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Abstract
A gallery of 29 Items. Factory & Operations c1988
Description
(Adapted from “Picturesque Franklin”, Wade, Warner & Co., Northampton MA 1891
This is one of the oldest cutlery manufacturing corporations in the country, and the fame of its products is world-wide. The engravings on the next page may be studied with interest, the antique picture especially, as it shows the works of the company, as they originally existed in 1846, on the other side of the stream. Probably the fishing in this vicinity was better in those days, as the picture shows at least two sportsmen with rods in active play.
The present company was organized in 1856, and have several times enlarged their facilities and capital stock, each time to meet actual demands, and at this time the works comprise some eight or nine commodious brick and frame buildings, of one to three-and-a-half stories, some roofed with sheet iron, and covering in all two and a half acres. The company own thirty acres of land and the dam on the premises—24 feet fall, affording 300 horse power — and have the option of another equal power just below, their own water privilege consisting of seven acres, and being one of the most desirable on the Deerfield river. Their machinery equipment is first-class, and embraces every device suitable to the work to be performed — forges, trip hammers, lathes, emery wheels, etc., in abundance and great variety. Two hundred and twenty-five skilled and unskilled operatives are employed, and the tenements in which they live form quite a village. The works contain over 30,000 square feet of flooring today, and the present business has developed from the simple manufacture of shoe and butcher knives in 1846. In 1849-50 the manufacture of table cutlery was first begun with the importation of a few workmen from Sheffield, England. The shops soon became too small and the company came over on the west side of the river, in 1850, buying two large farms, the Coleman and the Benton farms, for about $3000, and the old Benton farmhouse is still standing. Up to 1850 there was only a flash-board on a mud-sill to hold the source of power in the river, and in 1869 there was a great freshet and the first dam on the river was wiped out.
Messrs. Lamson & Goodnow came from Cummington, where they had been manufacturing scythe-snaths, and in 1847 formed the corporation by their name.
Additional at: https://industrialhistory.org/p/1050/Lamson--Goodnow