Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/326

298 The Concord Axle Company, whose works are at Penacook, merit attention. The business was established in 1835 by Warren Johnson. D. Arthur Brown & Co. carried it on from 1864 to 1880, when it was legally incorporated. D. Arthur Brown has been the manager for the past twenty-five years. People of the city do not generally realize the extent of their work. They employ

a hundred men, and last year used over one million pounds of bar iron, three hundred tons of pig iron, and one hundred tons of steel, and consumed eight hundred tons of coal. Their principal manufacuremanufacture [sic] is wagon and carriage axles, though they turned out four hundred tons of stove and other casting during the past year. They use five trip-hammers, and have three water-wheels of several hundred horse-power. They claim for their axles that they are made of better iron than any others, and will carry a heavier load.

The trade has gone on to steel instead of iron more than formerly; they are a low carbon steel of great strength and durability. They also make the malleable iron-hubbed wheels for steam fire-engines, hose-carriages, hook-and- ladder trucks, salvage wagons, and freight wagons, by Archibald's patent press process; Mr. Brown being president of the company, located at Lawrence, Mass. When he commenced the business in 1864, it was all carried on in one building, 48 x 24. They now carry it on in about ten buildings altogether.

Their axles of steel are of great strength and durability, and in such demand that the works are run to their fullest capacity, sometimes well into the night.

Mr. Brown is a wide-awake businessman, who gives his personal supervision to the work.

Hon. C. H. Amsden is the president.