Ireland Machine & Foundry Company Norwich, New York: A Company History, 1906-1942

Description

The mechaization of rural America was increasing just as the centuries changed from the 19th to the 20th. The new century would see labor-saving inventions for all aspects of rural life being made available on the family farm. Those that had grown up in rural America in the late 1800s knew all too well of the labor involved with farming and rural life. Some of these young minds left the farm to seek employment in the factories springing up across the country.

A. Bertsell Ireland was one of these young farm boys who would find his place in a factory in Greene, NY, and for over 30 years would focus his inventiveness on the products of the Lyon Iron Works. In 1906 and approaching 60 years of age, he and his two sons, then in their thirties, left that Greene foundry to open a new company, The Ireland Machine & Foundry Co. in Norwich, NY.

This book details the development of this new company and tracks its products, some still well remembered by those in the lumber industry, from 1906 until 1942, when the company merged with its neighboring industry, the Bennett Fireplace Company.