C. Sidney Norris & Co., established in the 1840s, was primarily a supplier of cabinet hardware, upholstery supplies, and window blinds. None of those are of interest to the VintageMachinery website, but as a logical extension of their hardware business, in the 1880s they sold a special machine that cut mortises for the Norris Patent Sash Pulley. They also were also assigned an 1885 patent for a planer-matcher but we cannot confirm that they manufactured this machine. At the time of these woodworking machinery innovations, the company was owned and operated by Richard Cromwell and Frank B. Sloan.

From December 1882 Carpentry & Building

Joseph Clarkson was the inventor of several of the Norris company's innovative products, including the sash pulley, the mortiser, and the planer-matcher. As well. Clarkson's sons were active in C. Sidney Norris & Co. and its successor (or spin-off, we're not certain), Norris Sash Pulley Co. The elder Clarkson went on to establish Joseph Clarkson & Son, and that firm may have manufactured the planer-matcher whose patent was assigned to C. Sidney Norris & Co.

Information Sources

• The 1882 book, Industries of Maryland.

  Sidney Norris & Co., Cabinet Hardware, Upholstery Goods and Sash and Blind Manufacturers’ Supplies, No. 36 Hanover Street.— This enterprise was started about forty years ago by C. Sidney Norris, and from a modest beginning kept on enlarging, and to-day does the most extensive business of any house of its class in Baltimore. The firm occupies the large five-story building No. 36 Hanover Street, 30x100 feet in size with each floor running the entire length of the building. Their stock embraces everything in the line of cabinet upholstery goods, and sash and blind manufacturers' supplies. They also keep in stock a full line of moss, tow, excelsior, hair, jute, African fibre, raw silks, terries, cotelines. plush, burlaps, twines, ticking, gimps, fringes, buttons, tufts, etc. The house are also agents and represent the following well-known companies: Eagle Lock Co., Gaylord Lock Co., American Screw Co., Gardiner & Co., chair seats, etc.; P. & F. Corbin, brass butts, etc.; Foster, Merriam & Co., Wakefield Rattan Co., Pawtucket Hair Cloth Co.. and W. B. Gleason & Co., pressed ornaments. The trade of the house extends over the entire Southwest and Northwest, and even to the Pacific coast. The present firm is a continuation of the old house of Sidney Norris & Co., and consists of Mr. Richard Cromwell and Mr. Frank B. Sloan, both well known gentlemen of experience in this branch of trade, and thorough energetic and reliable men, who are both courteous and obliging, and with whom it is a pleasure to deal. Mr. Richard Cromwell is president of the Mount Vernon Duck Company, one of the largest duck factories in the world.

• Ad in December 1882 Carpentry & Building for the "Norris Patent Sash Pulley Guage" [sic], i.e., the mortising machine.