This is one in a chain of companies in Salem, OH that made boring machines,saw-sharpening machines, and wheelwrights' machines:
Dole, Silver & Deming was created in 1866 when John Deming joined Levi A. Dole and Albert R. Silver of Dole & Silver. Dole died on September 1, 1865, and in 1867 or 1868 the partnership was renamed to Silver & Deming.
Information Sources
-
Carriage and Wagon Makers Machinery and Tools by Kenneth L. Cope, 2004 page 79
- The EAIA "Directory of American Toolmakers" also lists "Dole & Deming" as in business 1897, and acknowledges considerable confusion in the connections between these makers.
- Don McConnell used patent information to refine the timeline.
- A genealogy website indicates that Levi Alidin Dole was born 1829-04-28 and died in Columbiana, OH, on 1865-09-01. A notice in Scientific American reported that the executor of his will was R. H. Garrigues, who was both an attorney and a woodworking machinery manufacturer in his own right; Garrigues had been Dole's patent attorney.
- The following article, transcribed by Don McConnell, is extracted from History of Columbiana County, Ohio, edited and compiled by William B. McCord, c. 1905. Pages 141-142.
In 1854 Levi A. Dole invented a hub-boxing machine. A. R. Silver, who was then foreman of the Woodruff carriage shop, became interested in the invention, and the two men in the fall of the same year rented a part of a little shop on High Street, in which a lathe and blacksmith forge were placed—and thus was born what later became the Silver & Deming Manufacturing Company, of Salem. Dole perfected other patents, and the business grew. ...
The Silvers and the Demings
In 1856 the firm moved into one wing of the Buckeye shop. Two years later they were again compelled to seek more room and bought a warehouse where W. J. Clark & Company were afterwards located. In 1865 John Deming bought a third interest, and Dole died in 1866. In that year the firm became Silver & Deming.
In 1874 the company bought the buildings formerly owned and occupied by the Etna Manufacturing Company, the same year being incorporated as the Silver & Deming Manufacturing Company with an authorized capital of $150,000.
Early in 1890 Albert R. Silver and his sons retired [to organize a new firm], and the Demings in the summer of that year reorganized as the Deming Company. ...
Just prior to the withdrawal of the Silvers from the Silver & Deming Manufacturing Company, the officers of the latter company were: A. R. Silver, president; John Deming, vice-president; Walter F. Deming, secretary; William Silver, treasurer; and E. W. Silver, superintendent.
In 1890 the Silver Manufacturing Company was organized, locating northeast of the Deming Company's plant, where large buildings were erected. During the next 15 years the company entered on a large scale upon the manufacture of the following articles: Carriage-maker and blacksmith tools, band saws, butchers' tools, 'Ohio' hand and power feed cutters, 'Ohio' self-feed ensilage cutters and blowers, metal bucket chain elevators, feed mills, steam cookers and root cutters. ...
The original officers of the company were: A. R. Silver, president; H. M. Silver, vice-president; A. O. Silver, secretary; William Silver, treasurer; E. W. Silver, superintendent. In 1905 E. W. Silver was president; H. M. Silver, vice-president; A. O. Silver, secretary; and William Silver, treasurer.
[The text goes on to indicate that the firm had 125 employees in 1905 and that a new machine shop had been build in that same year.]