This business was incorporated in 1912 in Cleveland as Foley-Wardwell Manufacturing Co., a partnership of Frank Wellington Wardwell, Jr. (1878-1954) and Hugh B. Foley, inventor of the Foley saw filer. Despite their similar interests, the partners separated about 2 years later, and the company changed names to Wardwell Manufacturing Co.. The company made band saw filers, saw grinders, saw setters, and other machinery. In 1956 they were located at 3812 Ridge Rd., Cleveland, OH. As of 2019, the Wardwell Automatic Circular Saw Grinder Model 57T is sold at Leland-Gifford Products in Akron, OH.
Frank Wardwell had at least 9 US patents. A 1915 article in The Iron Trade Review, Vol. 56, pg. 666 described Wardwell's metal-cutting band saw sharpener, a much more sophisticated machine than Foley's saw filer at the time. Wardwell's great-uncle George J. Wardwell was also a machinery inventor, for shoe-making and stone quarrying. Another great-uncle and George's brother was inventor Charles P. S. Wardwell.
An ad in a 1920 issue of The Wood-Worker shows Wardwell's bandsaw-filing machine, and also mentions a circular-saw filing machine. There is no suggestion that they made woodworking machinery at that time.
Information Sources
- The blog article Wardwell Saw Filers and Saw Grinders provided much of the above history on these firms.
- Ancestry.com family trees and genealogy databases.
- Wardwell Manufacturing Co. is listed in 1955-56 Hitchcock's Wood-Workers' Digest Directory as the maker of a fluting machine.