The Duff Manufacturing Co. was in business by 1883 and manufactured lifting jacks that were patented by the company's superintendent, Josiah Barrett. These jacks were very successful, especially in applications where substantial mechanical advantage was required such as in working with rail cars, trolleys, and the like. As automobiles became more common they also achieved success with their line of automotive jacks.

We do not know who founded the company, or when. Samuel K. Duff and James B. Duff were both associated with the company in 1884. In 1901 the business was acquired by J. R. McGinley of Pittsburgh.

In 1918 this company made lathes that were specialized for the manufacture of shells. Josiah Barrett was granted a 1919 patent related to the lathe. But the depression that hit the machine tool industry following the end of World War I seems to have killed off this product line.

From an article in the 1918-09-22 Canadian Machinery

Information Sources

• 1883 Farley's Directory of the Metal Works of the United States, Canada and the British Provinces, page 160, lists Duff Mfg. Co., Pittsburgh, in the category of "Machinery and Machinists' Supplies".
• 1884 patent 292,630 was granted to Samuel K. Duff and James B. Duff, and assigned to Duff Manufacturing Co. of Pittsburgh. (The patent is for "Pipe-lifters for oil-wells".) This is as much as we could find regarding the identity of the man or men who founded the company.
• October 1897 Street Railway Journal, page 179, has a full page ad from The Duff Manufacturing Company, Allegheny, Pa., for their Barrett lifting jacks.
• 1894 United States Circuit Courts of Appeals Reports, page 553, in a report on Forgie v. Oil-Well Supply Co., Ltd., which involved alleged infringement of William Forgie's patent 422,879, for a wrench for oil-well tools.

  In 1885 Mr. Josiah Barrett, of Allegheny, Penn., had... invented certain new and useful improvements in lifting jacks, which very greatly increased the capacity of that tool, and perfected its operative power. Mr. Forgie had heard of Mr. Barrett, and probably of the success of his inventive efforts, and sought an interview with him at the office of the Duff Manufacturing Company, of which Mr. Barrett was superintendent. At that interview the difficulties which embarrassed drillers of oil wells in the manipulation of their drilling tools were stated by Mr. Forgie, and, apparently, were fully discussed. Evidently, the suggestion that the mechanism and operative power of a lifting jack could be in some manner utilized to couple and uncouple the sections of a drill rod was original with Mr. Forgie, but, beyond this mere suggestion, the evidence does not disclose any further action on his part tending to a solution of the problem involving the adaptation of the jack to the novel purpose. As a result of this interview, or of others which followed it, Mr. Barrett prepared plans and patterns, changing in some degree, and altering, not so much the mechanism of his jack, as its operation, and made therefrom an experimental tool, which successfully accomplished the object in view... A number of these tools or devices were made by Mr. Barrett for Mr. Forgie, and sold by Mr. Forgie... In 1890 Mr. Forgie, without notifying Mr. Barrett of his purpose, applied for and obtained letters patents for this tool or device, as his own invention. As Mr. Barrett continued, after the issue of the patent, to manufacture the reconstructed jack, and put it upon the market for sale, Mr. Forgie filed his bill, charging infringement... It is a very remarkable feature of this case, and extremely suggestive of the power of Forgie to appropriate, that more than a year afterwards, when he applied for this patent, he embodied in the specifications of his invention every part of the mechanism of Barrett's lifting jack, without a change, or a shadow of a change... [T]he court are satisfied that Mr. Forgie was not the inventor of this device, but that the real credit of the invention, if any there be, belongs to Mr. Barrett.

  The decision of the courts was the Forgie's claim of infringement was denied because the improvement covered by the invention was not the invention of the patentee.
• 1901-04-15 Street Railway Review.

  Duff Manufacturing Co.—The entire capital stock, factory and real estate of the Duff Manufacturing Co. of Allegheny City, Pa., has been purchased by Mr. J. R. McGinley, of Pittsburg, Pa. The Duff Manufacturing Co. makes the well known Barrett automatic lever jack. Mr. McGinley, who is one of the foremost business men and financiers of the city of Pittsburg, and who has for about 20 years been prominently identified with the Westinghouse interests, will take personal charge of the management of the Duff company. He will make a number of improvements in the factory, so as to greatly increase the capacity of the present plant, and he is about to conclude arrangements for the sale of the company's product in foreign countries.

• January 1903 The Railway and Shipping World.

  The Duff Manufacturing Co., of Pittsburgh, Pa., has brought two suits in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Templeton, Kenly & Co., Ltd., of Chicago, for infringement of the Barrett patent, 455,993, granted July 14, 1891, and the other for infringement of the Barrett patent, 527,102, granted Octo. 9, 1894, for the manufacture of the lifting jacks lately placed upon the market by Templeton, Kenly & Co., known as the Simplex jack. The first of these patents sued under covers the automatic lowering mechanism known as the "yielding tripping plate" embodied in the Barrett jack 10 made by the Duff Manufacturing Co. This patent has been sustained by the circuit and appellate courts on numerous occasions, and automatic lowering jacks of the same general type as the Simplex jack have been held to infringe the patent. In the second suit it is also claimed that the Simplex jack infringes the later Barrett patent, as well as the one which the courts have previously considered. Motion for preliminary injunction restraining the manufacture of the Simplex jack pending the suit under the earlier Barrett patent has also been made.

• 1903-05-22 The Railway Age, page 916.

  The Duff Manufacturing Company of Pittsburg have been granted an injunction against the Buckeye Manufacturing Company in an action brought to restrain infringement of rights under the patents on Barrett jacks. The action was brought in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, and a motion for preliminary injunction was heard on May 8. The order restrains the defendants or their agents from issuing or circulating catalogues similar to the Buckeye catalogue shown in the case or "any other circular or catalogues similar thereto and containing copies of, or extracts from, the catalogue of the complainant herein, such as shown in 'Exhibit Barrett Catalogue,' or another part or parts thereof, in connection with the manufacture and sale of jacks, and likewise enjoining and restraining the sale or shipment of the so-called Buckeye jacks, or any other jacks, upon orders solicited, received or taken by the said defendants for Barrett jacks, and from making any statements or representations which might be calculated to mislead the trade or the public into the belief that such jacks are the Barrett jacks manufactured by the said complainant herein, and from making any statements or representations that the jacks sold or offered for sale by the said complainant herein, unless that be the fact, until the further order of this court." The grounds of infringement upon which the action was based are sufficiently indicated in the above quotation from the decision of Judge Lacombe. The Duff Manufacturing Company also state that imitators of the Barrett jacks can only manufacture a few sizes upon which patents have expired and that on other sizes the patents still hold.

• 1901-05-15 Street Railway Review, page 327.

  The Duff Manufacturing Co. advises us that on April 3d a decree was rendered in the United States Circuit Court for the Western District of Michigan, in the case of the Duff Manufacturing Co. against the Kalamazoo Railway Supply Co., enjoining the latter company from using the handle and pawl construction covered in the Barrett patent No. 312316, and which has been used for many years in the Barrett jacks. This refers to the trip jacks recently put upon the market by the Kalamazoo company, which are substantial copies of the Barrett jacks.

• 1907-11-21 The Automobile, page 47.

  Improved Barrett Auto Jacks.—For the season of 1908 "The Jack That Duff Builds," otherwise known as the Barrett jack, and made by the Barrett Manufacturing Company, Pittsburg, Pa., has been improved by the addition of a new reversing lever which controls the movement of the jack, up or down. Working at the front of the jack and dispacing the side eccentric or thumbscrew formerly used, the reversing lever is always accessible, no mater in what position the jack may be placed under the car. And it is in ready reach without groping between the spokes of the wheel or crawling beneath the car. It is not even necessary to reach under he car to operate the lever, as a slight blow with the jack handle will set it as desired in a second. his ingenious device adds greatly to the efficiency and convenience of the Barrett jack, on which it is an exclusive feaure, patents covering it now being pending.