Narragansett Machine Co. dates back to 1882, and probably earlier. In their first few years of existence their list of products included woodworking & metalworking lathes. They seem to have stopped making lathes within a few years. In 1914 they made Coit's Ball-Bearing Drill Chuck, which in 1911 was being manufactured by Standard Machinery Co. of Mystic, Conn. Narragansett Machine Co. survived until at least 1928.
Information Sources
- Mentioned in 1882-1883 Manufacturer & Builder as a maker of treadle and powered lathes for woodworking and metalworking. (To see this magazine article plus the others mentioned below, search for "Narragansett Machine" at the Cornell "Making of America" archive.)
- An 1888 ad in Scribner's magazine is for exercise equipment.
- An 1894 article in New England magazine mentions that this company had a complete display of exercise and gymnasium equipment at the World's Fair.
- Various correspondents have reported objects from this maker: tennis racquet; wooden handscrews (parallel-jaw clamps with wooden jaws and wooden threaded rods); exercise bicycles, including a pair of bicycles connected together to allow them to "race"; wooden barbells; juggling pins; parallel bars. Thanks to all who contributed this information. Kindly note that this web site's focus is woodworking & metalworking machinery, and we are only interested in these objects insofar as they shed light on the history of the company. If you can provide a patent date for any object from this maker, we would be most interested!
- A 1905 catalogue of gymnastic apparatus is available online (via archive.org). An employee of the YMCA in Paris, France, reports that their building houses an intact gymnasium that was equipped about 1893 by Narragansett Machine Co.
- American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001 page 106
- A correspondent notified us 7 Mar. 2020 that he found an ad for steel bookshelves by this company in the 1928 White Plains, NY city Directory.