Leading Business Men of Fairfield County

1875, Phineas T. Bu<num. 1876, Jarratt Morford. 1878, Robert E. DeForest. 1879, John L. Wessei.ls. 1880, Daniel N. Morgan. 1881, John L. Wessells. 1882, Carlos Curtis. 1883, John L. Wessells. 1884, Daniel N. Morgan. 1885, Henry H. Pyle. 1886, Civilian Fones. 1887, Civilian Fones. 38 BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES IN BRIDGEPORT. Bridgeport is so essentially and thoroughly a " business " city, that the general history of commerce and manufactures has necessarily been included in the previous sketch of the city's life. Yet a few salient points briefly presented in logical con- nection may serve to emphasize the importance of these interests. In the early days when Bridgeport was founded, life was simple and its wants few. The earth supplied the greater part of the requisites for man's sustenance, the flocks his homespun raiment. What one man lacked, his next-door neighbor prob- ably had in abundance. So it is not surprising that for the first fifty years or more of its life, Bridgeport, commercially speaking, had no existence at all. The little farming settlement plodded along without much attention to mercantile affairs until the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. The growth of the surrounding colonies and the increased population of this part of New England then began to exercise considerable influence. In 1706, we find, according to Orcutt's history, that the Stratfield Ecclesiastical Society authorized Jos. Bennit to act in the capacity of a merchant for the place. The wants which this one merchant supplied do not seem to have increased very fast. Probably a few merchants of whom no record remains came and settled in the little village as it slowly increased during the first three quarters of the Eighteenth Century. But the Stratfield society offers nothing of value in this connection. It is not until the time of the Revolution and the appearance of Newfield at the head of the harbor that business first begins to exercise its beneficent influence on the progress of the town. During the later years of the Revolution and for two or thi*ee decades thereafter the shipping trade was the great line by which advancement was made in all direc- tions. By 1786 an important commercial interest was represented in the various warehouses and wharves which began to cluster around that part of the harbor where now the Lower Bridge stands. Captain Stephen Burroughs, Major Aaron Hawley, Abijah Hawley, Captain Abraham Hubbell, David Minot, Stephen Summers, and William De Forest were leading merchants in this first establishment of commerce in Bridgeport, carrying on trade with New York, Boston, West Indies, and Baltimore, the amount with each place being in accordance with the order in which they are named. As this trade grew and prospered, it had a great effect in building up the city, making it the -center of the surrounding district and creating as well as encouraging home industries. Collaterally with this trade, the manufacturing interest was progressing slowly BRIDGEPORT. PAST AND PRESENT. 39 though destined eventually to practically supersede the other. The first reference to anything of the kind is a " weaver shop," belonging to Samuel Porter, and prob- ably erected and set in operation a short time before the Revolution. The manu- facture of hats was the first important industry introduced here. In 1792, Thomas Gouge established a hat manufacturing business in a shop on the corner of Middle and Beaver Streets, and, in 1793, he was followed by Reuben and Smith Tweedy. The business continued to grow, a number of capitalists taking an interest in this line, and making their market in New York, until 1841, when it seems to have died out. The manufacturing history of Bridgeport did not practically begin until the close of the war of 1812-1815. About that time several industries of large propor- tions for that day began to operate. Salt works were established, turning out a con- siderable amount of merchantable salt, which lasted as a profitable investment for ten years, being superseded by a cheaper product from the West Indies. Pewter ware, such as cups, spoons, plates and buttons, was also manufactured to some extent, and the small beginnings of cabinet-making, leather-furnishing, saddlery, and carriage building started. In 1836 the first shirt manufactory in the country was established here by David and Isaac N. Judson, who made their market in New York City. This business prospered beyond anything which had been attempted here before, and several other like establishments were opened. A younger race of enterprising business men had now sprung up, endowed with progi'essive ideas and determined to develop the possibilities which they saw before them to the utmost. Among these were Isaac Sherman, Prosper Wetmore, Captain John Brooks, Jr., Henry K. Harral, Curtis Beard sley, Fenelon Hubbell, F. W. Parrott, George Wade, Nathan Buckingham, Frederick Lockwood, John S. Cannon, C. B. Hubbell, and Daniel Fayerweather. The banking business at this time was all conducted by the Bridgeport Bank> which had been chartered in 1806, and the Connecticut Bank, chartered in 1831. Most of the other banks were not chartei*ed before the latter half of the century, the Bridgeport Savings Bank being chartered in 1842, the Pequonnock Bank in 1851, the Bridgeport City Bank (now the City National) in 1854, the City Savings Bank in 1859, the People's Savings Bank in 1860, the First National in 1864, the Mechanics' and Farmers' Savings Bank in 1873. Carriage-making had become an important industry by 1833. Two firms, Carier & Porter, and Mott & Burr, had existed previous to that time, and the firm of Tom- linson, Wood & Co. started in that year as one of the largest houses in the town. The following year steam was first introduced into the business by David and Ebenezer Wheeler. The establishment of such houses as Nichols, Peck &Co., Hurd, Fairchild & Co., and the Union Carriage Company soon made this one of the largest as well as the most progressive industry the city had yet known. The saddlery business had also prospered and held its own as one of the leading industries. The foreign commerce gradually declined from 1840, under the operation of the influences which have tended to strangle American shipping. About the time of the " Gold-Rush " to California, 1848-54, several firms for carrying on business there were established, one of them, the S. F. Hurd & Company, being very successful, and realizing a dividend of about $200,000 in four years. 40 BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. The inauguration of the railroads and their great importance has already been spoken of. The Housatonic, which first went into actual operation in 1844, and the Naugatuck, started in 1848, made Bridgeport the depot and center for the trade of all the western part of the State. The opening of the New York, New Haven & Hartford in 1848, connected Bridgeport with the great metropolis, and with Boston, which controls a large part of the eastern trade. As a result, the general business interests of Bridgeport received a strong impetus, the effects of which have continued to this day. Since 1856, when the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company first went into operation here, Bridgeport has been one of the largest manufacturing centers of these monuments to American genius in the world. This great industry has rapidly increased until it has reached massive proportions, as the great value of these ma- chines has come to be universally appreciated. The Howe Sewing Machine Company made its headquarters in Bridgeport in 1865, where its already extensive business increased more rapidly. The latest addition to this line of industry was the estab- lishment in Bridgeport in 1884 of the American Hand Sewing Machine Company, which has introduced a most ingenious invention in the way of a hand-sewing-ma- ■chine, sure to command growing appreciation. The veteran sewing-machine inventor, Elias Howe, Jr., was born at Spencer, Mass., in 1819, and for many years was a workingman in the manufactories of Lowell and Cambridge, Mass. After years of poverty and toil he completed in 1845 a sewing machine claimed to have " sewed the first seam made by machinery.1' Though at first unsuccessful and almost ruined, at the end of twenty-seven years' work his profits amounted to about $2,000,000. He volunteered and served for some time as a private soldier during the war, and has always shown a most affectionate interest in the city of his adoption. Allen B. Wilson, was born October 18, 1824, in Willett, N. Y. In early life he worked as a blacksmith, and in 1847, without ever having heard of such a thing as a sewing machine, he conceived a plan for making one. After long experiments he succeeded in 1849 in completing the first machine ever made fully answering all the practical purposes needed. In 1850, Allen B. Wilson met Nathaniel Wheeler in New York city and the first sewing machine company was formed. Nathaniel Wheeler was born in Watertown, Ct., September 7, 1820. Before 1850 he had been engaged in the manufacturing of carriages, tools and machinery. Since the formation of the Wheeler & Wilson Company, and its establishment in Bridgeport, he has been one of the leading sewing machine men of the country. He has given valuable assistance in building up East Bridgeport and manifested a deep interest in all departments of the city's life and work. He has been its represent- ative in the Senate of the State. During the first years of the war the greatest period of stagnation in Bridge- port's commercial history occurred. Since that time the progress has been steady and increasingly rapid until at the present time Bridgeport bids fair to fulfill at no distant day the prophecy of a recent Governor of Connecticut, " that it is des- tined to be the metropolis of the State." It would not be possible to particularize all the lines which have been and are now being followed out toward the development of Bridgeport's great commercial possibilities. Among them are the manufacturing of corsets; iron and steel, both in BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. 41