In 1845 or '46 I. S. Chapman sold his machine shop in the Court Mills in Worcester to a pair of his employees, Alexander and Sewall Thayer, who operated the shop as A. & S. Thayer. It is unknown what the shop had done under Chapman's ownership but with the Thayers they were making engine lathes and employed ten men.

At some point during those early years the business moved from Court Mills into Allen & Thurber's Pistol Shop, which stood just south of Merrifield's engine-house, sharing it with Samuel Flagg & Co. They afterwards moved into the Dr. Heywood building, in Central Street. While there, Sewall Thayer died. Upon his death, Alexander Thayer took as partners Hannibal Hamlin Houghton and Edwin C. Cleveland; Machinist and designer Houghton had been an employee of Chapman but had been working elsewhere for some years. As for Cleveland, he reportedly had been making and selling machinist's tools in a small way. This partnership went by the name Thayer, Houghton & Co.

At some point they moved back into the pistol-shop, and remained in Union Street until a fire in 1854 destroyed the building. Once again they moved, this time to premises on Washington Street. Mr. Cleveland retired from the business in 1857 to start a new business making cloth-finishing machines. Thayer, Houghton & Co. continued without Cleveland until 1862 when the business went bankrupt, throwing their 150 employees out of work. The company's assets were acquired by the New York Steam Engine Works, which resumed production of the Thayer, Houghton & Co. lathes, planers and other machine tools until 1877 when the factory closed for good.

After getting out of the machinery business, H. H. Houghton had a diverse career. He co-founded a trust company, served as alderman, and invested in real estate. He also opened a new machine shop under his own name ("H. H. Houghton"). Alexander Thayer, meanwhile, stayed with the New York Steam Engine Co. for a couple of years but then left to go work for the as New Haven Manufacturing Co. He died in 1895.

Information Sources

• 1845 The Worcester Directory page 57: "Chapman Isham S. machinist, court mill, h 5 Thomas".
• A document on the Assumption College website says of the 1854 fire, "Thayer, Houghton, & Co., machinists' tools; loss $20,000. Insured for $7,500, Metropolitan Boston; at $2500 in Franklin." It also indicates that 45 were put out of work at Thayer, Houghton.
• History of Worcester and Its People, by Charles Nutt, provided much of the history here.
• Wiley's American iron trade manual of the leading iron industries of the United States lists, for Worcester, "H. H. Houghton—machinery and machine tools."
• The EAIA's Directory of American Toolmakers does not list this firm or any of its principals. Likewise, Kenneth Cope's Makers of American Machinist's Tools does not list this firm or its principals.
• Kenneth Cope's American Planer, Shaper and Slotter Builders has an entry for the New York Steam Engine Works of New York, NY and Worcester, MA:

  Formed about 1860 to make steam engines, the firm began the manufacture of lathes and other machine tools in 1862 when it purchased the assets of THAYER, HOUGHTON & CO. Production of the Thayer, Houghton line of machine tools, including crank shapers (Fig.1), continued under the management of Alexander Thayer (1812-1895).

  Thayer left in 1864 to join the NEW HAVEN MFG. CO. Alfred B. Couch (1829-1888 was then appointed superintendent and general manager...

• Lawrence B. Romaine's A Guide to American Trade Catalogs 1744-1900 lists a 12-page 1861 E. C. Cleveland illustrated catalog of cloth-finishing machinery. The catalog was in the collection of the Baker Library at Harvard University.
• A patent search for Houghton came up dry. Likewise, searches for the Thayers were unsuccessful. A search on E. C. Cleveland turned up three patents related to cloth-making; the patents provide his first name, Edwin.
• Correspondent Ed Jarvis provided the information that the company went out of business in 1862, was bought out by New York Steam Engine Co.and closed in 1877.
• 1889 book History of Worcester County, Massachusetts Vol. II, by D. Hamilton Hurd, page 1620.

  A. & S. Thayer began at Court Mills in 1845, where they employed ten men in the manufacture of engine lathes. These were an improvement upon the lathes then in use, and attracted much attention among machinist.

  A. & S. Thayer moved from Court Mills into Allen & Thurber's Pistol Shop, which stood just south of Merrifield's engine-house, and was burned in 1854.

  They occupied the south-end basement, while Samuel Flagg & Co. occupied the north end. They afterwards moved into the Dr. Heywood building, in Central Street. While there, Sewall Thayer died. Upon his death, Alexander Thayer associated with Hannibal Hamlin Houghton and Edwin C. Cleveland. They moved back into the pistol-shop, and remained in Union Street till the fire, when they removed to Washington Street (the location of the Allen Boiler Works) and continued in business until 1857, when Mr. Cleveland retired. They continued the business at the Washington Street shop until the breaking out of the war, or a little later, and were employing about one hundred and fifty men, and making some of the finest tools in the country, when the business was bought by the New York Steam-Engine Company, and continued a short time under that name, when it was moved to Passaic, N. J., and finally went out of existence.

• Industrial Worcester by Charles G. Washburn 1917, Davis Press.
• 1898 Collections of the Worcester Society of Antiquity: V. 16, page 553, in a section on the inhabitants of Thomas Street.

  ...Then came an upright double dwelling-house of wood, the east half owned by Mr. I. S. Chapman, and the west by Mr. Silas Dinsmore. Mr. Chapman lived in th eeast part. He kept a shoe-store on Main street for many years; He died long ago; his widow deceased a few years since; both Mr. and Mrs. Chapman died in the old home; there were no children in the family.

Worcester Historical Society (Mass.) · 1898
• 1899 book The Worcester of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-eight: Fifty Years a City, edited by Franklin P. Rice, page 532 in a chapter with reminiscences of Hannibal Hamlin Houghton.

  ...I found myself on the 14th day of January, 1846, in the town of Worcester, which then contained 8,000 inhabitants. After considerable vain effort to obtain employment, I was, through the intercession of a friend, taken on trial by Mr. I. S. Chapman, who had a shop in the old Court Mills. My employer, finding the first day that I could easily attend to three lathes while the other men would manage only one each, fixed my wages at $1.16 2-3 per day for two months, $1.25 from then to April 1st. At this time the machinery and tools were purchased by A. & S. Thayer, when Mr. Chapman retired on account of ill health, and bought a shoe-store in Main street. I worked for the Thayers several years, most of the time on new inventions, for which my early life had especially fitted me....

• Findagrave.com listing for Isham S. Chapman (1810-1861); Sewall Thayer (1822-1853); Alexander Thayer (1813-1895); Hannibal Hamlin Houghton (1827-1898).