In the mid 1870s Gilbert Hart was a machinist who learned to make grinding wheels as part of his day job. He started a sideline business making them in his kitchen, eventually founding Hart Emery Wheel Co. By 1878 the name had changed to Detroit Emery Wheel Co. (A later Canadian subsidiary, based in Hamilton, Ontario, was called Hart Emery Wheel Co., Ltd.)

By 1900 Hart was a successful and prominent Detroit businessman and land-owner. He was also president of the well-known woodworking machinery dealer, Chas. A. Strelinger & Co. In 1914, when Edison Electric built a new generating station in Detroit, it was built on land that was owned by Hart, and the station became known as the Edison Hart Electrical Substation.

In 1887 this firm was making a patented pulley grinding machine.

This firm was also assigned an 1897 patent for an oilstone box. The patent was granted to Joseph W. Oliver, who had by that time already established a woodworking machinery manufacturer, American Machinery Co., which in 1903 changed its name to Oliver Machinery Co.

Information Sources

• The 1879 Detroit City Directory, J. W. Weeks & Co., lists Detroit Emery Wheel Co., manager Gilbert Hart, at the corner of Jefferson and Lincoln Avenues in Hamtramck.
• 1887 Catalogue and Price List of the Hart Emery Wheel Co., 52 pages, and available online through archive.org, shows a patented pulley grinding machine that is clearly labeled as made by Detroit Emery Wheel Co.
• The 1985 book Family Firm to Modern Multinational: Norton Company, a New England Enterprise, by Charles W. Cheape, provided the information about the genesis of Hart Emery Wheel Co.