In the 19th century, Amesbury was a carriage manufacturing center. From about 1870 through to 1890, carriages transitioned from being almost entirely hand-made to being hand-assembled from machine-made parts. Cincinnati, OH, was at the crest of this wave, as they were a center for the manufacture of low-cost carriages. Amesbury, with its focus being more on mid-priced carriages, was only a bit behind Cincinnati.

In 1873 Charles Franklin Pettingell established a machine shop whose products included the new machinery for making carriages.

One of many Amesbury carriage-makers was Locke & Jewell (they also made wheels, including the Warner patent wheel). Between 1875 and 1881, co-owner Joseph Richardson Locke received some patents for wheel-making machinery. It seems that Locke licensed his designs to C. F. Pettingell, although none of the patents were explicitly assigned.

In October of 1887 (not, as it says elsewhere on the net, in the fall of 1888) there was an enormous fire in Amesbury that destroyed at least 16 businesses related to carriage-making, including both Locke & Jewell and C. F. Pettingell. Both apparently rebuilt, although by 1897 Locke & Jewell had either gone under or sold out. Pettingell, meanwhile was doing well and was making about thirty different machines for the carriage-building and wheel-making industries.

C. F. Pettingell ran his business until 1905 when a group of investors bought it and formed the Pettingell Machine Co. There was some acrimony between Pettingell and others, but the details are not certain. By 1915 the company ceased to exist and the assets were purchased by the shop foreman.

Mr. Pettingell spent the last years of his business fighting over patents and before this was resolved the business turned sour as aluminum auto bodies were beginning to be produced etc. and the carriage business dwindled.

Information Sources

• Two people have contributed most of the information here: Hazele Pettingell Kray and Jukka Konola. Both Hazele and Jukka have done considerable original research into this maker, and I thank them both for their generosity in sharing the fruits of their hard-won labors.
• Hazele first learned of her grandfather's business while visiting the Ford Museum in Dearborn in the 1960s. At that time they had many Pettingell machines on display, but no longer. Jukka's recent attempts to get more information on those machines have been unsuccessful.
• The 1876 book, Draft-book of Centennial carriages, displayed in Philadelphia, at the International exhibition of 1876, has the following entry:

  C. F. Pettingell, of Amesbury, Mass., makes a specialty of carriage-wheel machinery, to which he has given his attention for several years past, and has produced a large and valuable assortment—so large, indeed, that it would be quite useless to attempt to describe them in this connection; but we present below a list of the principal kinds, which he either keeps in stock, or is prepared to make to order:

  Patent rim planing machine. Hub mortising-machine, with cutter or cones. Polishing-machine for polishing spokes. Polishing-machine for polishing carriage-parts. Polishing-machine, for polishing rims. Rim-rounder. Rim boring-machine. Round tenoning-machine. Spoke tenoning-machine. Lathes, with or without centering-machine. Spoke smutting-machine, or re-tenoner. Spoke facing-machine. Surface-planer for rims. Polishing-machine, for carriage-woodwork. Surface-planer for rims. Polishing-machine, for carriage woodwork. Power mortising-machine. Foot-power mortising-machine. Surface planers. Dressing-machines. Rabbeting-machines. Saw tenoning-machines. Rounding-machines. Boring-machines.

• In discussing Amesbury, the above work notes,

  It is a great pity that the ordinary class of Amesbury work was not represented at the Centennial, as its good finish, considered in connection with its price, would without doubt astonish many carriage-builders who make greater pretensions—and no better carriages...[M]achinery is largely employed, different builders make specialties of different classes of vehicles, style and fine finish are made subservient to the one quality of serviceableness, and thus the prices of carriages built in this town are reduced to a minimum; and a large wholesale trade has been developed with carriage-builders and dealers throughout the country, who find themselves unable to produce work, of the same grade, so inexpensively.

  Thanks to Jukka for providing this quote.
• A search for patents to C. F. Pettingell failed to turn up anything. This does not mean that no such patents exist, because it is difficult to search patents from before 1920. One correspondent, James Carruthers, sent us pictures of a "Rim and Felloe Rounding Machine" that includes a June 22d, 1875 patent date.
• 1887 catalog for C. F. Pettingell; this catalog was scorched in the 1887 fire. This catalog is in a private collection and copies are not available.
• Information on the correct timing of the great Amesbury fire of 1887 is courtesy of Jukka Konola. The Carriage Museum of American site has an article with an incorrect year for the fire.
• A ca. 1912 catalog for the Pettingell Machine Co. is in the collection of the Henry Ford Museum; thanks to Jukka for providing this information. In the catalog is a nice picture of the Pettingell Machine Co. factory and several woodworking machines which were at that time described as standard equipment for automobile body work, aeroplane body work and motor truck bodies. Also illustrated are various big saw tenoners, big bevel and miter saws (i.e., tablesaws), and irregular dressers.
• Large tablesaw labeled "Pettingell Machine Co. Amesbury, Mass., Patented June 16, 1910." That was a Thursday, and therefore not a valid patent date, because all patents since about 1847 are issued on Tuesdays.
• Ad for Pettingell Machine Co. in 1920 issue of The Wood-Worker.