Chenango Union, Norwich, NY, June 19, 1873
David Maydole - How One Man Succeeded
(From the Christian Union, June 11)
Norwich, N.Y. [Chenango Co. NY], is a small inland town, two hundred and fifty miles from the seaboard, and until within the last four years [in 1873] with no railroad facilities nearer than thirty miles, and yet it has one of the largest hammer factories in the world - a factory which turns out, on an average, sixty dozen steel hammers daily, largely supplying the market in our own land and filling orders to South America, Japan, China, Australia, in short, to all parts of the earth.
How this success has been achieved and this branch of business builded up without advertising or even employing an agent, under the disadvantages of this, recently, remote interior town, is a matter we conceive well worthy the attention of all who are interested in the welfare of the working men of our country.
We will let the originator and head of the establishment, David Maydole, tell his own story; perhaps it will give us the secret.
"People have said to me a great many times, 'How lucky you have been, Mr. Maydole.' I tell them there has been no luck about it. God has greatly prospered me, but I owe nothing to chance. I never bet nor gambled, nor speculated in my life, nor had a dollar that I did not give fair returns for. My father died when I was a child, my mother was poor and in a new country; and I had to shift for myself pretty early. When I was fourteen years old, I left my home in Cortland County and walked twenty miles to Oxford, through the snow in February, with all I had in the world done up in a pocket handkerchief and entered a blacksmith shop as an apprentice. I worked faithfully six years for my victuals and clothes, and when I got through I had only my freedom suit, and a poor one at that, but I didn't owe a man a dollar. I had no lost time to make up, and I was master of my trade. I knew it in all its branches, not only in common blacksmithing, but in mill-wrighting and in making and mending tools.
"After I had served my time, I went to manufacturing edged tools, and learned to work steel to advantage. After six years of this work, I came to Norwich and opened a shop. Occasionally I made a hammer for a carpenter. while the Baptist church was being builded, a squad of six men came down from Oneida to work on it. One of them lost his hammer and came to get me to make him one. I did so, and the next day the other five came and everyone wanted a hammer. Then the Boss came and wanted two. He asked me to make them a little better than those for his men. I told him I couldn't make them any better but would do as well as I could. He took them up to the hardware store and asked them why they didn't sell such hammers as those? They said they were not to be had in the market. 'Why then, don't you get your man Maydole here to make you some?' They came to me for a couple of dozen and took them to New York, to a hardware merchant in Nassau Street. He liked them, only was afraid the price was so high that they wouldn't sell, but finally sent back an order for twenty dozen more. That about swamped me at the time, but I got a man to help me, opened another fire and soon filled it. When another order came in, as they did fast after that, I built extra forges, invented a block for shaping the hammers on, machinery for grinding, polishing, turning the handles, making the wedges, etc. but have never been able in twenty-five years to catch up with my orders but once."
The above is, in substance, Mr. Maydole's story. I believe that everyone who reads it will agree that the secret of his success if a very open one.
In the first place, he thoroughly mastered his trade. "Several of the apprentices in the shop with me, after working a year or two, quit and went to work for wages. They used to say that I was a fool to serve out my whole time, but I was bound to become perfectly acquainted with my business and held on. Every one of those men are working for wages to this day, they never succeeded because they but half learned their trade."
His early work was with steel, and he set himself to learn all he could about it. The knowledge he gained at that time by experimenting and study has been invaluable to him ever since. He relates many amusing experiences of detecting and defeating frauds attempted on him, especially while in the edge tool business.
"It is amazing what tricks even so-called good men will play with warranted tools, and what lies they will tell to make you take them back. One day a man whom I had never seen before brought me an ax badly broken. He was chopping firewood, he said, good clean stuff, when the ax gave out, and he wanted another, according to the warrant.
"Now," said I, "my friend, you have told me your story and I know by the place and shape of the break that you haven't told the truth." And then I explained the only possible way he ever broke the axe in that manner. It was not a fair use of the tool, and I refused to take it back.
"When I was gone, he said to my foreman who was standing by 'That is exactly it, but how in the world did he know it?' "
"He has had so many scoundrels like you to deal with, that he has learned your tricks" was the answer."
This perfect acquaintance with all the details of his business enables him at once to discover a failure on the part of his men, and if need be, instruct them, and goes far to secure that respect which they all entertain for him.
He has always closely attended to his business.
"During the last of my apprenticeship and for years after, there were three places in one of which you could always find me in the week: in my shop, at table, or in bed. For weeks together I have stood at the anvil fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. Soon after I started business for myself, I took a partner. We had learned our trade together and I knew him well. He was a good workman and very fast. People always said he would succeed; he could get through so much work in a day. They said I was too particular to get along well. We worked together about eighteen months. He had no bad habits but was out of the shop a great deal. His apron lay too much on the anvil. At last, I told him, that either he must stay in the shop more or I should leave it. I left him and he is not worth so much now as on the day we dissolved partnership."
He has always made a thoroughly good article.
His motto has been, he says, to excel, and not to undersell, and it is a fact that his hammers have always cost more at wholesale than those of most makers at retail, yet They have taken their place at the head of the trade. He gained custom at first, by making so superior a tool that men wanted it at whatever price, and he keeps and extends it to this day by the same means and by no other.
His workmen know that no shams will be allowed, and that good, rather than rapid work will secure commendation. That they may have as little temptation as possible to slight their work, they are paid by the day, never by the piece.
He never lets a hammer bear his name, unless it is as perfect as skilled labor can make it. Every one with a flaw even so slight that only the most practiced eye can detect it is stamped with an assumed trademark and sold at a lower price as an inferior article.
In later years he never warrents [guarantees], for he says that in doing this you must not only warrant the tool but also the man who uses it, but if any mistake has been made, and he becomes satisfied than an inferior article has been sent out, he at once rectifies the error at whatever cost.
He understands how to manage his men and take care of them. "You can hire," he says, "any number of carpenters, because the trade is a common one, but if I want a good hammer maker, I must educate him, and when I have done it, I make it an object for him to stay with me."
The wages are not large for skilled labor, but they are sure. For twenty-five years, the men have been paid without a single exception on the tenth of every month, or if this comes on Sunday, on the ninth.
He encourages his men to put their savings into a house and lot. As a result, more than a third live in their own houses, and have homes, many of them as pleasant as can be found in the country.
If one of his regular hands falls sick and is in need, he takes care of him, in many cases paying their wages regularly until they recover.
He harbors no shirks and expects everyone to push his way in life by honest labor, as he has done. A thoroughly temperate man himself, he allows no drunkenness. His men are, as a rule, contented, their work is not severe, they are uniformly well treated, and such a thing as a strike among them is unknown.
A somewhat dingy, but very effective witness is our factory to the present worth of those old-time honored virtues, faithfulness, industry, honesty and kindness in achieving success. The world will know good work, is willing to pay for it, and honors the workman, who, by patience and untiring labor, has made himself master of his business.
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