This firm started as Noxon Brothers in 1856. They started making plows and stoves, then started making mowers and reapers. By 1870 they were also making horse-powered sawing machines, probably drag saws for firewood. The brothers incorporated as Noxon Brothers Manufacturing Co. in 1872. It appears that sawing machines were a short-lived product.

The Noxon family lost control of the company in 1898 to other shareholders, who collectively formed a majority. The name changed around this time to Noxon Co., Ltd. At the end of 1916 the company, already struggling because of the effects of World War I, suffered a devastating fire. The company had just signed a major deal with Russia to supply agricultural equipment but the fire left them unable to fulfill the contract, and the company formally ceased operations in 1918.

Information Sources

• Lovell's Canadian Dominion Directory of 1871 lists this firm as "NOXON BROTHERS, manufacturers of mowing and self raking reapers, wood sawing machines, agricultural and dairy implements". The brothers are listed as Freeman, James, and Samuel Noxon.
• A page on Access Genealogy provides the following, taken from The Canadian Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men, Ontario Volume, 1880:

  Noxon Brothers Manufacturing Company, the most extensive industry in the manufacturing line at Ingersoll, is composed of five brothers, Freeman C., James, Samuel, Stephen, and Thomas H., sons of Samuel Noxon, senior, who was born and spent his days in the County of Prince Edward, Ontario, and grandson of James Noxon, a United Empire Loyalist from Duchess County, N. Y. The grandfather settled in Prince Edward at the close of the American Revolution. The mother of these five sons was Rhoda White. They received a business education in the public schools of their native county, James, the second son, adding a few terms of study at the Jefferson County Institute, Watertown, N. Y.

  Samuel Noxon, senior, owned a large farm and saw mill, and as his sons had a mechanical turn of mind, he built a shop for wood work expressly for their use. In that shop they made anything to which they applied their skill farm wagons, buggies, cutters, threshing machines, &c., &c. Their hands seemed to gain the mastery, almost by intuition, of nearly every kind of mechanics tools, this being particularly the case with Freeman, James, and Samuel.

  In 1855 James and Samuel Noxon came to Ingersoll, Stephen following in 1865, and Freeman C. the oldest, and Thomas H. the youngest, in 1869. At first the two pioneers in this town started a foundry, and made plows and stoves only. After a while they dropped stoves and commenced the manufacture of mowers and reapers, and grain drills, still making them a specialty. They usually turn out about 1,500 reapers and mowers, and 1,000 grain drills, doing a business from $230,000 to $250,000 a year; and employing, in inside work, about 120 men, and a large force outside. No other manufacturing establishment in town has done, or is doing, half so much to build it up, though there are several large factories and mills in the place.

  Their buildings cover four or five acres, the main building being 460 feet long, and the greater part 125 feet wide, and one and two stories high. The location is on Thames Street, directly between the Great Western and Credit Valley Railway tracks, with the station of the former road joining on the north, and that of the latter on the south, thus having the best conveniences possible for shipment of machines. In the large office (25 x 65 feet) are branches of the Dominion and Montreal Telegraph offices, and a branch of the American Express office.

  The reapers and mowers manufactured in these shops include the Standard Combined, the Standard Single Reaper, and the Standard Light Mower, and are second in quality to nothing of the kind manufactured in the Province. The graindrills made by Noxon Brothers, are the celebrated Hoosier, which attracted so much attention at the International Centennial Exhibition, held at Philadelphia in 1876. It is manufactured also as a combined drill and broadcast seeder, and includes in its make up, all the best points found in the latest and best machines of the kind. This company also manufactures hand and power feed cutters, cultivavators, horse sawing machines, &c., but nothing that is cheap and frail. The best timber and iron is put into these machines, and their durability as well as excellence keep the price at fair remunerative rates. Their reapers and mowers are found in every part of the Dominion where grain and grass grow, and are very popular.

  The Noxon Brothers Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1872. James being President; Samuel, Secretary and Treasurer; Freeman, Superintendent, the other two brothers having particular charges outside. All have families but Stephen. All have managed to keep out of office except James, who has had responsibilities in the municipalities of the town and county quite as often and quite as long as he has desired them. As head manager of these great manufacturing works, his labors and responsibilities are all, it is evident, that he covets.

• A RootsWeb page with clips from 19th century issues the Perth Courier mentions that the 1889-02-08 issue carries an ad for "Noxon Brothers, manufacturers of steel frame and grain drills"
• 1907 publication Industrial Ingersoll Illustrated.

  THE NOXON IMPLEMENT WORKS

  Canada is pre-eminently an agricultural county, very large areas being under cultivation for the growing of grain and grasses. This opens up a large field for the use of labour-saving implements and machinery to aid the farmer in sowing seed and harvesting the crop...blah blah blah the writer was being paid by the word blah blah Jeez will this filler ever end there are so many many words saying absolutely nothing...

  The Noxon Implement Works... covers an area of five acres and employs a large staff of men.

  In recent years a large foreign trade has been developed in Great Britain, Germany, France and other European countries, and New Zealand, and Australia, in addition to the large trade done in Canada...

  C. W. Riley is President, W. F. Johnston, general manager; J. W. Cudlipp, superintendent. Cecil Johnston, sales manager, and Mr. J. Anderson, office manager. The annual output of the works reaches about a million dollars, and the wages and salaries aggregate about $100,000 a year...

• We have seen a couple of listings for Noxon Brothers cutout-style wrenches.
• Envelope with "NOXON BROS. MF'G. CO. LIMITED / INGERSOLL, ONTARIO / Manufacturers of light steel twine, grinders, mowers, (illegible), rakes, Hoosier(?) grain drills, cultivators and seeders". The envelope has an 1892 postmark.
• From a web page for the Business Library at the University of Western Ontario comes the following:

  NOXON BROS.

  Emery, George Neil. Noxons of Ingersoll, 1856-1918: The Family and the Firm in Canada's Agricultural Implements Industry.

  DBWSTK F1059.5.I54N694 2001 (Another copy is available in the Regional Collection).

  From the introduction: "Over six decades, from 1856 to 1918, the Noxon Company manufacturers of agricultural implements became the preeminent enterprise in Ingersoll, Ontario, and a major firm in Canada's implements industry." For another example of a Canadian firm in this industry see George White & Sons or Massey Ferguson.

• A patent search showed that the company name changed to Noxon Co., Ltd. by 1914. No patents related to woodworking machinery were found: all were for agricultural products.