In 1856, Mr. Cady—a manufacturer of chairs and brooms—developed a new machine for sawing firewood and lath, and also shelling corn. This was a bigger and more expensive saw than most firewood saws, but it was apparently a profitable product for a few years. Having moved from Ohio to Detroit in 1860 in order to start a woodenware and broom factory there, he moved back to Ohio in 1865 to settle on a piece of land that he had received in payment of a debt, and resumed making his firewood saw. Oil was discovered on this land, and Cady made good money off of it and his firewood saw before moving to New Jersey in 1867, and subsequently to Philadelphia, where he opened yet another broom factory.

Information Sources

• Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Agriculture of the Sate of Ohio for the year 1856, List of entries at the seventh annual fair of Ohio, Cleveland, September 1856. Wm. Cady, Laporte, wood sawing machine (Commended) "Wm. Cady, of North Eaton, Lorain county, Ohio, exhibited a two-horse power sawing machine, which costs $75, weighs 800 and not only can it saw 18 cords of wood per day, but shells corn, and saws lath, with the same power, at the same time."
• Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, New Jersey, Volume 2, edited by Francis Bazley Lee, 1907, has the following biography:

  William Cady, fifth son and eighth and youngest child of George Washington and Sarah (Gates) Cady, was born in Albany, New York, April 22, 1818. He acquired as good an education as was at that time to be obtained in the public schools, and supplemented this with home study and keen observation. He then engaged in farming on a farm of his father, and later bought and operated a farm, where he commenced the manufacture of chairs and brooms, in Ridgeville, Ohio, where he resided until 1860. He then removed to Detroit, Michigan, where he started a factory for the manufacture of woodenware and brooms, near the lumber regions of the state, remained there for a period of five years, and then removed to Marietta, Ohio, where he had been obliged to take a tract of land as settlement of a debt. Oil was discovered on this land, and he remained there for one year, previously inventing a machine for the improved sawing of lumber. This proved very profitable, and the oil wells on his land productive, and brought him in a very satisfactory income. He then decided to settle in New Jersey, and accordingly purchased a farm in Washington township, in 1867. This consisted of one hundred and thirteen acres, and he cultivated it for general products. Later he removed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, renting his farm in shares, and started a factory for the manufacture of brooms, employing thirty men. He resided there and in Camden, New Jersey, for eight years, then returned to Washington township for two years, and in 1879 came to his present home in Hamilton Square. The broom business, which he started in Philadelphia, is now carried on by his grandson, William T. Waters, and Mr. Cady has lived retired from the active cares of a business life since 1880. ...