Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.pdf/195

 COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES

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T he Defender Hose Company has a brick the “ Robb" stove, with open g ra te; a round building o f its own on Sixth street. stove, with a bake oven on top, and the oldW est Beru'ick Hose Company has a fram e time “ Bull” plow, were undertaken. Tinware home on West Front street. A ll of these fire and spouting were also made. T he force was companies use the water from the mains for increased to twenty-five men, and in 1850 fire purposes, as it has ample pressure fo r the the contract was taken to cast the ^ipes fo r the Berwick waterworks, between five hun­ purpose. dred and one thousand pounds o f iron being melted in a day. U F E STORY o r A GREAT INDUSTRY Rapid expansion followed, and in 1855 the T h e growth of the town o f Berwick and firm was making castings for the Lackawanna the prosperity and happiness o f its people are & Bloomsburg Railroad Company, of which so closely associated with the great car works Mr. Jackson w as then a director and super­ there, which grew from a small foundry, intendent. M ill gearing and stationary en­ owned by two men, into the present gigantic gines were also made, and in 1858, a con­ establishment, employing thousands, that the tract being taken to furnish the bridge cast­ sto ry o f one is the history of the other. W ith­ ings fo r the Philadelphia & E rie railroad, an out this industrial development, brought about addition w as built to the foundry, about a b y the energy and farsightedness of these two ton o f iron melted in a day, and fifty men men and their successors, Berwick might yet were given employment. b e a village of but a few hundred inhabitants. In the fall o f 1861 an order w as received 'Fhe foundations of the present immense for the building o f twenty cars of fo u r wheels plant were laid in t$4o, when Mordecai W. each, fo r the use o f G. W. Creveling in his Jackso n and George Mack erected on the cor­ limestone quarry at E sp y, Columbia county. ner o f Third and M arket streets a foundry, T o prepare fo r this (then) large order a 2 5 by 40 feet, with a smalt shed in the rear, shed about nine feet high, in which the plows fo r the manufacture o f agriailtu ral imple­ were form erly painted, was boarded up, and ments. T h e firm remained Jackson & Mack from this primitive car shop the first cars until 1843, when M r. Jackson purchased were turned out. T w o men were employed M ack's interest and took into partnership Rob­ on this branch of the work, and they suc­ ert M cCurdy, adding to the manufacture o f ceeded in producing but one car a week. agricultural implements that o f hollowwarc. The material w as mortised, planed and framed About fifteen men were then employed, four b)T hand, holes being cut in the roof to per­ horses furnishing the power fo r running the mit the insertion of the iron rods into the blow er and lathe, the only machinciw then in frames. During the following summer small use. Col. Clarence G. Jackson, •afterwards lots o f cars were built, sometimes two a week, president of the company, w as then a boy of the wheels being pressed onto the axles by seven, and drove the horses that supplied the means o f a hand press. power. In 1862 some machinery w as advertised for In 1846 the firm o f Jackson & M cCurdy was sale at the car works at Taylorville, Luzerne dissolved and M. W . Jackson continued the county, and M r. Woodin attended the sale, business alone, adding to the foundry a black­ there buving a crosscut saw, a fifteen-foot onesm ith shop, under the charge o f Louis Enke, side bed planer, a tenoning machine, a hy­ and commencing Ihe building o f heavy wagons. draulic wheel press, and other pieces. These In 1849 W illiam Hartman Woodin. who he stored in a bam until needed. The pur­ had established a furnace and foundry at chase proved extremely fortunate, fo r m a Foundryvillc in 1847 for the manufacture of short time a contract came in fo r the con­ stoves and plows, united with M r. Jackson, struction o f one hundred cars fo r H. S. M er­ and thus the famous firm o f Jackson & cur & Co., Pittston. Anxious to complete the W oodin wa.s bom. M r. Jackson was an ex­ order in the time set, the saw was brought pert mechanic and a fine manager o f men, from the barn and attached to an inch-and-aw'hile M r. Woodin w as a broad-gauge man, half linc-shaft. T his w as a wise move, and possessing farsightedness and selling ability proved such an advantage (hat in a short time that soon made the firm prominent in the local (he planer and wheel press were also set up field and in time placed (hem foremost in and attached to the line-shaft. Thu.s w as the their line among the m anufacturers of the first machinery solely fo r the manufacture o f State. A .small machine shop was added to cars in Berwick set in motion. T he tenoning the plant, the horses supplanted by an up­ machine was next set up, and the work pro­ right steam engine, and the manufacture o f ceeded so rapidly that five four-wheel cars u