This firm was founded in 1889 as Greaves & Klusman by William A. Greaves and Herman H. Klusman to manufacture machine tools and woodworking machinery. For some years previous the principals had worked together at Lomas Forge & Bridge Works. An 1889 ad says "Greaves & Klusman" were "successors to Dietz, Woermann & Co.

Ad from May 1889 issue of The Wood-Worker

Ad from January 1901 issue of The Wood-Worker

In 1898 or '99 the company name changed to Greaves, Klusman & Co. In 1914 the company reorganized as the Greaves-Klusman Tool Co. Reading between the lines, the company appears to have been in some financial difficulty, and this reorganization did not solve the problems. In 1917 a new and apparently better-capitalized company was formed, Acme-Greaves Machine Tool Co., to take over the business of both Greaves-Klusman Tool Co. and the Acme Machine Tool Co. William A. Greaves was among those involved in establishing Acme-Greaves, but a few months later he left and formed Greaves Machine Tool Co. with his three sons. Acme-Greaves was dissolved the following year. Greaves Machine Tool Co. was subsequently acquired by J. A. Fay & Egan Co.

Greaves, Klusman & Co. is best known for their metal-working lathes. Their woodworking machinery line was modest in scope but of good quality.

Information Sources

• Listed in Chandler W. Jones' Planers, Matchers and Molders in America as an active woodworking machinery maker in 1897.
• The U. K. metalworking lathes site has an excellent page on Greaves, Klusman & Co., including company history and information on their metalworking lathes.
• According to the Cincinnati City Directory, they were Greaves & Klusman in 1898, and Greaves, Klusman & Co. in 1899. Thanks to Eric Lavelle for finding those references.
• A Hendrie & Bolthoffbandsaw seems to have been actually made by Greaves, Klusman & Co. Hendrie & Bolthoff did some manufacturing themselves but they were primarily a reseller.
• An ad in the May 1889 issue of The Wood-Worker gives the company name as "Greaves & Klusman", "successors to Dietz, Woermann & Co." Greaves & Klusman were "manufacturers of Impr'v'd Wood-Working Machinery for furniture, box and coffin factories, planing mills, pattern, cabinet and chair makers, etc., 65 & 67 Plum St., Cincinnati, Ohio."
• Text ad in a 1909 issue of The Iron Age: "LATHES / 16 to 24 in. Swing / Strictly high grade tools / Greaves, Klusman & Company / Cincinnati, Ohio, U. S. A."
• An online genealogy source has a transcription of a company biography in Cincinnati, The Queen City, Volume III, 1912.
• An ad in the August 1913 issue of The Wood-Worker says, of their Universal Saw Bench, "We think it is just a little the best machine of the kind ever built." And we think it is a little the worst grammar of the kind over wrote.
• 1914-04-16 The Iron Age.

  Greaves, Klusman & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, manufacturers of machine tools, have reorganized under the name of the Greaves-Klusman Tool Company, capitalized at $150,000. The following are the officers of the company: President, C. H. M. Atkins; vice-president and general manager, W. A. Greaves; secretary and treasurer, S. H. Reck. No extensions to the company's present plant are now planned.

• May 1917 Mill Supplies.

  The Acme-Greaves Machine Tool Co., Columbus, Ohio, $1,000,000. This company was incorporated to take over, the Acme Machine Tool Company and the Greaves-Klusman Tool Company, both of Cincinnati. Incorporators: C. H. M. _Atkilis, B. B. Quillen, George Langen, A. J. Jones and William A. Greaves.

• The European patent database, which indexes US patents from 1920 onwards, lists to patents assigned to this firm. The later of these two patents was applied for in 1921 and granted in 1925.
• American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001 page 70.