Information Sources

• The Massachusetts corporate registry database lists this company's first registration as 1855-07-23. This is not consistent with the history given below and we cannot yet reconcile the two.
• History of Bridgeport and vicinity, Volume 2 edited by George Curtis Waldo (Jr.), 1917 page 797.

  Elwin R. Hyde acquired a public school education and afterward spent a year in the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, meeting the expenses of that course through his own labor, for the flood had wiped out all of the family property and left the boys destitute. For a short time he was employed in a wood-working shop and then started out upon the road in 1874. He is one of the oldest representatives of the emery wheel business, having been for forty-three years connected therewith. He started out with the Northampton Emery Wheel Company of Leeds, Massachusetts, in 1874, as a traveling salesman and later began business on his own account with his three brothers and Daniel T. Homan. They opened a plant at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1880, under the name of the Springfield Glue & Emery Wheel Company, and in 1890 a removal was made to Bridgeport, at which time the name was changed to the Springfield Emery Wheel Manufacturing Company. They erected a factory building on Howard Avenue. Mr. Hyde left that company about 1892 and for a decade conducted a private business in the same line, establishing a factory in that line at 82 Knowlton Street where the plant has ever since been located. In 1903, however, he organized the business as the Bridgeport Safety Emery Wheel Company, Incorporated, of which he became the treasurer arid manager, with D. T. Homan as president and M. P. Hyde as secretary; In 1916. to meet the Jemands of the business, the company's capitalization was increased and Elwin R. Hyde became president; D. T. Homan, vice president; A. H. Kean, treasurer; and M. P. Hyde, secretary. They manufacture direct current motor-driven dry grinders in seven sizes, alternating current motor-driven grinders in seven sizes, structural iron grinders, belt-driven dry grinders, edge and surface grinders, belt-driven and motor-driven tool grinders, belt and motor-driven combination wet and dry grinders, cup wheel knife grinders, belt and motor-driven, motor-driven buffing lathes, twist drill and plain grinders, swing-frame grinders and special grinders—in fact, almost everything in grinding wheels machinery and polishing machinery, both belt and motor-driven. They employ about fifty people and their product is sold direct to consumers mostly but also to dealers in all parts of the country, the output being used by various kinds of factories. Mr. Homan travels on the road all of the time, selling the product, while Mr. Hyde has direct management of the business in Bridgeport. The company occupies a two story and basement building one hundred by thirty-five feet, with a one-story L ninety by thirty feet, and another one-story building one hundred and sixty by sixty feet. Their plant is equipped with electric power group driven machinery. In addition to the buildings mentioned the company has a plot of ground with a frontage of four hundred and twenty-five feet on the New Haven Railway, where they have erected one building for the emery wheel department that is one hundred and forty by sixty feet. This is of steel and concrete construction, with the side walls practically all windows, to furnish an abundance of light.