Alonzo Whitcomb, proprietor of the Whitcomb Manufacturing Company, was born at Saxton's River, a village in Rockingham, Vermont, April 30, 1818. He is a descendant of the John Whitcomb who came to Boston from England about 1630, and was one of the first settlers of Lancaster, Massachusetts. Alonzo was the oldest son of Colonel Carter Whitcomb and his wife, Lucy, a daughter of Jonadab Baker, who was a highly respected citizen of Marlborough, New Hampshire. He came to Worcester in 1845, and was employed in the machine shops of S. C. Coombs & Company until 1849, when with his brother, Carter, he purchased the copying-press business of George C. Taft on Union street, in the old Howe & Goddard shop. This business assumed considerable proportions in a few years, and the firm, then known as C. Whitcomb & Company, needing larger quarters for its growing business, moved, in 1852, into the Merrifield building at the corner of Union and Exchange streets, where it remained until burned out in the great fire of 1854. After the fire, the business was moved to the “Junction shop " for a few months, and then back again to the Merrifield building, this time at the corner of Exchange and Cypress streets. In addition to the manufacture of copying-presses, the firm also took up the manufacture of metal-working machine-tools soon after its first establishment in the Merrifield building, and this branch of the business has since far outstripped that of making copying-presses. In 1871 Carter Whitcomb retired from the firm, and it has since been known as the Whitcomb Manufacturing Company. Larger quarters still being required, Mr. Whitcomb moved, in 1872, to the 499 Estabrook shop at the Junction, and later, in 1877, to the Rice & Griffin shop on Gold street. Here Mr. Whitcomb experienced another disastrous fire, suffering a loss of $45,000, with but $5,000 insurance. In 1892 he built his present shop at the corner of Sargent and Gold streets, and has since occupied it in carrying on his business.
The principal products of the company now are metal planers, shears, punches and copying-presses, of which the first named have become the company's specialty. As many as 4,000 copying-presses were made by Mr.Whitcomb in a single year at one period, and the planers produced by him now number over 2,600. In partnership with Augustus Rice, Mr. Whit-comb succeeded to the business of Timothy F. Taft in 1866, and, as a separate firm, under the name of Rice & Whitcomb, carried on the business of making metal shears and presses, until the retirement of Mr. Rice brought about the union of the two concerns owned by Mr. Whitcomb about the year 1881.
Mr. Whitcomb was the projector and one of the founders of the Kabley Foundry Company, which carries on a very successful business of making castings at 56 Gold street, and is now its treasurer. In this fiftieth year of his business, it may be said that, notwithstanding heavy losses by two destructive fires, Mr. Whitcomb has never ceased to do business, and maintain his credit unimpaired. Personally, he is of a quiet, retiring disposition, never seeking public notice, happy in his family, and at eighty years is as active as men usually are at sixty-five.