TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview of the Collection

History

Scope and Content

Arrangement

Restrictions

Index Terms

Related Material

Administrative Information

Detailed Description

Series I: Correspondence, 1882-1916

Series II: Companies, 1854-1918

Series III: Administrative Records, 1833-1925

Series IV: Labor Records, undated, 1887-1889

Series V: Production Records, undated, 1879-1916

Series VI: General Accounts, 1841-1920

Series VII: Merger Companies, 1831-1856

Series VIII: Estate of William H. Barnum, 1793-1919

Barnum Richardson Company Records

History

Barnum Richardson Company was established in 1830 by Milo Barnum and his son-in-law, Leonard Richardson in Salisbury, CT. Barnum was born in Dutchess County, New York, in 1790 and moved to Lime Rock in Salisbury, CT, in 1820 to engage in business as a merchant. The town of Salisbury was well known, at that time, for its extensive iron bed and for the exceptional quality of its iron ore. The company was based on a foundry that remelt pig iron. Barnum Richardson and Company, as it was first called, was a small firm specializing in the production of clock and sash weights, plow castings, and other small items.

In 1840, Barnum's son, William, joined the company and the firm expanded to include production of hardware for the new railroad industry. The company's first major products were chains, frogs and headblocks for the Boston and Albany Railroad, which had just begun construction.

Salisbury iron proved most valuable in the manufacture of railroad car wheels. The iron did not break easily under tension and it was almost impervious to extremes of heat and cold. Barnum Richardson and Company prospered because of the increasing demand for this high quality iron, and owned a number of the town's manufacturing concerns and most of its housing.

In 1852, Milo Barnum retired from active service and the name of the company was changed to Richardson, Barnum and Company. In 1858, the company purchased the Beckley furnace in East Canaan, and in 1862, obtained the Forbes furnace in the same town. At about the same time, the company purchased another foundry in Chicago. The company was reorganized as a joint stock company and renamed the Barnum and Richardson Manufacturing Company. In 1864, Leonard Richardson died, and the company was reorganized again as the Barnum Richardson Company, a joint stock company with William H. Barnum as president and general manager. The heirs of Leonard Richardson continued to maintain an interest in the company.

A second foundry was built in Salisbury in 1870 and a third furnace in East Canaan in 1872. A new wheel foundry was built in Chicago in 1873. In 1870, the Salisbury foundries produced 10,000 car wheels. The foundries in Chicago had a capacity of three hundred car wheels per day. By 1881, the company owned eight blast furnaces in the Salisbury are which used an average of twelve hundred bushels of charcoal per day and produced eleven tons of iron to each furnace per day. The company also owned and operated its own mine, the Ore Hill mine, which in the late 1880s was providing 20,000 tons of ore per year.

Barnum Richardson merged with several small companies during its history including: Landon, Moore and Company; S. B. Moore & Company; Sterling, Chapin & Company; and Sterling & Moore Company. Subsidiaries of Barnum Richardson included Hunts-Lyman Iron Company, Lime Rock Iron Company, Sharon Valley Iron Company, Cornwall Bridge Iron Company and Millerton Iron Company. Companies affiliated with Barnum Richardson included Brook Pit Mining Company, Forbes Ore-Bed Company, David Digging Company, Adams-Chatfield Company and Chatfield Mining Company.

In 1889, William Barnum died after a long and exceptional career as an industrialist. By the early twentieth century, the Salisbury iron industry was in decline. The newly imported Bessemer steel process, which produced a product more adaptable than the iron produced in small quantities by Barnum Richardson, made the small furnace iron industry of Connecticut obsolete. In 1920, Barnum Richardson Company was purchased by the Salisbury Iron Company. This new firm went out of business in 1923 and shut down what was then the last of Connecticut's iron furnaces.

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Scope and Content

The collection contains and broad range of materials documenting the manufacture of iron in Connecticut including correspondence, financial and administrative records, minutes, employee materials, blueprints and patterns for factory equipment, production records, and documents pertaining to companies that merged with the Barnum Richardson Company.

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Arrangement

Series I: Correspondence (1882-1926)

Series II: Companies (1854-1918)

Series III: Administrative Records (1833-1925)

Series IV: Labor Records (undated, 1887-1889)

Series V: Production Records (undated, 1879-1916)

Series VI: General Accounts (1841-1917)

Series VII: Merger Companies (1831-1856)

Series VIII: Estate of William H. Barnum (1793-1919)

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Restrictions

Restrictions on Access

There are no access restrictions on this collection.

Restrictions on Use

Permission to publish from these Papers must be obtained in writing from both the University of Connecticut Libraries and the owner(s) of the copyright.

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Related Material

Archives & Special Collections has a substantial collection of Connecticut business records. See especially, New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Records, American Brass Company Records and the papers of Malcolm D. Rudd. Additional information concerning R.M. Cherrie's Pine Lake Iron Company, with furnaces in Ironton, MI, can be found at the Harsha House Museum, Charlevoix Historical Society, Charlevoix, Michigan. For detailed information on these collections please contact the curator or ask at the reference desk.

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Index Terms

This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.

Persons:

Organizations:

Subjects:

Document Types:

Occupations:

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Administrative Information

Custodial History

Records of the Barnum Richardson Company were donated to Harvard University, the School of Business Administration, by Alfred B. Stone. Stone had purchased the company property after the business had ceased operation. Harvard University transferred the collection to the Yale University Library, which later received a donation from the estate of Malcolm D. Rudd. The Rudd papers contain records of the smaller iron companies which merged with the Barnum Richardson Company. The combined records were presented to the Historical Manuscripts and Archives Division of the University Of Connecticut Libraries in January, 1980.

Preferred Citation

[Item description, #:#], Barnum Richardson Company Records. Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries.

Acquisition Information

The combined records of Malcolm D. Rudd and the Barnum Richardson Company were presented to the Historical Manuscripts and Archives Division of the University Of Connecticut Libraries in January, 1980. In 1995, Historical Manuscripts and Archives merged with Special Collections to become Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

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Detailed Description