Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-12-07

AS this cnterprising and rapidly growing
town is about taking the initiatOry steps to be-
come city, a brief notice of some of its lead
ing mechanical enterprises and men may be of
interest. 1t has the largest chair mandatory
in the world, extensive paper mills and huge
machine shops and other manufacturing cstab-
lishments, whose finished products, shipped TO
every quarter Of the globe, amount to millions
Of dollars annually, the fruits of the inventive
skill and industry OF men like Alvah Croker,
Salmon w. Putnam, Walter Haywood, and
others, who may be styled the authors of the
prosperity and thrift of the town.
Col. Crocker, whose connection with Fitch
burg enterprises covers a period of nearly fifty
years, has done more than any other one man,
probably, TO promote the industry of the place,
by the interchangeable zeal and thorough business
like spirit with which he has prosecuted the va
rious schemes, manufacturing, railroading, and
otherwise, through the successful results of
which he has amasSed a fortune, besides con-
tributing so largely to the material wealth of
the town. The seven paper mills of his firm,
(Crocker Burbank & Co.., are in West Ftchburg,
(old Crockeville), the first mill of which he
erected in 1926. They now manufacture, with
100 hands, eleven tons Of printing and wall
paper daily, their sales for the last five years
having averaged about 500 900 per year. The
stock used last year amounted to about seven
million pounds, and the manufactured papers to
almost five million pounds. A large number
of leading journals in the country, including
many in New York, Boston, and other cities,
bu,,, f,,p,, in1
by this firm. The machinery used is in great
part the invention Of the senior partner.
Colonel Croker built, thirty-siX years ago,
the first machine shop in Fitchburg, on the site
of the old paper mills of General Leonard Bur-
bank, for whom he worked for the three fist
years after he went to Etchburg, in 1928. This
property, comprising several acres Of land south
westerly of and adjoining the depot,which he pur
chased in 1885, he has since almost literally COW
cred with machine shops and foundrieS, which
he has leased to various parties. The first mover
and most energetic and influential promoter and
manager in the construction OF the earliest lines
Of railway through the town (the old Fitchburg
and the Vermont and Massachusetts,, of both of
which he was successfully the first president, he
had the pleasure of riding into town on the first
locomotive from Boston, March s. 1915, and he
has done more than any other one person, prob
ably, to complete the railway connection of that
locality with the west, in the furtherance of the
gigantic enterprise of tunncling Hoosac noun
tain.
Col. Crocker learned the trade Of paper max
ing in his native town of Leominster, at the old
mills of Nichols & Kendall, afterwards Jonas
Kendall & Sons) for whom his father worked;
he was apprentced there in 1909, when he was
but eight years old. For his early education he
was mostly indebted to the generosity of the
late Hon. Joseph G. Kendall of Worcester, Zone
of the sons of Jonas), who was afterwards
member of congress from the old Worcester
north district, as the successor of the late Hon.
Abijah Bigelow, and who subsequently also
succeeded Mr.. BgelOw as clerk Of the courts for
this county. In Mr.. KendalPS law office at
Leominster, young Checker made himself so
much of favorite by his studious and nquiring
as well as atfable disposition, that Mr. X,
sympathzing with the extreme poverty of the
youth, gave him the free use Of his library,
with the privilege OF reciting to him when he
pleased, for sweeping his office and doing suudry
writing. Young CrOcker improved this rare
privilege to eminent advantage, during tine last
three years Of his minority.
The story of Col. Crocker's long and success
full business career, reaching through several
terrible financial crises over which he triumphed
as few have ever been able to do SO, is an in
structive one for the youth of this day In addi-
ton to the public positions he has already filled
wi nnJ 70, no
stituency, he is looked upon as the most proba-
bic successor to Gov. Washburn, as representa-
tive in congress from the district trayersed by
those lines OF railway whose interests he has
done so much to advance
The Putnam machine company, whose works
cover some twenty acres of land, extending
from Main street to the railroad, in the very
heart of the town, have the largest establish
ment of the kind in the state, out of Boston:
with three hundred hands in their various shops,
folses, aud foundies, the main building being
over five hundred feet long, they turn out 115
tons Of finished machinery of various kinds, in
Guiding steam engines and mammoth lathes and
planners, per month, averaging half million
dollars worth per year. The business was first
started by j. & S. w. Putnam in 1883, in build
ings leased of Col Croker near the depot, from
which the company removed to their present
capacious quarters, erected by them in 1866 1t
is now an organized company, with a capital of
$120, 000 Salmon w. Putnam, the chief proprie-
tor and inventor and designer of most of the
mac hinery operated and constructed there, be-
ing the president
The Walter Haywood chair company's works,
at their new quarters on River street, comprise
nine buildings, mostly Of brick, three Of them