W. & B. Douglas Company

The W. & B. Douglas Company, named for its' founders William and Benjamin Douglas, was a company that manufactured hand-operated pumps, hand-drawn fire engines, and various tools & industrial implements in Middletown, Connecticut. The company made hand engines from 1839 to approximately the early 1900s, and was in business until around 1923-25.
== History ==
William Douglas (originally from Branford) started his career working in a foundry in New Haven, and his younger brother Benjamin was an apprentice to a machine shop in Middletown. In 1832, William moved to Middletown, and first started a company with another man, W.H. Guild, making steam engines and other machinery. In 1835, he filed his first patent for a pump, and by 1839, the Douglas brothers had started their new company. Business continued on, with the company showcasing their products at expositions in Philadelphia, Vienna, and Paris during the mid-to-late 1800s. 
By the early 1900s, the company had become both the largest & oldest pump manufacturer in the world (at the time), with a 3-acre factory complex, a warehouse in New York City, international sales agents; and made more than 600 varieties of pumps. Building fire engines was never their main subject of business, and it is unknown how many they ever made; but a catalog from 1903 shows that they were making them (or at least offering them), well into the era of horses & steam engines. A surviving example (an 1839 hand pumper, originally made for Newton Falls, Ohio) can be found at the Western Reserve Fire Museum in Cleveland. 
According to the Middlesex County Historical Society, by 1924, the company was in financial troubles and went into receivership; and went out of business & was sold the following year. 
== Sources & References ==
* https://www.angelfire.com/wy/mttools/Douglas.htm
* https://www.angelfire.com/wy/mttools/FireEngines.htm
* https://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/Businesses/w&b_douglas.htm
* http://www.firehydrant.org/pictures/douglas.html
* https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433066397708&seq=7
Category:Defunct American fire apparatus manufacturers