![]() With the purchase, Pratt became treasurer and manager of the operation. In 1895, William Pratt purchased a fifty percent stake in the Goodell Brothers Company, a Greenfield manufacturer of carpenters' and mechanics' tools run by Dexter W. Company, a tool producer that would eventually become Greenfield Tap & Die. He moved to Greenfield in 1892 to become a sales representative for the Wells Bros. William Pratt did not stay with Mayhew long. Mayhew Company, the hardware manufacturer where his father served as manager and plant superintendent. Life on the prairie must not have been to the young man’s liking for he returned to Shelburne Falls in 1890 to become secretary of the H. The following year, he accepted a cashier position at the Case & Whitbeck Bank in the nearby town of Kimball. He moved to Pukwana, a small town in central South Dakota in 1884 and worked there as editor and publisher of the Pukwana Press and as cashier for the Bank of Pukwana. Pratt graduated at age sixteen from the Arms Academy, the local secondary school. Pratt and Goodell-Prattīorn in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, on August 13, 1867, William M. ![]() The elder Pratt also served as a director of the Pratt Drop-Forge and Tool Company, an entity created by his son when he assumed control of Ducharmes & Company in Shelburne Falls. Pratt, purchased a controlling interest in Albert Goodell’s Goodell Tool company in 1907, Francis Pratt became its vice-president. He became the firm’s assistant treasurer in 1886, and on Mayhew’s death in 1894, company treasurer. Mayhew purchased the business, Francis Pratt stayed with the operation, adding the title of manager to that of superintendent. Shepardson & Company, a producer of such hardware items as braces, bits, awls, chisels, and farm tools employing thirty-seven men.įrancis Pratt returned to Shelburne Falls in 1872 to take up a position as superintendent of H. Shortly after Pratt's departure, Maynard’s tool manufacturing operation became H. In 1867, Francis Pratt moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, to work in the office of Maynard’s wholesale grain dealership. Maynard & Company, a Shelburne Falls tool manufacturer. He left the family business at age twenty-seven to take a position with W. When Josiah moved the family to Shelburne Falls in 1843, Francis attended Shelburne Falls Academy and, up on completing his education, went to work in his father’s axe-making enterprise. Pratt, Josiah's eldest son and William Pratt's father, was born in Charlemont, Massachusetts, in 1835. Josiah Pratt retired from the tool business 1865 and died in 1887. Pratt, joined the business, it became Josiah Pratt & Sons. Pratt, the first of their two sons, joined the family business, his father changed its name to Josiah Pratt & Son. ![]() Josiah and his wife, the former Catherine Hall, parented eight children. The most prominent of the Connecticut Valley's early ax makers, he was especially noted for the quality of the cast steel used in his products. ![]() Josiah stayed on in Charlemont for eleven years before moving his operation to a site with better water power in Shelburne Falls. (2) It was a good year, one in which his business turned out products valued at $7,087, a considerable sum and a sign of a successful operation. In April 1832, he patented an axe-making machine and began turning out axes and edge tools using a trip hammer. Josiah returned to the United States afterward and began manufacturing axes, edge tools, and scythe snaths in Charlemont, Massachusetts. Josiah liked forge work, and at age twenty-one, he traveled to Stansted, Quebec, where he assisted with the construction of the province's first trip hammer-a large, mechanized device used to shape red-hot iron and steel. Born in Mansfield, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1802, Josiah became interested in ax production when his family moved to Buckland Center where he began working at a blacksmith shop, a business that made axes. His grandfather, Josiah Pratt, was the first of the family to be involved in tool manufacture. Pratt, the founder of the Goodell-Pratt Company, built a business on the basis of his financial acumen and sales ability rather than an understanding of tool production and design.
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