The firm of Montgomery & Co. built machinery at the Yonkers Machine Works (also known as the Montgomery Machine Works) between 1854 and 1857 and perhaps for some years before that. It was succeeded by the New York Steam Saw-Mill & Machine Co. which survived until at least 1860. Under these names were manufactured a bolt cutting machine, steam engines, sugar-cane mills, shingle mills, and Lund's patent steam sawmill.

Prior to 1855 William Montgomery, William Garrabrant and Isaac Reeve were the partners in Montgomery & Co. In January 1855 Reeve's interest was bought out by his two partners, who continued in the same business under the same name.

Sometime between mid-1855 and mid-1856 Garrabrant sold his interest to Montgomery who then sold an interest to George D. Lund. It seems that at all times Montgomery maintained a majority interest in the business and also maintained managerial control of the business. Lund would be granted 1856 and '57 patents for steam sawmills that were manufactured by Montgomery & Co. By the second half of 1857 the business was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and in October of that year the New York Steam Saw-Mill & Machine Co. was organized by Montgomery and Lund to take over the assets of Montgomery & Co. The predecessor firm was allowed to fall into bankruptcy and, in Montgomery's thinking, taking its liabilities with it. An 1865 lawsuit would find that this re-organization was an attempt to fraudulently evade creditors and it seems clear that Mr. Montgomery was the primary perpetrator of this fraud.

Information Sources

• 1855 Transactions of the American Institute of the City of New York, page 57, lists William Montgomery of Yonkers as exhibiting a Bolt Cutting Machine at that years Fair of the American Institute where it won a Silver Medal.
• 1865 lawsuit Booth v. Bunce provides the much of the history given here. The lawsuit involves the promissory notes given to Reeve as payment for his share of Montgomery & Co. A specific steam engine that was manufactured by Montgomery and Lund had its title was signed over to Mr. Booth, the man holding those promissory notes, as an agreed settlement of the notes. Montgomery and Lund, under the rationale that that previous debt was part of the bankruptcy of Montgomery & Co., sold this same engine again as settlement for a different and newer debt to the company that was making boilers for the New York Steam Saw-Mill & Machine Co. This led to the lawsuit, which was messy and stretched over several years of a jury verdict for the plaintiffs, the judge overruling the verdict, and three appeals where the same verdict and overruling repeated. The New York Court of Appeals ultimately found that the question of fraud was consistently and quickly decided in the affirmative by each jury. The Court determined that this meant that both sides had a "legitimate" claim to the steam engine in question and applied the legal principle that with equal claims under the law the older claim takes precedence, thus the engine went to the creditor who first acquired the engine as settlement for the promissory notes to Reeves.
• 2011 book The American Cane Mill page 211, provides the information on Wm. Montgomery & Co. and its product line.
• Searches for patents granted or assigned to William Montgomery, William Garrabrant, Isaac Reeves, George D. Lund, and the New York Steam Saw-Mill & Machine Co. only turned up the two steam sawmill patents granted to Lund.