 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
The Eagle Lock Company (established 1833) was, at one time, the largest trunk and cabinet lock maker in the world. It was based in Terryville, Connecticut. The Eagle Lock Company was at the forefront of padlock security at the time.
The Eagle Lock Company was formed by the consolidation of several early nineteenth-century enterprises. The most notable began in 1832, when an English immigrant and locksmith opened a small lock manufacturer in Watertown, Connecticut. This was one of the first American lock works. After two years, his small shop and skills were acquired by the Terryville, Connecticut firm of Lewis, McKee and Company, which was run by Eli Terry, son of the clock maker.
In 1841, after Eli Terry's death, the business was bought by the Lewis and Gaylord Company, and then consolidated in 1854 with the James Terry Company (a maker of carpet bag frames) as the Eagle Lock Company.
Production grew so much that, by the 1890s, the firm was one of the largest trunk lock manufacturers in the world, employing nearly 500 workers. Products included trunk and cabinet locks, as well as high quality security-grade padlocks, and, in the early twentieth century, screw-machine products.
The company experienced precipitous growth with the onset of the First World War, and even greater expansion during the Second World War, nearly doubling the number of employees to 800. With major defense contracts, it became an attractive takeover target for large firms looking to create subsidiary industries. In 1943, with the largest profit margins in company history, Eagle Lock was sold to F. Bowser Inc., of Fort Wayne, Indiana, however it continued to operate under its original name and location in Terryville, Connecticut.
After the War, the board of Eagle Lock deliberated, but never initiated, a move to the southeastern United States for tax purposes. The company’s financial situation began to deteriorate and the company was sold in the 1960s to the Delaware firm of Penn-Akron Corporation. The Eagle Lock Company continued to flounder after the sale, and by the 1970s, faced foreclosure and bankruptcy. While there were attempts to purchase the manufacturing complex, none succeeded, and the company closed in 1975. The majority of the plant was demolished and the land redeveloped.
After the company closed, the employees were honored for over 65 years of work in the town's 175th birthday. [1]
The Terryville factory had a manufacturing line of over 2000 different kinds of locks. The factory consisted of one main office building, and later in 1889 and 1905, extra work space was added including two five-story buildings on either side of the office. The factory had a boarding house on Prospect Street for male employees, which was torn down in the early 1900s. A sales room was once operated on Chambers Street in New York City.
The lock company housed four ponds including upper pond (now Terryville Fish and Game), middle pond (now privately owned), lower pond (no longer in existence but once held water to power the Eli Terry Waterwheel), and Reservoir One (once filling up all of the land behind the congregational church and along Eagle Street, it was drained and removed after a fire in 1975). The factory had buildings where the Terryville Rite Aid currently is located.
The remnants of the former Eagle Lock Company factory complex are located at the east and west corners of the intersection of South Main and Main Streets in Terryville, Connecticut. It is not known exactly when company first moved to this site, but its location on the Pequabuck River, which runs directly through the site, shows that the original operations were water powered. Today, only four of the buildings out of some 50 remain. Of the four remaining buildings, only one has not been altered, while the other three were disconnected and had floors removed.
The first surviving building is a one story brick production shed with gable roof on the corner of South Main Street and East Orchard Street; this building held such operations as packing, stocking and shipping, buffing and plating and pin-lock production.
The second survivor is a two-story brick power house between East Orchard Street and South Eagle Street; the smokestack has been partially demolished.
The five-story brick loft building on the north side of South Main Street and the south bank of the Pequabuck River was constructed c.1924. To the southeast is a small one-story, storage shed built during the same period. On the north side of the Pequabuck is a one-story brick structure likely constructed during the 1940s.
Locksmithing is the science and art of making and defeating locks. Locksmithing is a traditional trade and in many countries requires completion of an apprenticeship. The level of formal education legally required varies from country to country from none at all, to a simple training certificate awarded by an employer, to a full diploma from an engineering college, in addition to time spent working as an apprentice.
Plymouth is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England. The population was 12,243 at the 2010 census, up from 11,634 at the 2000 census. The town of Plymouth includes the villages of Plymouth Center, Terryville and Pequabuck.
Terryville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, and is the largest village within the town of Plymouth. In the 2010 census, Terryville had a population of 5,387, out of 12,243 in the entire town of Plymouth. The village is named for Eli Terry Jr., the son of the well-known clockmaker Eli Terry Sr. Terryville is also home to the Lock Museum of America. There is a water wheel located in downtown Terryville that is dedicated to the son of Eli Terry Sr.
A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object, by supplying secret information, or by a combination thereof or only being able to be opened from one side such as a door chain.
Sargent and Greenleaf, more commonly known among Safe and Vault technician circles as S&G, is a U.S. company that manufactures combination locks, key-operated safe and safe deposit box locks, high security military padlocks, and associated equipment.
A Chubb detector lock is a type of lever tumbler lock with an integral security feature, a form of relocker, which frustrates unauthorised access attempts and indicates to the lock's owner that it has been interfered with. When someone tries to pick the lock or to open it using the wrong key, the lock is designed to jam in a locked state until either a special regulator key or the original key is inserted and turned in a different direction. This alerts the owner to the fact that the lock has been tampered with.
Padlocks are portable locks with a shackle that may be passed through an opening to prevent use, theft, vandalism or harm.
Alfred Charles Hobbs was an American locksmith and inventor. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1812; his father was a carpenter. He married Charlotte F. Nye (1815-?) of Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1835 and had four children: Charlotte Hobbs, Alfred J. Hobbs (1843-?), Mary H. Hobbs, and Arthur Hobbs. Both of his parents were born in England.
Chubb Locks is a brand name of the Mul-T-Lock subsidiary of the Assa Abloy Group, which manufactures high security locking systems for residential, secure confinement and commercial applications.
The Lock Museum of America houses an extensive lock collection that includes 30 early era time locks, escutcheon plates from safes, a large number of British safe locks, door locks, padlocks, handcuffs and keys, and more. Located in Terryville, Connecticut, the museum is directly across from the original site of the Eagle Lock Company, founded in 1854.
Eli Terry Sr. was an inventor and clockmaker in Connecticut. He received a United States patent for a shelf clock mechanism. He introduced mass production to the art of clockmaking, which made clocks affordable for the average American citizen. Terry occupies an important place in the beginnings of the development of interchangeable parts manufacturing. Terry is considered the first person in American history to actually accomplish interchangeable parts with no government funding. Terry became one of the most accomplished mechanics in New England during the early part of the nineteenth century. The village of Terryville, Connecticut is named for his son, Eli Terry Jr.
Master Lock is an American company that develops padlocks, combination locks, safes, and related security products. Now a subsidiary of Fortune Brands Home & Security, Master Lock Company LLC was formed in 1921 by locksmith-inventor Harry E. Soref and is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. In 1970 the company was purchased by American Brands from Soref's heirs. American Brands was later renamed to Fortune Brands, which then split on October 3, 2011, to create the Fortune Brands Home & Security company and the beverages company Beam Inc..
The Farmington Canal, also known as the New Haven and Northampton Canal, was a major private canal built in the early 19th century to provide water transportation from New Haven into the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond. Its Massachusetts segment was known as the Hampshire and Hampden Canal. With the advent of railroads, it was quickly converted to a railroad in the mid-19th century and in recent years has been converted to a multi-use trail after being abandoned for years.
Two 19th century factory buildings are sited on a bank beside Starr Mill pond on Beverly Heights just off Middlefield Street. Each building is 3½ stories tall, and overlooks a picturesque pond and woods to the west; a parking lot packed with trucks and industrial equipment on the south; and nineteenth century housing on Beverly Heights to the north.
The Wilcox, Crittenden Mill, also known as Wilcox, Crittenden Mill Historic District, is a 17-acre (6.9 ha) property in Middletown, Connecticut that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. It was the location of the Wilcox, Crittenden company, a marine hardware firm. The historic district listing included four contributing buildings and three other contributing sites.
Yale is one of the world's oldest lock manufacturers, owned by Assa Abloy. Over its long history, Yale has received patents for dozens of its products and the company has distributed its products to more than 120 markets, including Australia, Greece, India, Kuwait and etc. Yale's headquarters are located in Stockholm.
The Locksmith's House is a museum in Willenhall, England. The premises, on New Road, consist of a house and backyard workshops, typical of the many family run lock making businesses which once thrived in the town. The house itself was built in 1840, but the period interiors date to 1904, when the Hodson lock making family first lived there. Lock making skills are demonstrated by volunteers using original tools and equipment, such as the floor press and belt driven machinery.
The Pequabuck River is a river, approximately 19 miles (30.6 km) in length, which rises in Litchfield County, Connecticut, and courses through neighboring Hartford County before emptying into the Farmington River in Farmington. The river has played a crucial role in the development of Plainville, Connecticut, in particular. The river's lower drainage basin consists of industrial and urban areas, and effluents from these areas pollute the river's waters. The Pequabuck drove a water wheel that provided 8 horsepower to the Upper Lock Shop in Plymouth, Connecticut, a facility which would eventually become the Lewis Lock Company in 1851 and, finally, the once-renowned Eagle Lock Company. The river banks were historically the site of one of United States' first malleable iron-producing units, known as Malleable Iron Works.
The Terryville Waterwheel is a historic industrial water wheel at the Pequabuck River and Main Street in the Terryville section of Plymouth, Connecticut. Probably built in 1851 for a local lockmaker, it is one of three surviving 19th-century water wheels in the state. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in 2002.
Rockwell Park is a public park in Bristol, Connecticut. Located in a residential area west of downtown Bristol, it includes open spaces and woodlands on either side of the Pequabuck River. Park amenities include a swimming pool, sports fields, and a playground. Many of the park's buildings are built out of rustic cobblestone, and include several follies. The park, the city's first public park, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
