Isaac Henry Small.
THIS gentleman, well and widely known as the senior member of the firm of I. H. Small & Son, at 574 Brannan street, has been for many years prominently identified with the manufacture of wood-working and other machinery in this city, and is therefore entitled to a more extended mention in this connection than our limited space will permit. He may properly be referred to as the father of the industry of which he has for many years made a specialty, the establishment of which he is the head having been founded by him in 1864, and having always been the leading and indeed the only one of importance in its line upon the Pacific Coast. Mr. Small has also been the inventor of many ingenious and useful appliances and improvements in labor-saving machinery, which have been of great utility in the wood-worker's art, besides having perfected and put into practical form the ideas of hundreds of others. Isaac Henry Small is a native of Bowdoinham, in the State of Maine, where he was born on November 6, 1828, and is therefore now in his sixty-first year. His ancestors on his father's side were among the early colonial settlers of New England, from Scotland originally, while his mother was of English and Irish extraction. Beyond a doubt Mr. Small has inherited the shrewdness and business tact of his Scottish Irish ancestry, with the good-natured bonhommie of the latter, while strongly predominating are the mental traits and characteristics which distinguish New Englanders, and which have made them the greatest inventors of the age. This gentleman is of Revolutionary stock, his grandfather having served in the War of Independence, and his father having "done the state some service" in that of 1812-15 with Great Britain.
After receiving his education in the public schools of Brunswick, in his native State, at the age of sixteen he entered the employ of his father, who was engaged in the merchandising business. Young Small early showed a decided penchant for mechanics and kindred pursuits, and finding the confinement of his position irksome, he retired from his father's counting-room and engaged in the business which was to be the employment of his future life. He entered a factory extensively engaged in the manufacture of machinery, and which was especially noted for its output of the various machines used in saw-mills and flouring mills. His adaptability to his chosen business was soon made evident. He progressed rapidly in the knowledge of his trade in all its departments and details, and while yet a very young man had risen to be the master mechanic of the establishment. His position was a responsible and lucrative one, but he was young, active, energetic, and withal ambitious, and California offered a more promising field for the attainment of his desires than did older Atlantic States. He contracted the "gold fever," and on the 18th of January, 1854, he bade adieu to family and friends, and started to seek his fortune on the shores of the Pacific. Coming by the Nicaragua route, he arrived in San Francisco on February 23, 1854, remaining in the city but a few days, when he started for the mines at Horseshoe Bar, where his two brothers—who had preceded him to California—had located a raining claim. Here he had his first experience with the "pan," the "rocker," and the "long tom." The claim was a good one, and in a single season he was made comparatively rich, but becoming badly affected with the poison oak of the locality he left the mines and returned to San Francisco. He here engaged in teaming on an extensive scale. The business was successful and profitable; he made money, and finally disposing of his interest to advantage, he returned to his Eastern home on a visit to his relatives and friends, to whom the recital of the adventures and experiences of the young and adventurous Argonaut in tho then distant California were, of course, of great interest.
Possessed of the necessary capital, Mr. I. H. Small established a machine shop at Old Cambridge, near Boston, Mass., but, as has been the case with hundreds of old Californians, he concluded to make the Golden State his future home and base of operations. This was in 1857, and Mr. Small sold out his establishment at Old Cambridge and returned to the State of his adoption by the Nicaragua route—the same by which he had come in 1854. At this early day, the feasibility of an inter-oceanic canal by way of Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan river had already been mooted, and Mr. Small became interested in the project. He has since remained a believer in and advocate of this great undertaking, and it is probably now but a question of time when it will be an accomplished fact.
For some three years after his return to California Mr. Small was employed in the Vulcan Foundry, and in 1860 entered into business on his own account at Petaluma. Remaining at that place less than a year, he was offered and accepted the foremanship of the Pacific Foundry in San Francisco. In 1862 he filled a similar position in the Golden State Foundry, and some two years subsequently, in 1864, he bought the machine shop at the corner of Market and Beale streets, and began the manufacture of wood-working machinery. The establishment thus founded was the first devoted exclusively to this class of machinery, and, as we have said, Mr. Small thus became entitled to be called the father of this new and important industry. This gentleman now devoted his entire time and attention to the development of his business, and was very successful. He made several inventions and improvements upon principles already formulated, among the most important of which were the justly celebrated Small planers and wood cutting machinery, which have achieved the reputation of being by far the best ever produced. These valuable machines have come into very extended use, and the demand on Messrs. Small & Son's establishment has not been confined locally, but extends throughout the neighboring States and Territories, British Columbia, Mexico, the Hawaiian Islands, and even to distant Australia and New Zealand, where a number are in successful operation. Another of the inventions of I. H. Small is the roller re-saw, which is superior to any yet devised for box-makers' use. This ingeniously constructed device is a top-and-bottom saw, capable of splitting boards at the rate of 100 feet per minute, or four times as much as was possible with similar machines twelve years ago. The roller re-saw has been in use now about six years. The slotted cutterhead used to hold the knives in position on wood planers is one of the many and by no means the least important of the inventions emanating from the fertile and inventive brain of Mr. I. H. Small. This valuable appliance was produced in San Francisco several years before it came into use in the Eastern States, and had Mr. Small taken the precaution to patent it, it would alone have yielded him a fortune.
The inventive and mechanical faculty possessed by this gentleman has also been of great practical advantage to hundreds of others, who, having conceived an idea of value, were unable to develop it, and through his instrumentality numbers of machines and devices have added to the working power of manipulators of wood and the useful metals. Mr. Small is not only a skilled and experienced mechanic, but is an accomplished draughtsman and designer. Designing may be considered his "forte," and an important branch of the business.
In 1876 the factory and works were removed from their old location to Nos. 574-576 Brannan street, near Fifth, where Messrs. I. H. Small & Son have enjoyed a monopoly, and still control the business in the lines of which they make a specialty. In August, 1886, the establishment was destroyed in the memorable fire which swept that portion of the city, but from its ashes, Phoenix-like, has risen a completely and thoroughly equipped factory for the production of wood-working and other machinery; a specialty, as said, being made of the former.
Mr. I. H. Small has thus seen our fair city grow from comparative insignificance to its present greatness and prosperity, and he may well take a pride in the general advancement and manufacturing progress in which he has been so largely interested.
This gentleman is an old and prominent member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which great organization he is at present a Past Grand. He has been for many years Treasurer of the order in San Francisco, and now fills that honorable and responsible position. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the I. O. O. F. Hall Association, and as such took a prominent part in the erection of the magnificent and stately building which rears its lofty walls at the corner of Market and Seventh streets, and which is the most elegant and imposing hall of the I. O. O. F. in the world. Mr. Small took a leading part in the sale of the old property on Montgomery Street, and has since been on the Auditing Committee in the new temple.
Mr. Small has been twice married, having lost his first wife by death some eighteen years ago. His son by this union, Mr. Charles Henry Small, is now his business associate, and has displayed rare ability both as a mechanic and a general business man. This gentleman was born March 2, 1852, and has been an invaluable addition to the firm originally founded by his father. He is spoken of in the highest terms by all who know him, both in his business relations and social capacity.
The present wife of Mr. Small is an estimable lady whose maiden name was Julia Helen Gerow. The light of the household is a charming and interesting child of less than three years, with the pretty and poetical name of Gladys.
In addition to his prominent connection with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Mr. Isaac H. Small is also a member of the A. O. U. W. and of the Knights of Honor, in the deliberations and operations of which societies he takes a lively and active interest and participation.