Connecticut western news., 1880-01-07
Gill0tt's Good Fortune.

Joseph Glllott was Sheffield artisan, who, soon after he became of age, was compelled by stress of poverty, occa- stoned by long depression of trade, to leave his parental hearth and seek his fortune elsewhere. He found his way to Birmingham, and, entering the town on foot, stopped for rest and refresh ment at an old public house in Digbeth. Long after, when Joseph Giilott had become a millionaire, and was buying up valuable properties in and about the town, this house came into the market for sale. Gillott bought it :; and when it was being razed to the ground he directed the workmen to cut out par tioular square of the settle, or seat, rum ming round the tap-rooR, and to send it to his house to be made up into chair that should be handed down as an heirloom to his family. It was the first seat he had sat on in Birmingham, and tie place where he had spent the last panny before pushing on into the town whose fame and wealth he was destined So largely to share and to increase. He soon found employment as maker of buckles, trade then enjoying tempo rnry squirt, and soon, with characteristic energy, was working on his own account. h the garrett of @ very small house in Bread street-a locality marked down for destruction as ''slum," Gillott made buckles and other "steel toys" "He made very excellent goods," said the merchant who used to buy of him, and "came for his money every week." His work showed evidences of taste beyond that con monly possessed by workman, and this insured him plenty of orders i: while native ingenuity enabled him to execute them in the readiest way, with the least expenditure of time and labor, and with the directest and from mechani- cal means.
 He was engaged to a young woman in his own rank of life, whose two broth CTS, John and William Mitchell, were working in about the same style as him. self on the "new thing "-just begin ming to be inquired after-steel pens. Their sister was helping them, and in the condolences of courtsAip would often explain to her lover the nature of her pursuits. No doubt the brothers were working by "rule of thumb" produc- ing, by painful labor of clipping, shear ing, fling and punching by hand, a fairly salable article. But Gillott saw at once that the press could be made available for nearly every process, and that the production could be multiplied ad ir.J5n5tuna. Aided by his skill in tool-making, which stood him in good stead during all the greater part of his career, he worked secretly in his garrei till he perfected appliances which en- abled him to make single-handed aa many pens as could be made by twenty persons in the same time under the old system, and of better and more uni form quality than had been seen. He found ready sale for all he could make and in a short time the demand became greater than his power of production and he wanted help. Then his sweet heart, Miss Mitchell, agreed to his pro posal that they should marry and worl together, and reap the golden harvest while it was ripe. In after years Mir Gillott used to tell how, on the very morning of his marriage, he began and finished gross of pens, and sold then for e7 As. before going to church.