oldtoolheaven.com
About oldtoolheaven.com
Over the years, the focus of this site has shifted. While it remains an encyclopedic study of the Millers Falls Company, a Massachusetts-based tool manufacturer, its scope has steadily expanded. A half-dozen major revisions have carried the site well beyond its original vision.
The origins of oldtoolheaven.com can be traced to a single web page—a 1996 study of design variations in the Millers Falls Company's line of bench planes. Despite the commercial implications of its dot.com domain name, the site's intent has always been educational. New pages, focused on the Millers Falls Company's history, were among the first to be added. An illustrated listing of the company's publications appeared not long after. Addition followed addition, until at last count, the site included some 3,259 files distributed among sixty-four folders.
The product of nearly three decades of research, oldtoolheaven.com is revised as new information comes to light. The author, Randy Roeder, worked as an academic librarian for thirty-five years and has written over a half dozen tool-related articles for the Gristmill: the journal of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association, and the Fine Tool Journal.
The Millers Falls pages
The Millers Falls pages focus on the tools and activities of the company between its founding in 1868 and a leveraged buyout in 1982. Though the firm manufactured and distributed precision tools, mechanics' tools, and power tools, its hand planes, bit braces, drills, miter boxes, treadle tools, and push drills are emphasized here. Over the years, the company absorbed a number of tool-related businesses and served as a launching pad for others. Notable among these are the Goodell-Pratt Company, the Langdon Mitre Box Company, Gunn, Amidon & Company, and the various enterprises of Charles H. Amidon and Quimby S. Backus. The coverage of two of these companies—Goodell Pratt and Langdon Mitre Box—is substantial enough to justify separate pages.
The Goodell-Pratt pages
The Goodell-Pratt Company could trace its origin to a small shop operated by Albert and Henry Goodell in Buckland, Massachusetts, in the late 1860s. The brothers sold their business to the Millers Falls Company in the early 1870s and joined the ranks of the firm's employees. They left the operation in the late 1880s to go into business as the Goodell Brothers Company. Henry L. Pratt bought a controlling interest in the operation and, in 1899, renamed it the Goodell-Pratt Company. The company grew rapidly, and by 1917 could boast of a line of "1500 good tools."
Goodell-Pratt offered a comprehensive array of precision, carpenters' and mechanics' tools. It acquired major parts of its product line through purchase rather than development. The various companies and individuals associated with these acquisitions turned out well-designed, high-quality products. As a result, the history of the company is complex, and the relationships between the major players are varied and interesting. The Millers Falls Company absorbed an overextended Goodell-Pratt at the height of the Great Depression.
The Langdon Mitre Box pages
Langdon Miter Box Company was an independent entity before it was merged into Millers Falls in the the early 1900s. These pages cover the company's history from its invention of the revolutionary miter box to its sale to the Millers Falls Company in the first decade of the twentieth century. When Leander W. Langdon patented his woodworkers' mitering device in 1864, the directors of the Northampton Pegging Machine Company acquired the rights to its manufacture. Production of the miter box continued in Northampton, Massachusetts, until the 1875 bankruptcy of the pegging machine company. The David C. Rogers family purchased the rights to Langdon's miter box and moved production to the Millers Falls Company factory. Though located within the Millers Falls Company factory, Langdon remained independent until 1907.
Auger Bit Heaven
This section of the site features information on several on the American companies and individuals who produced auger bits. At present, it includes sections on the Connecticut Valley Manufacturing Company (CONVALCO), Ezra L'Hommedieu, the Irwin Auger Bit Company, the Russell Jennings Company, the Snell Manufacturing Company, the W. A. Ives Mfg. Company, and Job T. Pugh. The smaller auger bit manufacturers are just as interesting, and brief histories of some of them can be found on a page titled "Bit Players."