I am sure a name that most machinists are familiar with, but just in case a few of you might not have ever heard his name before, this is his story.
For the most part I thought I found his date of birth in New Brunswick, Canada as most of the research points to July 21,1864; that is till I had to find his date of death and Ancestry.com decided it was July 21,1863. They said his date of death was in 1932 (aged 68-69) in Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts.
"It was said that the old Indian Sqaw who officiated on that occasion-July 21,1864-received a pound of salt pork for her compensation. Mr. Slocomb received a common school education and he received his first in the plant of Brown & Sharp Mfg. co., later he worked the shops of the Bangor Foundry & Machine Co. and the Brainerd Milling Machine Co., until he founded the J.T. Slocomb Co., in 1891 in Providence, RI." From American Machinist Who's Who Vol. 47 No. 26 Dec. 27th, 1917.
His Company lasted for 23 years before he sold it to JH Drury in 1914. Drury was the sales Manager for the Union Twist Drill co.,which continued using the Slocomb name.
In 1914 that must have been a very busy year because Mr. Slocomb was 50 years old when he married Sarah Esther Greenman on October the 6th, 1914. From what I found Sarah was only 20 years old at the time and she gave birth to a son three years later in 1917, to John T. Slocomb Jr. in Rhode Island.
From 1914 till just after the second World War the Company fortunes began to go downhill. They entered receivership in 1952 and were sold in 1953 to E. John Gregory, the owner of Green Machine Company in Glastonbury, Connecticut. This lasted till about 1992, when the Company made a bounce from bankruptcy and they were able to hold on a little bit longer till they went under in the late 1990's.
In the following tool set I picked it up in an old antique store, I so hope you will enjoy the pictures, the links, (I will post a few more in part two) and his story for you tonight on this nice October night.
https://wrenchwiki.com/j-t-slocomb/https://archive.org/details/JTSlocombCoCatalogNo18http://cofes.com/Portals/0/cofes_201...icrometers.pdfhttp://www.datamp.org/patents/search...ny.php?id=1088http://thesaltysailor.com/rhodeislan...mmercial47.htmhttp://www.datamp.org/patents/displa...t.php?id=13016http://www.datamp.org/patents/displa...t.php?id=13016http://www.datamp.org/patents/search...ny.php?id=2358http://waywiser.fas.harvard.edu/peop...6842748B6FCFB4http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com...locomb-co.html
Part 2
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-1994-11-07-9411050033-story.html