools. The operation was capitalized at $2. Goodell- Pratt Company. Located next door to the G- P plant, Massachusetts Tool was run as a union shop, giving it an edge over its competitors in situations where a customer preferred a supplier with a unionized labor force. Then too, the advantage could be lost if a manufacturer’s competitors improved their labor practices and won union approval. Unable or unwilling to meet the standard union wage, Massachusetts Tool lost the right to International Association of Machinists label in 1. Starrett Company lost and recovered the use of the label several times during the first dozen years of the twentieth century.(3)In 1. Massachusetts Tool purchased the machinery, stock, patents, fixtures, and good will of the Coffin & Leighton Company, of Syracuse, New York. Coffin & Leighton manufactured a line of highly regarded, tempered steel rules based on United States Letters Patent No. John Coffin & Herbert J. The Leighton rules were noteworthy for the presence of extremely accurate gradations on both their narrow and long sides, markings which served to facilitate bi- directional measuring. Massachusetts Tool added micrometers to its lineup the same year (1. Lavigne Micrometer Company of New Haven, Connecticut. The Lavigne purchase came with the rights to a half dozen precision tool patents owned by company founder Joseph P. Certainly one the most interesting of these was United States Letters Patent No. Issued on February 2. A steel rod inserted through a hole in its anvil allowed the device to function as a depth micrometer, a feature that allowed a machinist to avoid the purchase of a second tool. It published its own price list until its content was merged into the catalog of the Goodell- Pratt Company in 1. Coffin & Leighton steel rule manufactured by Massachusetts Tool Company Portrait of Herbert J. Leighton of the Coffin & Leighton Company. Lavigne 1. 89. 4 patent micrometer made by Massachusetts Tool Company. C. Richardson & Son In 1. Goodell- Pratt acquired the rights to a line of iron spirit levels manufactured by C. Richardson & Son, a small business based in Athol. As much a general machine shop as a factory, the operation was established by Nathaniel Richardson and passed on to his sons Charles F. Richardson after his death in 1. Richardson became sole proprietor in 1. Frederick Ray, into the business about 1. Located in a rundown, two- story frame building on the banks of the Millers River, the operation was powered by an undershot wheel that took advantage of a two- to- three foot drop in the riverbed. Never a large operation, employment in the 1. In addition to manufacturing light- duty lathes, levels and transits, the shop did contract machining; sold and repaired bicycles and automobiles; and manufactured a prototype automobile of its own design. The bicycle and automobile sidelines reflected the interests of Fred R. Richardson who went on to active management of the company as his father turned his attention elsewhere. The Richardsons’ auto dealership sold an early steam- powered version of the Locomobile, the unsuccessful precursor to the famous Stanley Steamer. The company’s iron levels were sold to Goodell- Pratt when C. Richardson & Son consolidated with the Oliver & Whitney Company, an Athol- based manufacturer of machine screws. The combined business was named the Richardson- Oliver Company and manufactured scientific equipment and machine tools. Located in Athol, the company was incorporated in Maine and capitalized at $1. It is likely that the proceeds of the sale of the line of metallic levels formed a substantial part of the Richardsons’ stake in the new operation. Starrett Company bought the C. Richardson line of transit levels the following year (1. It was not the first time that the family had done business with Laroy S. Between 1. 87. 8 and 1. Nathaniel Richardson machine shop had served as the original manufacturer of Starrett’s ground- breaking combination square. When Starrett’s former partners threatened a law suit, the Richardsons—fearing involvement—opted out of the arrangement. Starrett bought the stock and tooling, moved a few doors away and founded the L. Starrett Company, a business destined to become the country’s leading manufacturer of precision tools.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2017
Categories |