Sunday, January 5, 2014

HITCHCOCK MANUFACTURING COMPANY



The Cortland News, Friday, September 3, 1886.
Cortland’s Prominent Industry.

   Everyone who has visited Cortland has always been impressed with the wonderful beauty of its situation, five valleys with modest hill tops on either side seem to have met to point out its location, and as you traverse its streets and note the marked thrift of its inhabitants, the mammoth proportions of its factories, and hear the busy hum of its industries, you say, wise is the man, who taking natures' hint, has chosen this as his dwelling place.
   Every dollar in the community seems to be engaged in active business, leaving no opening for arrogant and unprofitable display. True, many inhabitants have means far beyond their immediate wants, but this wealth is not locked up in bonds but has sought business avenues which gives employment to hundreds of laborers who have flocked here to lay the foundation of a home and competence in after life.
   The industry which to-day is entitled to the foremost rank in Cortland, judged by the comparisons, is the Hitchcock Manufacturing Company. Not a decade ago it was established by Mr. C. B. Hitchcock as an individual enterprise, when he built but one hundred cutters and a few buggies. Each succeeding year saw this number doubled and tripled until its hundreds became thousands and its thousands tens of thousands as the number of its annual product. Three years ago Mr. Hitchcock, recognizing the immense proportion to which the business was growing, organized it into a stock company with the largest capital of any similar organization in the state.
   A year and a half ago a new department, at a large outlay, was added by the purchase of the Cortland foundry and machine shops, where are produced an almost endless variety of iron and wood machines, and are also built some of the standard agricultural implements, among which is the famed Victor mower that has no peer in the hay field. This added enterprise since it has come under the company's management has more than tripled its products and the next season promises to see it rival the oldest established works.
   The cutter and buggy department of the Hitchcock Manufacturing Company is the largest in the world. Its product this year will reach over 15,000 cutters and 3,000 wagons. Its capacity is a cutter every three minutes and a buggy every ten minutes. This wonderful and rapid production of good is not the result of magic, as might be supposed, but of a thorough and perfectly organized system. Each employee has his own work and what he does one day sets the task of his comrades the next, thus each man not only in a measure becomes responsible for the amount and quality of work his successor turns out but also to the continued employment of his fellow workmen.
   It has been the aim of the company to give to its men constant employment the year round. In this it has been very successful, for during its entire existence [it] has never shut down the works for a single month. It is thought that much is gained by the company over others for the reason that good and reliable men want constant and steady work.
   A glance at the books shows that it does an average of over $50,000 a month or more than a half million dollars a year. This gives employment to between four and five hundred men in all the departments.
   The new brick factory now building, which is 425 feet long by 50 feet wide and five stories high, will be, when completed, the largest single building in the United States used for wagon purposes, and this, together with the store house built in the spring, 280 feet long by 50 feet wide with three floors, will make it by a number of acres the largest wagon factory in state.
   Mr. C. B. Hitchcock, the president, has the general supervision and management of the company. In this he is assisted by Mr. H. L. Gleason, the secretary, who gives the business his individual personal attention. The fact that Mr. Gleason practiced law for a few years prior to his connection with the firm has been an advantage to the company. Mr. J. W. Kuse came from Minneapolis to fill the place of treasurer. Mr. J. C. Sager and F. B. Hitchcock are the superintendents of departments, assisted by able foremen. By each of these gentlemen I was shown the greatest of courtesy and left them with impression that the Hitchcock Manufacturing company would extend its enterprise as much in the future as in the past, and that Cortland has reason to be proud of having such an institution in her midst.—From Elmira N. Y. Daily Gazette and Free Press.

Reference:
1) Hitchcock Manufacturing Company:
2) Past and Present by D. Morris Kurtz, 1883: http://www.usgenweb.info/nycortland/books/pandp-2.htm

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