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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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This 1953 newspaper article from the Greenfield Recorder-Gazette in Greenfield, Massachusetts, describes how two Greenfield, Massachusetts machinists founded a small tool industry in the 1860's, after a series of disasters. The attempt by Levi Gunn and Charles Amidon to establish a manufacturing firm for wringer washers in Greenfield met with consistent back luck. First the brook supplying water power ran dry and then $300 worth of wringers, stored in a barn, were destroyed by fire. Undaunted by these obstacles, they joined with William Barber in 1865 to manufacture an iron bit brace, but several more fires again interrupted their efforts until they finally moved to a one-story brick building. The company continued to expand, with the biggest increase in production and employees taking place during World War II (WWII). Today, the company no longer exists.

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