In 1845 brothers John Barnett and Stephen D. Barnett opened gray-iron foundry in Newark. John left the business a couple of years later and Stephen continued the business as a sole proprietorship. He proved to be an able manager and the business prospered in the face of established competition. In about 1849 Stephen's eldest son, Oscar Barnett, began working in the business, and in about 1852 another son, Richard M. Barnett, also joined. Stephen died in 1863 and Oscar took control of the business, operated it under the name Oscar Barnett Foundry. He proved to be an able but autocratic leader who never allowed anyone else to make any decision or show any initiative.

Shortly after his older brother assumed control of the business, Richard Barnett left and started a furniture business, which failed a couple of years later, and Richard rejoined his brother's firm. This pattern, of relatives leaving to start another business, failing, and returning, would be repeated. Working at the Oscar Barnett Foundry did not provide anyone other than Oscar Barnett with the skills to run a business.

The foundry manufactured castings for carriages and home interiors among other specialties. In later years the product lineup would include foundry flasks, flask clamps, crucibles, sprue cutters, tumbling barrels, melting furnaces, foundry tools, stokers, and pneumatic door closers.

Oscar Barnett died in 1894 and the business lost all momentum, closing its retail shop and ceasing all advertising. It seems that no-one in the family was capable of taking over the business, and finally, in 1899, Gerald Hannay and Thomas Hannah (yes, similar but not identical surnames) acquired the business and in September of that year incorporated it as the Oscar Barnett Foundry Co.; Albert D. Barnett, and Oscar Barnett, Jr., were included in the incorporation. The name was changed in 1918 to the Oscar Barnett Foundry & Machine Co.

Information Sources

• The Industrial Interests of Newark, N. J, 1874, pg. 61.

  OSCAR BARNETT, 34 and 36 McWhorter Street. This hardware and machinery manufactory was established in 1845, and is now one of the prominent iron works of Newark. Mr. Barnett is a leading manufacturer of malleable iron castings, and also makes a specialty of carriage castings, patent bedstead fastenings, brass moulders' flasks, and Barnett's blind hinges, the last named being made from original designs ; also, an extra quality of machinists' tools. Productions are sold over the whole country, and also have an exporting demand, shipments being made monthly to Australia. The foundry and machine works give employment to 150 hands, and their wages each week amount to $1,500. The annual production of castings, hardware and machinery, amounts to $150,000.

• American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001
• The Iron Trade Review, Vol. 32, No. 39, Sep. 28, 1899. Pg. 19
• 1909 Year Book (Motor Cyclopaedia), Pg. 52
• The Automobile Trade Directory, Vol. 19, 1921, Pg. 1044
• 1945 book Prominent Families of New Jersey Volume 1, pages380-381.

  Barnett Foundry and Machine Company—An organization that has done much to help build up Newark's industrial life is the Barnett Foundry & Machine Company. Back in 1845, when Newark was just beginning to make a place for itself as a center of American industry, John and Stephen D. Barnett, started a foundry for the production of iron, a sorely needed commodity at the time. For two years these two men, who were brothers, operated their foundry in the face of stiff competition from older enterprises. Then John Barnett withdrew, leaving matters in the hands of his brother, Stephen D. Barnett, and his wife and children.

  Stephen D. Barnet began a period of steady but conservative expansion. The old foundry site proved to be too hemmed in by homes to permit adequate growth; so he obtained a larger property on McWhorter Street, four blocks away, on the far side of the railroad track, so that the smoke of his cupola would no longer belch out soot to disturb the neighbors. Two years later the oldest son of the family, Oscar Barnett, joined the foundry business, and three more years brought Oscar Barnett's younger brother, Richard M. Barnett, into the enterprise. The death of the father, Stephen D. Barnett, in 1863, place the management of the business in Oscar Barnett's hands.

  The business flourished during the Civil War period. While Oscar Barnett managed it, the younger brother, Richard Barnett, withdrew and started a furniture business of his own at No. 15 Commercial Dock. In two years the new enterprise was closed, however, and Richard Barnett was back at the foundry as an employee in what was now called the Oscar Barnett Foundry. Two brothers who were still younger, Horace B. and Walter C. Barnett, joined the organization as employees at about that same time. Thenceforth new developments were rapid and continuous. In 1868 the company did its first advertising. They opened, too, a hardware and machinery sales depot at Nos. 30-32 McWhorter Street, adjoining the foundry, which had spread out a block in length in Hamilton Street, between Bruen and McWhorter streets. The establishment was then advertised in a quarter-page display advertisement in the Newark City Directory. As an instance of the firm's foundry skill in grey iron light fine work, sore cards were cast and distributed, though the proprietors had little idea that these would comprise an essential record in the history of the organization. They were afterward immortalized as "New Jersy No. 27" in the listing of "United States Store Cards" as compiled by Edgar H. Adams.

  In 1872 the business reached a peak through the acquisition of another foundry at New Jersey Railroad Avenue and Johnson Street. This foundry was reorganized for malleable iron castings, leaving the grey iron and machine works at the old address, with the sales depot adjoining....

  Walter Barnett, the youngest of the four brothers, died in 1872. Oscar Barnett's two other brothers, Richard and Horace, then set up the new business of R. M. & H. B. Barnett, who conducted a malleable and grey iron foundry and Hermon and Johnson streets, Newark. The new firm was not successful, however. Horace Barnett returned to the Oscar Barnett Foundry immediately to resume his employment there, and Richard came back five years later. In 1899 the New Jersey Railroad Avenue plant was disposed of, and the malleable iron business came back to the main foundry site. In that same year another historic development took place—the entry into the business of representatives of the third generation. Oscar Barnett, Jr., came in 1890, and his two younger brothers, Albert D. and Frank S. Barnett, in 1891.

  A critical period for the foundry began in 1894, the year of Oscar Barnett's death. He had been a strong executive, but his methods were such as to discourage initiative on the part of others. The result was that no member of his family or any younger employee was capable of assuming the responsibilities of management. Business momentum declined during the period of estate control. The sales depot was closed, and even the firm's advertisement in the city directory disappeared. In 1899 Gerald Hannay, of East Orange, New Jersey, and his friend, Thomas Hannah, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, purchased control of the business and incorporated it as the Oscar Barnett Foundry Company.

  The company was then equipped to make heavier castings than formerly and the output was increased.

  In 1910 the company erected on land purchased by it, at Irvington, New Jersey, a new foundry, machine shop, and pattern shop and extended further the making of heavy castings.

  In 1918 the name of the company was changed to Barnett Foundry & Machine Company, as being more representative of its product.

  During the succeeding years there was great advancement in the quality of grey iron castings and in 1938 the company obtained a license to make Meehanite castings, a metal of superior quality and produced by a process that controls the quality of metal before it is poured into the moulds.

  The company has remained under the same management since its incorporation.