Advertisement from 1855 Massachusetts Register

Joseph M. Bullens and Daniel Cooledge worked at the Lowell Machine Shop and were married to sisters Sarah and Lucy (née Ray). In 1854 or '55 the two men established a partnership, Bullens & Cooledge, to make a variety of products, including a patent shingle jointing machine. The partnership was short-lived. Bullens returned to the Lowell Machine Shop. It is not clear what happened to Cooledge except that he died in 1869. Bullens died in 1878.

Information Sources

• The 1840 publication A Catalogue of the Library of the Middlesex Mechanic Association, has a "list of members of the Middlesex Mechanic Assiciation, December 1, 1839", including Joseph M. Bullens.
• The 1844 Turner's Lowell Directory list Daniel Cooledge, Merrimack. Joseph M. Bullens had a machine shop. Listings in the 1846 edition were identical.
• The 1851 Lowell Directory lists "Bullens Josph M. principal overseer, Lowell M. Shop, house Appleton, near Thorndike". He was listed as a Lowell representative to the Government of Massachusetts. Daniel Coolidge [sic] is listed as an employee of the Lowell Machine Shop, house 30 Worthen.
• Lowell city documents list Joseph M. Bullens as an alderman in 1852-53.
• The 1868 Lowell Directory lists Joseph M. Bullens as a contractor at the Lowell Machine Shop. Daniel Cooledge is not listed.
• The 1872 Lowell Directory lists Joseph M. Bullens as a contractor working at the Lowell Machine Shop Corp.
• The 1873 book, Contributions of the Old Residents' Historical Association, Lowell, Mass., lists J. M. Bullens as a member of the Historical Association. He was born 1804 and came to Lowell in 1829. The 1879 edition of this book reports that Bullens died in 1878.
• The 1910 book Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of the State of Massachusetts, ed. William Richard Cutter.

  Daniel [Cooledge], second son of Daniel and Polly (Spalding) Cooledge, was born in 1818, in Antrim, New Hampshire, and died August 29, 1869. After being educated in the public schools of his birthplace, he removed to Lowell, Massachusetts, where with J. M. Bullens he formed the firm of Bullens & Cooledge, manufacturers of machinery. In 1864 he moved to Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, where he invented the single thread tight-stitch sewing machine. He was a Republican in politics, and a deacon in the Congregational church. He married in Lowell, Massachusetts, Lucy W. Ray, of Lowell; children: Charles, born in August, 1847; Henry M; and Edward, born in May, 1857.

• A genealogy site gives Joseph M. Bullens' wife's name as Sarah G., née Ray. Her father was Ebenezer Ray, who was also father to Lucy W., Daniel Cooledge's wife.
• A genealogy site shows that Joseph M. Bullens died 1878-06-16 and is buried in the Lowell Cemetery.