page_title: Michigan Stove Company
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Michigan Stove Company / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Michigan Stove Company foundry in Detroit, Michigan, circa 1890
context_page_description: Michigan Stove Company was originally an enterprise started by Jeremiah Dwyer and his brother in the mid nineteenth century. Their career background training was in the foundry business. They started a Detroit, Michigan company that eventually developed into a joint stock company called the Detroit Stove Works. Dwyer reorganized this firm in 1871 with another set of investors and it became the Michigan Stove Company. They manufactured cooking stoves, heaters, and furnaces under their "Garland" brand. The company was known for its state of the art technology in foundry applications. It was considered to be the world's largest producer of stoves and ranges with its 700 styles and sizes. The company had branch offices in the largest U.S. cities, as well as global distribution arrangements.
context_section_description: The history of the foundation of the Michigan Stove Company starts before the American Civil War, when Americans cooked and heated their homes with an open hearth. This old technology was inefficient, costly, and dangerous. A few modern stoves for the elite and wealthy started to appear in Detroit in the 1830s. All stoves from the 1840s to the 1860s were made and shipped from New York via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. The creator of the company was Jeremiah Dwyer. He had apprenticed and worked for several years in New York to learn the stove business. In 1861, he and his  younger brother James bought out a failing Detroit reaper manufacturer that was trying to make stoves. They brought in Thomas W. Misner as a partner and their new firm became J. Dwyer & Company. There was a large demand for cooking and heating stoves at the time and the Dwyers brothers became successful due to their stove-making skills. They were the first foundry operators in the midwestern United States to use modern engineering foundry techniques to make stoves.
  The first stoves made by the J. Dwyer & Company were sold to local residents through personal solicitation. In 1863, Misner sold his equity in the firm to William H. Tefft and Merrill I. Mills. J. Dwyer & Company incorporated as a stock company in 1864 and became the Detroit Stove Works. This company's founders were Jeremiah Dwyer, James Dwyer, Merrill I. Mills, Edwin S. Barbour, and William H. Tefft. Dwyer bought pig iron and other similar materials from merchant Charles DuCharme to make his stoves.  DuCharme, a wealthy Detroit businessman with many establishments, became an investor in Dwyer's firm. The company made a variety of cooking and heating stoves, which it marketed under their "Jewel" brand, and at its peak employed a thousand workers.
  Jeremiah Dwyer was a compulsive worker and expanded the facilities at the Detroit Stove Works. Because of his exposure to the foundry's polluted air, he contracted a pulmonary disease and was compelled to leave the foundry business for a while in 1869. Dwyer sold his ownership in the company to his brother and Edwin S Barbour, and went to live in the southern United States. He later returned to Detroit after his health recovered and again became active in the foundry business. Then in the autumn of 1871 he started a new firm with a group of investors and incorporated it as the Michigan Stove Company.
  The partners in the Michigan Stove Company were Jeremiah Dwyer, Charles DuCharme, Francis Palms, Richard Long Sr., Merrill I. Mills, and George Harrison Barbour. DuCharme became the president, Dwyer its vice president and general manager, Mills its treasurer, and Barbour its secretary. The company began manufacturing stoves, heaters, and furnaces on September 12, 1872. They first made "Argand" brand stove and paid a royalty to Perry & Company of Albany, New York, for the rights to make their style and brand. Michigan Stove Company discontinued making "Argand" stoves and started making its own style of stoves, which were branded "Garland", in 1876. This name was chosen because Dwyer didn't want to lose the customers who were loyal to the "Argand" brand stoves so he chose a similar-sounding name for the company's new brand.
  There was a major fire at the Michigan Stove Company on January 8, 1907. It started in the evening and within a few hours had destroyed the manufacturing plant. The damage was estimated at $500,000, of which $400,000 was covered by insurance. The 2,200 men working at the factory became unemployed. The fire was first noticed at the coal-hopper in the engine room by the night watchman. It soon spread to the center of the building. 
  The fire department arrived within within fifteen minutes of being notified but it was out of control by the time firefighters began hosing down the building. The oversized replica stove being displayed adjacent to the factory was damaged as one of the plant’s six-story walls fell on it. The factory's inventory of 20,000 stoves were destroyed. Thousands of Detroit residents watched the fire and the crowd 
caption: Michigan Stove Company in Detroit showing Garland stove factory in 1891
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