Samuel Flagg & Co. was established in 1847, with Samuel Flagg, Henry Holland, L. W. Pond and Ephraim H. Bellows. They made metal-working machinery including lathes and planers. In 1861 Pond bought out Flagg and the others and reorganized the business under the name of L. W. Pond.

Information Sources

• 1877 book, Reminiscences of Worcester, by Caleb Arnold Wall, page 108.

  The late Samuel Flagg, machinist, of Worcester, born in Holden in 1784, who removed to West Boylston in 1808, and from West Boylston to Worcester in 1840, where he started an extensive machinist establishment, was son of Jonathan Flagg, who lived in the northwest part of Holden.

• American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001
• 1916 book English and American Tool Builders, by Joseph Wickham Roe, page 222.

  Samuel Flagg moved to Worcester from West Boylston in 1839, to be near the Wheeler Foundry from which he got his castings. "Uncle Sammy Flagg" was the first man in Worcester to devote himself entirely to tool building, and is considered the father of the industry there. He made hand and engine lathes in rented quarters in the Old Court Mills, which has been called the cradle of the Worcester tool building industry. His first lathes were light and crude, with a wooden bed, wrought-iron strips for ways, chain-operated carriage, and cast gears, as cut gears were unheard of in the city at that time.... [About 1852]Flagg meantime had organized the firm of Samuel Flagg & Company, which included two of his former apprentices, L. W. Pond and E. H. Bellows. Pond later bought out Flagg and Bellows and developed the business greatly. It was incorporated as the Pond Machine Tool Company in 1875...

• Industrial Worcester by Charles G. Washburn 1917, page 122.

  The firm of Samuel Flagg & Co. was organized in 1847. Mr. Flagg associated with him Henry Holland and two of his former apprentices, L. W. Pond, and Ephraim H. Bellows. They started in the second floor of Heywood's building, in a room twenty feet by forty. They remained there for a short time, until Allen & Thurber's building was ready for tenants, when they moved into the north end; they remained there until 1849, when William T. Merrifield put up his first brick building; they then moved into the same location occupied by the Wheelock Steam Engine Company in 1889. Shortly before the fire they took the whole basement, and were burned out in 1854, when they went into the lower floor of the Goddard & Rice factory in Union Street, where they remained until the Merrifield buildings were rebuilt, to which they returned, remaining until 1861. Prior to this time Mr. Pond had bought out the others in interest. Meantime J. B. Lawrence, in 1854, built the east end of the building later occupied by the Pond Machine Tool Company. In 1861 L. W. Pond purchased this, and built the west end, and continued there until 1875, when the business was continued by the Pond Machine Tool Company, which in 1888 removed to Plainfield, N. J. While in Worcester, they maintained a high reputation for the quality of their work, excelling particularly in the production of large tools. The Pond Company is now incorporated in the Niles-Bement-Pond Co.