The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-12-28
Correspondence.
Middlebury Inventions.

Editor Register and Journdl'-It may
not be uninteresting, especially to the
older residents of this town and as
matter of history, to state that it is
believed that the late Norman Upper,
Esq, in the year of 1927 conceived the
idea of making window sash by machine
ry. and subsequently, in company with
Rufus Perkins, his brother-in-law, built
the first sash factory in this or any other
country The work of making the foun-
dation building the dam and digging the
race way to conduct the water to and
from this factory. was commenced in the
spring of 1928. The building, which was
100 feet square, and two stories, besides
the wheel room and basement, was
built on the same foundation as that of
the present sash factory of Austin Peck
in the east village. The water was taken
from Middlebury river. as now taken,
to propel the machinery. The building
was of the best of pine, and the timbers
large, some being l6 to Is inches square,
costing only 81 per thousand feet stand
my in the woods at that time. A large
proportion of the lumber and timber
used in constructing that factory would
now cost $40 to $50 per thousand feet,
sawed and ready for use. The building,
in April or May, 1929. The rooms In the
east half of it were assigned to the use
of Mr.. Upper as a sash factory, in
which enterprise Mr.. Perkins had no in
terest, he taking the rooms in the west
half, each having an equal interest il
the water power.
Mr. Topper Immediately set at work tC
construct the requisite machinery fol
manufacturing window sash, blinds anC
doors; and the result of his efforts was
the construction of planning machine
which also served the purpose of a stick
ing or molding machine; mortisinG
machine of the same construction as tina
now used by Mr.. Peck, and which fol
the sole purpose of sash making ha
never been excelled by any of the NOR,
modern inventions; tenoning ma
chine, consisting of small circular saw
to cut the shoulders of the lemons, ant
two or 10 inch circular saws, running to
gether, set just far enough apart to leav
the tenon of the proper size between
them; boring machine, being a small
auger bit, about 3-S inch in size, that raj
horizontally, with a sliding bed that wa
movable so as to bring the hole in tn
center of the piece to be bored. Eacl
part in which mortise was requires
ndu W NC DOItu lOI lllt WHICH
was done very rapidly. There was ais
machine for marking the place for tn
mortises, called setting-out machine;
coping machine, which cut out the fac
of the shoulder of the rails, boss an
multings so as to admit the bead seen o
all the sashes manufactured at that time
There was also attached TO the MOI
Using machine round hollow chisel t
make the pins, with which to fasten tC
gether the sash when put up and squeeze
together.
The machine to squeeze the joints t.
gether was of about the same COZ
struction as those now in use, exceI
large wood vice screws were employe
instead of the iron clamp screws of t
day.
These several machines, with sma
circular saw for squaring the sewers
parts, of the proper length, and slttin
saw, constituted the entire machinery
that sash factory and made a most con
plete set for the manufacture of windo
sash, which was the principal object fC
which it was to be employed. And