James Hartness - Mentor of Machine Tool Entrepreneurs

Mentor of Machine Tool Entrepreneurs

Hartness encouraged talented inventors in his employ at J&L to strike out on their own as entrepreneurs. These included three Springfield companies and one Windsor, Vermont company:

  • Edwin R. Fellows, founder of the Fellows Gear Shaper Company
  • William L. Bryant, founder of the Bryant Chucking Grinder Company
  • Fred P. Lovejoy, founder of the Lovejoy Tool Company
  • George O. Gridley, founder of the National Acme Company

The companies started by these men helped make Springfield and Windsor a prosperous manufacturing region, thanks not to its access to raw materials or markets, but due to a pool of talented engineers and machinists. Joseph Roe ranked Hartness in the class of Henry Maudslay and Elisha K. Root for his mentorship of a younger generation of machine tool builders.

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