The Waterbury Tool Co. was established in 1898 to manufacture a patent ratchet drill among other products. By 1916 they were making a metal planer.
Information Sources
- The 1918 book History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut
The Waterbury Tool Company was incorporated in September, 1898, by Horace G. Hoadley, who has been its president and treasurer since that time. Its capital is $280,000. It began building the Universal ratchet drill invented by Prof. Harvey D. Williams of Cornell. This was perfected by Reynold Janney, who has been vice president and chief engineer of the company since 1904. Its hydraulic machines for transmitting power at variable speeds are now used for turret turning, gun-elevating, shell hoists and powder hoists, rammers, main steering gear, and to control submarine diving rudders.
This business was started on the top floor of the factory of the New Britain Machine Company in that city. Later the present site on East Aurora Street, Waterbury, was bought and a large factory was built. The main building is 120 by 212 feet, and one of the best equipped structures in the country.
The company has built for rental to its employees nine one-family frame houses on the part of its 10-acre shop site most distant from the present machine shop. A 40-foot street has been laid out and the houses built on both sides of it. They are of five dissimilar types so that the group does not have the appearance of factory houses. They are of five and six rooms, on lots 50 by 120 feet, and have city water, bathrooms, hot-air furnaces, electric light and arrangements for sewage disposal by means of septic tanks. The company has also built, for rental to foremen, on lots 60 by 140 feet, within fifteen minutes' walk of the shop, two twin houses with modern improvements.
The officials of the Waterbury Tool Company are Horace G. Hoadley, president and treasurer; Reynold Janney, vice president and chief engineer; Charles P. Haight, secretary and assistant treasurer, and William S. Wilkinson, superintendent.