Born in 1899, Joseph Côté was a self-taught mechanical engineer. Having already manufactured products for the area's maple syrup industry, in 1938 he founded Jos Côté Inc., specializing in manufacturing cream separators. The company later began manufacturing woodworking machinery. In 1960 Côté sold all his shares in his company. The company later became Co Mac T Inc., which was bought out by Jos. Poitras & Sons Ltd., which was in turn bought out by General Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
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Information Sources
- Mentioned in passing by Chandler W. Jones in his book, Planers, Matchers and Molders in America, as a company that made planers and/or matchers during the short-lived boom for those machines after WWII.
- We did not find any patents assigned to this maker. A 1936 Canadian patent, CA359373, for a pulley, was granted to a "Joseph Honore Horace Cote". Since Joseph Côté is a relatively common Quebec name, the patent is most likely unrelated to this maker.
- Thanks to correspondent Pierre Lessard for providing us the results of his research on Jos Côté Inc. The information here on the company's early history comes from Pierre. In addition, Pierre provided scans of nearly two dozen ads and catalog pages.
- From the foreword of an undated (but probably ca. 1960) catalog.
Since its organization in 1924, the Firm of JOS. COTE, INCORPOREE has applied its knowledge and experience in the design, the production and the improvement of its complete line of "CO-T" WOODWORKING MACHINERY, and now, after so many years of experience, it is happy to present by means of this catalogue a complete line of precision made, well balanced machines capable of turning out high quality products.
The 1924 date is likely the year of incorporation.