Читать книгу Steel Traps - A. R. Harding - Страница 7

Early in the fifties Mr. Newhouse removed from his home at The Oneida Castle up the Valley to a spot now known as Kenwood. Here close by the bank of the rushing Oneida he established himself in a little smithey and began to make his famous traps on a larger scale. He was soon after assisted by some of the mechanics of the Oneida Association—as the old Oneida Community was then called—of which Mr. Newhouse had become a member. In a few years it became evident from the increasing demand that the business must be enlarged and a small factory was built for the purpose.

Still the demand continued to increase as the Community began to send out an agent to solicit orders in the West. The great Hudson Bay Company sent in some large orders a custom by the way, which they have continued annually from that early time until the present day.

More shops were erected, water power and special machinery were introduced but still the demand outgrew the supply, till finally the Community was obliged to build on a much larger scale at the present site of its factory, where the waters of Sconondoa Creek furnished for a long time ample power for the business.

Here Mr. Newhouse for many years after he ceased to work at the bench and forge, spent his time in perfecting the manufacture and in the general oversight and inspection of the work. With the eye of a lynx he was ever alert to see that no trap bearing his name went out of the factory except in perfect condition. Here before he left this world for his long, long rest he carefully educated and trained a number of men to continue the business with the same painstaking spirit he had so long maintained.

The Trap illustrated here is one of the earliest made by S. Newhouse after the business was established in the Oneida Community Shops about the year 1853.