The Bit Players

This page includes information on some minor players in the history of American auger bit manufacture. It is not the product of extensive research but serves as a place to record bits of information encountered during the author's investigations.

Chester Mfg. Co.

Located on the south fork of Pattaconk Brook in Chester, Connecticut, the Chester Manufacturing Company was active between 1884 and 1919.(1) Most surviving auger bits are of the double-spur variety. A contemporary resource observes:

The first factory on the south stream is the bitt factory of C. L. Griswold, now occupied by the Chester Manufacturing Company, consisting of Edwin G. Smith, John H. Bailey, and Charles E. Wright, who manufacture auger bitts, corkscrews, reamers, etc. The factory is on the site of a forge built about the year 1816 and occupied by Abel Snow in the forging of ship anchors. About 1838, the building was used for the manufacture of carriage springs, later by C. L. Griswold & Co. for the manufacture of bitts, and by the present owners for the same business.(2)

By March of 1893, American augermakers were producing so many standard augers and bits that they had become a commodity. A soft economy only compounded the problem. A group of ten augermakers responded by forming the American Auger and Bit Association, an organization whose primary purpose was to set prices for various categories of augers, a practice sometimes referred to as price fixing. The Chester Manufacturing Company became a charter member. Notable among the non-participants were the Irwin Auger Bit Company whose unique designs were protected by patent, and the Russell Jennings Mfg. Company whose bits commanded a premium. The organization remained active for some dozen years.(3)

References:

  1. Nelson, Robert E., ed. Dictionary of American Toolmakers. Early American Industries Association, 1999. p. 164.
  2. Silliman, Samuel C. “Town of Chester,” in The History of Middlesex County, Connecticut: with Sketches of its Prominent Men. New York : J. H. Beers & Co., 1884. p. 222.
  3. "Augers and Bits." The Iron Age. (March 16, 1893). p. 635.

Conard

Isaac Conard portraitThe Conard family manufactured augers and bits in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania from ca. 1815 to 1904. The family patriarch, John Conard, apprenticed with iron-master James Wood at Watson's Ford (today's Conshohocken). In 1805 he returned to his home in Whitpain Township and took up residence on an undeveloped part of what had been his father's farm. There he cleared the land and built a house, barn, and log blacksmith shop.

Though John Conard is one of a half-dozen individuals credited with developing the "screw auger," his relatively late working dates preclude the possibility.(1) Three of John Conard's sons became augermakers: Albert, Isaac, and Lewis. A fourth son, Joseph P., learned the trade in his father's shop but left it behind at age twenty to go into farming.(2)

Lewis Conard portraitIn 1846, Albert Conard was working at an auger shop in Exeter (Bucks County) when the business was liquidated. Seeing an opportunity, he purchased some of the operation's equipment and set up shop in an existing mill on Sandy Run in Whitemarsh Township, a few miles from Fort Washington. His brother Isaac joined him the first year, and ten years later, the two became partners in the firm of A. & I Conard. A third brother, Lewis worked for them for a time. Lewis, convinced that the traditional spelling of the family name was erroneous, changed his surname to Conrad.(3)

In 1871 a hardware store placed an advertisement in the Lansdale Reporter offering customers discounts on both "Conard's and Conrad's screw augers and bitts."(4) Though Lewis Conrad became a schoolteacher in later life, the ad suggests that at some point he operated an auger business independently of his brothers.

Albert Conard was at his forge making augers until the age of eighty-four. Most surviving examples of Conard family auger bits are of the double-spur variety. These are typically stem-marked "A. & I. Conrad" or are stamped on the tang with the single word "Conard." Nut augers featuring scotch-lip heads and marked "Conrad," rather than Conard, are also known.

Illustration credits

References:

  1. Bean, Theodore W., ed. History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : Everts & Peck, 1884. p 1142, 1143, 1181.
  2. John and Sarah Childs Conard and their Descendants, Part 2. [s. l. : s.n.], 1939. http://conardfamilyhistory.com/part2.php (viewed 4/14/2023)
  3. "Death's Harvest: Albert Conard, of Fort Washington Expires." The Ambler Gazette (Lansdale, Pennsylvania). June 9, 1904. p. 4.
  4. "The North Wales Hardware, Iron and Stove Store." The Lansdale Reporter (Lansdale, Pennsylvania). June 22, 1871. p.3.

Conrad

See: Conard

Deuse

Three generations of the Deuse family made auger bits, gimlets, screwdrivers, and punches on the north branch of Pattaconk Brook in Chester, Connecticut between 1867 and 1976. The original firm, Deuse & Brother was founded by Simeon and Amos H. Deuse in 1867. When Simeon left Chester for Hartford in 1872, Amos bought the land and waterpower privilege. A third brother, James Smith Deuse, bought into the operation and in 1880, the business became A. H. & J. S. Deuse.(1)

The same year Amos and James Deuse were issued United States Letters Patent No. 224,156 for a die to manufacture double-twist gimlets. Few, if any, of the Deuse operation's gimlets were stamped with a manufacturer identification. A marked example of a Deuse double-twist gimlet has yet to turn up.

double twist gimlet

The brothers' factory burned to the ground on April 28, 1898. Deep Hollow, the site of the structure, was somewhat isolated, so no one knew about the fire until the next day when workmen showed up and found the structure reduced to ashes. The office and packing room survived the fire, but Amos Deuse left the operation, leaving James S. Deuse as proprietor of the business. J. S. Deuse built a 30 x 90-foot two-story factory and attached it to the older buildings. Amos H. Deuse left the operation at this time and his brother James became the operation's sole proprietor.

J. S. Deuse gimlets

To all appearances, James Smith Deuse was a respectable man serving as a representative to the Connecticut General Assembly for the 1897-98 session and as president of the Chester Savings banks from 1916 to 1928. His life, however, was not without scandal. in 1894 he was charged with the assault of Mrs. Ellen Dickenson at a family gathering.

The claim is that when Mrs. Dickenson entered the house some of the men present were having a quarrel and that Mr. Deuse struck her on the back and seizing her by the neck and arm, pushed her out of doors. Charles B. Davis testified to seeing Deuse strike Mrs. Dickenson and said it caused a swelling on her shoulder as large as a saucer. Two daughters testified to dressing the wound. The defense claimed no blows were given and that Deuse placed his hand on her shoulder, turned her around, and told her to leave.(2)

Though the outcome of the trial is unknown, the scandal was nothing compared to the fuss his son's marital problems created in 1900. Burton Deuse worked for his father as plant superintendent and bookkeeper. A married man, Burton unexpectedly ran off with his wife's sister, a lass of eighteen, leaving his toddler son and infant daughter behind. The couple fled to Galveston, Texas, and then to New York. Sadly, a lifetime of undying love was not in their future. The young lady returned home five weeks later, a sadder, but wiser woman.(3) An unpopular Burton Deuse did not return to Chester but remained in New York City. His brother Edson became increasingly involved in the operation of the company factory and when James Smith Deuse passed away in 1937, the firm became the E. W. Deuse Company. The business folded in 1966.

Illustration credits

References

  1. Silliman, Kate. Kate Silliman's Chester Scrapbook. Chester, Connecticut : Chester Historical Society, 1986. p. 143.
  2. "Middletown." Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut). April 5, 1894. p. 8.
  3. "Sensation in Chester." Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), June 22, 1900. p. 1; "Stella Morse Returns." Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), July 24, 1900. p. 3

Essex Manufacturing Company

Catalogs of Sargent & Company of New Haven, Connecticut, indicate the business sold auger bits stamped Essex Mfg. Co. in 1910 and 1911. Sets of the bits were put up in wooden American case boxes. Several firms bore the name Essex Manufacturing Company in the late 19th and early 20th century United States. A likely candidate for auger production has yet to be found.

Griswold

portrait of Charles L. GriswoldIn 1851 Charles L. Griswold, his brother George G. Griswold, and Samuel Wright formed C. L. Griswold & Company and began manufacturing augers on the south branch of Pattaconk Brook. They set up shop in a collection of wood-frame buildings that had been painted red some years earlier. Locals referred to the works as the Red Factory to differentiate it from a nearby manufacturing operation known as the Yellow Factory.(1)

In 1854 George G. Griswold erected a new building near the Red Factory and began manufacturing augers. Two hundred-twenty feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, and topped with a cupola housing the factory bell, the two-story structure was anything but humble. Whether the building ever housed the operations of C. L. Griswold is hard to determine, for in the mid-1850s George Griswold organized George G. Griswold & Company and began making augers there. A peripherally related 1881 court case suggests that Charles Griswold owned the site of his brother's operation.(2) The Red Factory continued to house the operations of C. L. Griswold & Company.

At some point, Jarvis Boies (also spelled Bois) became a major investor in the George Griswold operation. His participation in the business goes far in explaining the occasional appearance of bits marked Griswold & Bois. In 1856, George Griswold patented a method for varying the thickness of the flattened plate of an auger bit before twisting. By leaving the plate thicker in the middle, rather than on the edges, Griswold hoped to improve the strength of the bit and promote the freer passage of chips up the spiral by shunting them to the outer edge of the twist. His patent application was witnessed by his brother Charles Lee Griswold and Joshua L'Hommedieu.(3)

George G. Griswold & Company sold their 10-year-old factory to Turner, Day & Company on August 25, 1863. The principals, Sidney Turner and Edward Day, were George Griswold's sons-in-law and intended to manufacture ship augers and bolts. Turner, Day & Company's stay at the plant was a short one. On February 15, 1865, the Turner & Day operation quitclaimed the land back to C. L. Griswold and Company.(4) The Russell Jennings Company began producing augers in the factory later that year.

Griswold's 1865 cutting headIn May of 1865, Charles L. Griswold, still working in the Red Factory, patented a double-twist auger bit in which the cutting lips projected from the lead screw at nearly a right angle. Though much of the company's output consisted of standard double-spur bits with tangs stamped "C. L. GRISWOLD CAST STEEL," bits protected by the 1865 patent were manufactured. These bits bear the tang-stamp "C. L. GRISWOLD PAT'D MAY 30, 1865." Charles Griswold went on to secure a pair of patents for gimlet handles in 1872 and 1873. A patent for a bitstock followed in 1878, and one for a corkscrew in 1884.(5) The bit-stock may not have been manufactured.

The Red factory burned on October 1, 1878, and Charles Griswold promptly began construction of a replacement. The work was finished three months later.(6) In 1884 he leased the factory to his son-in-law Edwin G. Smith and Smith's partners, John H. Bailey and Charles E. Wright. The three partners went into business as the Chester Manufacturing Company and produced auger bits, reamers, and corkscrews.

Illustration credits

References

  1. Silliman, Kate. Kate Silliman's Chester Scrapbook. Chester, Connecticut : Chester Historical Society, 1986. p. 110, 146-147.
  2. Blatchford, Samuel. Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Second Circuit. Vol. 19. New York : Baker & Vorhis Company, 1883. p. 95.
  3. United States Letters Patent No. 14,561.
  4. Blatchford, p. 95-96.
  5. The gimlet handles: United States Letters Patent No. 133,440 and United States Letters Patent No. 143,142. The bit stock: United States Letters Patent No. 208,168. The corkscrew: United States Letters Patent No. 302,331.

Hicraft

A brand name for auger bits produced by the Midway Tool Company of Melville, Ohio. Organized by former employees of the Irwin Auger Bit Company in 1946, the factory with its two trip hammers was located some half-dozen miles from Irwin's plant in Wilmington. The business remained in Melvin until 1955 when production moved to Sabina Ohio. Boxes of its augers bits touted its "1,000 man years' experience."

Source: "New Company to Make Bits." Wilmington News-Journal (Wilmington, Ohio) January 21, 1947. p. 10.

Hudson Forge

Hudson Forge Co. was a hardware trademark first used by the W. T. Grant Company in 1923. The Grant company operated a chain of variety stores situated in downtown locations. Slow to adapt to changes as American shoppers gravitated to retailers in the suburbs, the company went bankrupt in 1976.

W. J. Ladd Edge Tool Company

W. J. Ladd worked for Sargent & Company of New Haven, Connecticut, from 1856 through at least 1903. Sargent Company catalogs for 1910 and 1911 contain listings for auger bits manufactured by Ladd in 1910 and 1911. Sets of Ladd bits were sold in wooden American case boxes.

Naugatuck Valley Bit Company

Auger bits manufactured by the Naugatuck Valley Bit Company were distributed by the Russell & Erwin Mfg. Co., the company that for many years distributed the products of the James Swan Company, a major manufacturer of auger bits and chisels. There is some evidence that Naugatuck Valley bits were manufactured by the James Swan operation.

Connecticut Valley Mfg. factory, ca. 1890

Sets of Naugatuck Valley bits were distributed in boxes that were patented by James Swan in 1886 and marked with the patent number (United States Letters Patent No. 337,888). Seymour, the headquarters of James Swan Company, is just nine miles from the junction of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Rivers in Derby.

Naugatuck Valley Bit Co. set
Naugatuck Valley Bit Co. set
Patent marking on container
Patent marking on container
Naugatuck Valley bit stamp
Naugatuck Valley bit stamp
Illustration credits: author's photos

Rockford Bit Company

The Rockford Bit Company was founded in Rockford, Illinois, in 1886 by Robert Hall Tinker and Wilton C. Smith. In late 1887 or early 1888, the company bought Ohio-based Ashtabula Auger Works. The ink was hardly dry on the papers when W. C. Smith bought Tinker's shares and became sole proprietor of the operation. In 1888 the company moved to Kokomo, Indiana. A brief article in the trade journal Iron Age noted:

W. C. Smith, secretary and treasurer of the Rockford Bit Company, Rockford, Ill., having recently purchased R. H. Tinker’s stock, has become sole proprietor. The company have lately bought the Ashtabula Bit Works, the two establishments being thus consolidated. Since then Mr. Smith has been considering the advisability of using natural gas, and in view of the advantages resulting from its use has decided to move the works from Rockford, Ill., and Ashtabula, Ohio, to Kokomo, Ind., where the company are now building factory, storerooms, office, &c. It is intimated that when the new works are completed the company will have a very convenient and well-arranged factory. The use of natural gas is referred to as enabling them to produce goods of exceptional quality. With the increased facilities thus given they will continue the manufacture on a larger scale than heretofore of their Perfection Auger Bits, special wood boring tools, machine bits, &c.(1)

Smith's choice of a location for his factory owed much to Kokomo's location in what was then referred to as the "natural gas belt." The site he chose, three-quarters of a mile from the nearest road, met with derision on the part of local historian Jackson Morrow, a surveyor who considered that Wilson had been hoodwinked by local hustlers. Though the parcel was not close to town, it consisted of pieces of three adjoining farms owned by the men showing him the property. They donated the land to Smith, likely in the hope that the new plant would increase the value of their adjacent properties. In Morrow's view, their self-interest did not compensate for the generosity of their actions. His opinion of the ethics of J. R. Hall, Wick Russell, and Garah Markland aside, Morrow provided one of the few contemporary descriptions of the Rockford Bit Company.

In 1892 Henry C. Davis and his son, Henry C., Jr., bought an interest in the factory. In 1893 they and H. A. Bruner bought in all outstanding stock. They manufacture augurs, augur bits and carpenter chisels. The present floor space is about 25,000 square feet. In 1892 the number of men employed was from thirty to forty. In 1908 the number is one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty, and the pay-roll is eighty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars per year. The capital stock is seventy-five thousand dollars. The officers are: H. C. Davis, president; H. A. Bruner, vice-president; H. C. Davis, Jr., treasurer; George L. Davis, secretary; George J. Costello, superintendent.(2)

By March of 1893, American augermakers were producing so many standard augers and bits that they had become a commodity. A soft economy only compounded the problem. A group of ten augermakers responded by forming the American Auger and Bit Association, an organization whose primary purpose was to set prices for various categories of augers, a practice sometimes referred to as price fixing. Rockford Bit became a charter member. Notable among the non-participants were the Irwin Auger Bit Company whose unique designs were protected by patent, and the Russell Jennings Mfg. Company whose bits commanded a premium. The organization remained active for some dozen years.(3)

Perhaps the best known of the Rockford Bit Company's bits were its "Perfection Jennings" augers. Sets of the bits were put up in wooden American case boxes. The company stamped much of its output with a single word, ROCKFORD. Some of the company's double-spur bits bear the remarkably wordy designation ...

KOKOMO
ROCKFORD

Workers at the Rockford Bit Company went on strike in 1916. The unintended consequence of their action was that the business folded. Greenlee Brothers & Company bought the company’s assets and moved the stock and equipment to Rockford, Illinois the following year. The articles of dissolution for the Rockford Bit Company were filed on August 13, 1917, in Indiana.

Robert Hall Tinker approximately 1875
Robert Hall Tinker approximately 1875
Rockford Perfection Jennings bits
Rockford Perfection Jennings bits
Rockford Perfection Jennings label
Rockford Perfection Jennings label

Illustration credits

References

  1. "Items." Iron Age. July 17, 1888. p. 68
  2. Morrow, Jackson. History of Howard County, Indiana. Vol. 1. Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen, [1909?]. p. 242-243.
  3. "Augers and Bits." The Iron Age. (March 16, 1893). p. 635.

Watrous & Company

In 1832, eighteen-year-old Richard N. Watrous went to work for the L'Hommedieu brothers, augermakers in his hometown, Chester, Connecticut.(1) He became the operation's foreman at age twenty-one, and co-patented a device for making double twist augers with Ezra L'Hommedieu in 1838.(2) At some point, Watrous assigned his rights to the augermaking machine to L'Hommedieu who had the patent reissued in 1845, most likely to have his name firmly associated with it since Watrous had moved to Charlestown, Ohio, the previous year. There, he joined three other men from the Chester/Deep River area—Levi B. Southworth, Ansel Shipman, and his brother Justin Watrous—in organizing Watrous & Company, an augermaking business. They set up shop some six miles east of Ravenna in an area that became known as Augerburg.

Watrous and Co. bit stamp

In 1857, R. N. Watrous patented an adjustable handle drawknife that allowed a user to adjust the angle of the blade to fit the task at hand.(3) Shallow cuts facilitated work with hardwoods, and deeper cuts allowed for the aggressive removal of softwood stock. Watrous & Company began making the drawknife. Eventually manufactured by both the C. E. Jennings and James Swan companies, tool remained in production for the next half century.

The business reorganized as Watrous, Shipman & Company when Levi Southworth left the firm in April 1858. His was not an amicable departure. Southworth left his partners with an uncollectable promissory note for $5,193.12—a substantial sum at the time. The matter went to the Portage County Ohio Court of Common Pleas. Its disposition remains unknown.(4) Watrous, Shipman & Company continued doing business in Augerberg, making bits, ship augers, and draw knives until the second year of the United States Civil War when the principals dissolved the business.

In 1866, after the seccession of the hostilities, the Watrous brothers and Shipman relocated to Elmira, New York, where Milton V. Nobles had just organized a business for the manufacture of bit braces and specialty carpenter's tools. Shipman soon became superintendent of the plant, R. N. Watrous spearheaded the auger operation, and Justin Watrous worked in the finishing department. In addition to tools bearing its own name, the Nobles Manufacturing Company factory turned out augers, bits, and draw knives branded Watrous & Co. Its Watrous ship augers sold especially well, garnering a worldwide reputation.

Milton V. Nobles sold his interest in his company in April 1871, and a new group of investors reorganized the business as the Elmira Nobles Manufacturing Company. Richard N. Watrous stayed on at the factory, and four months later patented an improved die for forming the lips of auger bits.(5) His idea was sound and incorporated into the production of bits manufactured by the company.(6)

R. N. Watrous was still at his job in 1877 when the buildings and machinery were sold at auction. Soloman L. Gillet and Robert T. Turner either bought the operation, or rented the plant and equipment from someone who did, and formed Gillet & Co. The Gillet operation continued making Watrous-branded augers, drawknives, and bits until January 1886 when they rented the factory to C. E Jennings and Company. Though a now-retired R. N. Watrous passed away the following September, C. E. Jennings & Company kept the Watrous brand alive. When fire destroyed the Elmira factory the following year, production of Watrous brand tools moved to Meriden, Connecticut.(7) Early on, C. E. Jennings' publicity portrayed the company as an independent entity. Jennings began treating its acquisition as a brand in the early 20th century, marking the bits with the word Watrous in quotation marks.

c. e. jennings watrous bit stamp

Illustration credits

References

  1. "The Late Richard Watrous." The Democratic Press (Ravenna, Ohio) September 2, 1886. p. 3.
  2. United States Letters Patent No. 851 reissued as RE72.
  3. United States Letters Patent No. 18,887.
  4. "Dissolution of Copartnership." The Portage Sentinel (Ravenna, Ohio) May 20, 1858. p. 3; "Legal Notice." The Portage Sentinel (Ravenna, Ohio) July 29, 1858. p. 3.
  5. United States Letters Patent No. 117838.
  6. "Abram M. Dewitt vs. Elmira Nobles Manufacturing Company." in Reports of Cases Heard and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Vol. 12. New York : Banks & Brothers, 1876. p. 301. D. Mason & Co.,
  7. Towner Ausburn. Our County and Its People: a History of the Valley and County of Chemung ... Syracuse, New York : 1892. p. 607.