Ira & Ziba Gay was founded in 1830 as a partnership between two brothers. Upon the death of Ira in 1837, the firm reorganized as Gay, Silver & Co. with a new partner, Harvey Silver. When Ziba died in 1857, the firm was again reorganized as Silver, Gay & Co. with Ziba Gay Jr. as the new partner.

In 1825, Ira Gay was the chief mechanic of the Nashua Manufacturing Co., where he developed printing machinery. According to "The History of Manchester [NH]", an 1851 book by C. E. Potter, in 1831 Gay became the clerk of the newly formed Amoskeag Manufacturing Co. Gay received an 1836 patent for a planer of an interesting design. Planer knives were mounted on the beveled face of a large beveled disk, and the disk was placed underneath the planer's feed carriage. The disk's shaft was angled so that the knives were horizontal when they hit the underside of the stock to be planed. The knives thus took gently rounded cuts out of the stock. A pair of pressure rollers both fed the stock and held it firmly to the bed. Gay's design was markedly different from that of the Woodworth planer, but Woodworth was still able to stop its manufacture. Gay died 20 Aug 1837.

Ira Gay, son of Ebenezer Gay, was born October 17, 1790. He was married July 25, 1813, to Mary White, and they resided first at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and afterwards in Nashua, New Hampshire. Ira Gay died August 20, 1837. His wife died October 15, 1865. Ira and Mary (White) Gay had thirteen children, and the parents and some of the children were members of the Olive Street Congregational Church in Nashua, New Hampshire. Ira Gay was a machinist and inventor. He possessed a mechanical genius of the first order, and made many valuable improvements in manufacturing machinery. For several years he was agent of the Nashua Manufacturing Company, and at the time of his death was a director of the Nashua and Lowell Railroad, and one of a committee to superintend the building of the road. He was the first clerk and one of the first directors of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company of Manchester, New Hampshire.

Gay, Silver & Co. was succeeded by the North Chelmsford Machine & Supply Co. who built a line of small gas engines.

Information Sources

• American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001 page 65
• The History of Manchester1851
• Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs 1908 Volume 1 page 235 by William Richard Cutter
• American Machinist, V31, 15 Oct., 1908, pg. 558
• Textile World Record, V29, Sept. 1905, pg. 29
• 1917 book History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts page 668.

  The North Chelmsford Machine & Supply Company, formerly the Silver & Gay Co., and at one time, known as Gay, Silver & Co., claims to be the oldest established industry in the Town of Chelmsford, and, as such, merits an extended notice.

  Established in 1832, it has continued in operation ever since. The first authentic record of transfer is recorded in the South Middlesex registry at Cambridge, book 332, page 130 under date of May 22, 1834.

  This deed sets forth in detail that Lincoln Drake, of Easton, "in consideration of the sum of $4,000.00 before the delivery hereof well and truly paid by Ira Gay of Dunstable in the county of Hillsborough in the state of New Hampshire, Gentleman, the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, have given, grant bargain, sell, alien, enfeoff, convey and confirm unto the said Ira Gay his heirs and assigns forever, the several pieces of land, buildings, water power, and rights of where hereafter described, lying and being in the Town of Chelmsford in the County of Middlesex which were recently a part of the estate of Shepherd Leach, late of said Easton, Gentleman, deceased."

  The deed then roceeds to describe in legal terms the Machine Shop, Air Furnace and other details about the property, and stipulates that with the real estate is included, "also a water power sufficient to carry 1,000 spindles such as are now used in the Hamilton Mills at Lowell for spinning cotton yarn number fourteen with the requisite machinery for converting cotton into cloth running at the same speed as those spindles and that machinery now run which water shall be taken from the canal conducting the water to Drake's Furnaces," etc., etc.

  In 1838, a deed from Lincoln and Caroline Drake, signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of Daniel and Caroline Belcher as witnesses before Ebenezer Adams, Esq., conveyed to Ziba Gay of Nashua "three undivided fourth parts of several pieces of land together with water power and rights of way over the road between the Middlesex Turnpike and the road leading from Adams' Tavern to Lowell."

  In 1841 Ziba Gay deeded to Harvey Silver "one undivided half of all the lands, buildings, water power, rights of way, etc., included in the previous deeds to said Ziba Gay."

  Under date of Dec. 13, 1859, there is recorded a deed from Stephen Fairbanks to Harvey Silver of "one undivided fourth part" of a piece of land "upon which the machine shop, so called, stands." This deed contains the same provision previously noted in regard to power sufficient to drive 1,000 spindles, etc.

  On December 26, 1859, "in consideration of $15,000 to me paid by Ziba Gay, Jr., of Chelmsford," Ziba Gay of Nashua deeded to the said Ziba Gay, Jr., "one undivided half of all and singular the several parcels of land, buildings, water power, rights, easements, privileges, goods, fixtures and chattels, known and described as the 'Machine shop and Air furnace.' This deed contains a clause referring to "The right granted me in the said deed (of one Seth Williams) to use and occupy in common the Railroad side track for the purposes for which it was designed."

  In 1892, Mary E. Cushing and Edward H. Silver deeded "one undivided half of all the machine shop property" to Ziba Gay. This deed refers to the property as the Machine Shop and Air Furnace, and also contains the provision that the amount of water used shall be sufficient to drive 1,000 spindles such as were used in the Hamilton Mills in 1838, together with the requisite machinery for converting cotton into cloth at the same speed as then run.

  In 1898, the entire property was purchased by George C. Moore, who operated it under the name of "The North Chelmsford Machine Co." until February, 1905, when it was incorporated together with the North Chelmsford Supply Co., a manufacturing company organized in 1897 for the purpose of manufacturing leather belting, leather comb aprons, brushes and general mill supplies, also owned by George C. Moore, under the name of the North Chelmsford Machine & Supply Co. The corporation was capitalized at $50,000.00, with George C. Moore, treasurer, H. Stanley Crysler, president, and Henry Woods, secretary.

  April 27, 1901, the old building was partially destroyed by fire. The burned portion has since been replaced by a more modern building better suited to the needs of present day manufacturing. The output of this corporation has a wide distribution. In almost every state in the union, where textile manufacturing is carried on to any extent, may be found machines made in this shop. Their machines are in use today in Venezuela, Scotland, Ireland and Canada, as well as in the United States.

  The principal articles manufactured at present are automatic ball winders, yarn quillers, jack spooling machines, reels, wool scouring machinery, wool openers, leather belting, roll covering leather for worsted, jute and flax mills. Steel fallers for the same trade, worsted comb aprons and brushes and special machinery of any kind to drawing or pattern.

  This shop was one of the first, if not the very first in America to manufacture worsted yarn machinery. Some of the spinning frames built here are still running, and from all outward appearances are good for many years more.

  The automatic ball winder for winding twine, yarn, silk, etc., was originated and perfected here, and by far the largest part of all the material outside of binder twine and tarred twines used in this country are being wound on Silver & Gay ballers.

  They were the originators of, or at least among the very first to make, machinery for the manufacture of split pins, or cotter pins, and many samples of the work they did in this line are still to be seen at the shop. Among many other machines originated or perfected at this shop, may be mentioned the following: Bolt cutters, baling presses, bundling machines, doublers, drills, dynamometers for measuring power. One of these machines is used by the United States Government for measuring and determining the amount of power transmitted in the various shops at Annapolis. Also, hydraulic presses and pumps, gear cutters, Jacquard looms for the weaving of carpets, engine lathes, planers, pickers, openers and lappers, roll covering machines, saw mills, slabbers, yarn twisters, skein winders, wire winders and many other kinds of machinery are made here.

  The present buildings consist of a three-story brick main building with three-story wooden wing, and one-story boiler house with forge shop attached, also a pattern shed and pickling house of wooden construction.

  The business employs between fifty and sixty men and has run with very little interruption and no serious trouble since its beginning in 1832.