W. C. Young & Co.

This company was founded 1879 by Willie C. Young. The business was operated as a sole proprietorship, and started out making cobblers' tools but soon made a specialty of hand- and foot-powered lathes for metal and wood. In later years the company also made punches and shears. The business lasted into the early twentieth century but seems to have disappeared not too long after Mr. Young died in 1909.

Information Sources

• 1879—Industrial Worcester, by Charles Grenfill Washburn.

  In 1879, W. C. Young began with one assistant in Mawhinney's building, No. 19 Church Street, the manufacture of shoe tools and edge planes; at one time he employed twenty hands in the manufacture of engine-lathes, wood-turning and amateur lathes, which he designed himself, exporting a large number.

• 1881—Listed in the September 1881 Manufacturer & Builder as an exhibitor at the "Fair of the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute": "W. C. Young & Co., of Worcester, Mass., among other specialties, exhibit engine lathes."
• 1883—Listed in the October 1883 Manufacturer & Builder as an exhibitor at the "Fair of the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute": "The Economy Supplies Company show a number of exhibits of tool builders, representing almost everything used in the machine-shop, large or small. Noticeable aniong these exhibits is a new lathe by W. C. Young & Co., of Worcester, Mass."
• 1885—Mentioned in March 1885 Manufacturer & Builder as an exhibitor at that year's New Orleans Exhibition: "W. C. Young & Co., of Worcester, Mass., exhibit engine lathes, hand lathes, foot-power lathes, and other machinery."
• 1891—Inland Massachusetts Illustrated by Elstner Publishing Co. 1891 pg 93.

  Manfacturers of Machinists' Tools—No. 17 Hermon Street, Worcester, MA.

  When one reflects upon the vast amount of machinery in use and constantly in course of construction and repair, it is not difficult to understand that the industry of making tools for the use of machinists must be an important one. New England is the very home of this industry, and Worcester the progressive is one of its principal centers. A leading house in this line is the one named above, established in 1879 and occupying the building No. 17 Hermon street. Mr. W. C. Young, sole proprietor and a native of Leominster, this county, is a practical and thorough machinist, who in a career of many years has made numerous valuable improvements in the appliances to which he devotes his attention. His equipment of iron and steel-working machinery is complete, and includes two 80-horse-power boilers and a 100-horse-power engine. A working force of thirty skilled mechanics is employed, and the output, unexcelled for neatness and effectiveness, is sold all over the United States, in addition to which there is a large and growing foreign demand. The machinery and tools made here comprise a superb line of devices for the use of iron and woodworkers, among the more noticeable of which may be mentioned screw-cutting engine lathes, screw-cutting foot-power lathes, screw-cutting bench lathes, hand lathes, back-geared hand lathes, plain bench lathes, wood turners' lathes, pattern-makers' lathes, amateur foot lathes, chuck lathes, slide rests, "Standard" lathe tools, etc., and the celebrated Taft's punches and shears for working iron, steel and brass up to five-eighths of an inch in thickness.

• 1892—The Massachusetts corporate registry database lists W. C. Young Manufacturing Co's first registration as 1892-03-31. W. C. Young & Co., Inc., was registered 1916-12-16.
• 1897—A Souvenir of Massachusetts Legislators, Volume 6.

  District No. 21 —Ward J of Worcester.—Willie C. Young, Republican, was born in Leominster, May 28, 1848; educated in the public schools. Has' been machinist, book-keeper; is now a manufacturer and president of the W. C. Young Manufacturing Co. Member of Worcester school committee 1882-5, and president of same 1892-5. Member of Quinsigamond lodge of Odd Fellows, Bay State commandery of Knights of Malta, Commonwealth council of United American Mechanics and is state councillor of that order; member of Crescent Senate of Ancient Essenic order; trustee of Worcester county mechanics' association. Clerk of committee on drainage, 1896: on railroads in House of 1897. Vote of district: Willie C. Young, Republican, 1501 ; all others, 2.

• 1909—March 1909 Machinery, page 369.

  W. C. Young, vice-president of the W. C. Young Machine Co., Worcester, Mass., builders of machine tools, died at his home in Worcester, January 30, in his sixtieth year. Mr. Young was well known in Worcester, having lived there for more than forty years. He had served on city council and on the school board. The business of the company will continue as before.

• The American Artifacts web site had a for-sale listing for a W. C. Young treadle lathe. The front of the lathe has "The Peerless Lathe" cast into it.
• We have not found any patents granted or assigned to anyone named Young from Worcester.