After 103 years, Chandler Machine Co. closes doors

The Ayer Public Spirit ^ | Tuesday, October 15, 2002 | David Gordon

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

AYER - With the closing of the Chandler Machine Company, the community has lost a 103-year-old business. Along with it, a bit of Americana is slipping away.

The Chandler shop manufactured industrial sewing and stitching machines for customers all over the country. Its hand-operated and electrified sewing machines and button sewers have been used in the garment industry and by dry-cleaning establishments and laundries, its pleating machines by upholsterers and other tradesmen.

What finally brought the plant's closure, according to Vice President George Matthews, was foreign competition. With cheaper labor available overseas, manufacturers have been able to produce machines at considerably less cost than Chandler Machine could hope to charge and still turn a profit. After withstanding competition for many years as foreign firms began to copy Chandler models, creating a product cheaper but of questionable quality, said Mr. Matthews, the firm's president and owner, William Holm, signaled an end to trying to carry on through loans from his own capital.

A hope that another company would purchase both building and machinery and continue operations here did not materialize. The building and land have been put up for sale, attracting some interest, Mr. Matthews indicated. The machinery, equipment and materials will be sold separately, some of it at auction.

"There were a lot of tears last week," Mr. Matthews said, as the remaining eight employees were laid off. He has kept informed of the plans of each of his former workers. One who started at Chandler in 1946 and another who came in 1948 will probably go into retirement. Others have already found employment elsewhere, and one or two are still looking for work.

When Mr. Matthews started work at Chandler in 1959, he said, the company employed at least 80 people. There were two assembly lines on the main floor. Reflecting with pride on those years, he said, "Our work was quality. While we purchased some foreign parts for certain machines, most everything was USA-made."

The Chandler Machine workplace is a part of Americana, deserving of preservation at the Smithsonian Museum. A walk down the main floor at the plant passes two long areas of work benches, each with its own lamp and chair, intricate set of machines and tools, and carefully segregated supply of parts. Among work stations are evidences left behind of individual workers. In the main corridor between assembly lines a dart board is still fixed in place, and around it employees have written remarks about individual players.

At each side of the room a row of large windows lets in plenty of light even on a cloudy day. The walls of lapped wood pieces are like those found in corridors and common rooms in homes of the period. The wood flooring is worn, the interstices between boards sprinkled with particles of metal from the machines.

Given the setting, this observer found himself half anticipating the imminent return of a company of workers, turning on work lamps, chatting, settling down to work amid the whir of machinery.

The basement is filled with large, heavy-duty machinery -- drill presses, metal bending machines, etc. A floor above the main story has been devoted to storage. The second story floor, Mr. Matthews believes, dates back to 1975 when the present owner took over the company.

That this floor was a later addition can be believed when at the back the top portion of the proscenium arch for a stage comes into view. Centered on this arch is a large painting of an eagle with a shield bearing the American flag's stars and stripes. The lower portion of the proscenium can be seen at the back of the main floor, and the stage area itself is still intact.

The presence of this stage is an indication of an additional feature about this company. The wood frame building at 30 West Street had been one of the clubs for servicemen at nearby Camp Devens during World War I. It was known as the War Camp Community Service Building, a canteen devoted to entertaining the troops while they trained at a place remote from their homes.

The Chandler Company moved into the building after the war ended, under the ownership of the Maxant family. Frank Maxant, an engineer with a degree from the prestigious Krupp School of Engineering in his home country of Germany, had been the western sales agent for Chandler Machines with his base in Chicago. He came to Ayer to run the firm and brought his family with him.

Chandler Company dates back to 1899. According to William M. Sargent in his 1902 book entitled Town of Ayer: Some of the leading Industries, Principal Buildings and Prominent Citizens, the Hon. George J. Burns founded a machine business "the object being to develop, manufacture and market the inventions of Daniel L. Chandler, who, as a resourceful and practical inventor, is without a peer." Burns himself served as a Republican in the state's House of Representatives and Senate but lost a bid for the U.S. Congress. When he took over the running of various business enterprises following the death of a Pepperell businessman, he began his career as a businessman.

While Burns ran his own Sigsbee Company in Ayer and launched the Ayer Preserving Company, Chandler and a Worcester businessman became partners operating Chandler Company in 1901. Some evidence exists that Chandler had started a business himself with his inventions some years before Burns opened Chandler Company. At any rate, the firm became incorporated in 1905, later split into two firms to manufacture Chandler inventions, Chandler Machine Company turning out pleating machines for wholesalers in the garment industry. Both firms were burned out at their original location near the tannery, and while the other (Chandler Planer Company) folded in bankruptcy, Chandler Machine Company survived. For a time it occupied space in the basement of a building on Central Avenue that also housed a radio shop. Its next and final move came around 1919 to its present location.

The last Chandler catalog or "dealer guide book" displays an amazing range of machines for specific purposes. These also could be part of a Smithsonian exhibit. One wonders where they are operating now, those machines proudly "Made in USA by Chandler," as the catalog proclaims.

[MSF BU]

Still drive by this location frequently; it is now all multi-family homes...kind of ugly in contrast to the rest of the neighborhood. I wonder why Mr. Green saw fit to post this.

[sport]

Is this Willie the train man Green?

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

A blast from the past.

How did you come upon this thread?

5.56mm

[BunnySlippers]

Sad. I like old sewing machines,...typewriters...

[ladyjane]

I have a beautiful old turquoise blue portable typewriter from the past. It is beautiful! Have a couple of older ones too. They are beautiful but require much more finger power than the new ones.

How did they ever type on those old things??

[BunnySlippers]

I know. I had an ancient one that weighed a ton. it was my mom’s and I painted it yellow! I have no idea what happened to it.

But so many of those things remind me of an America gone past ... secretaries and seamstresses. And manufacturing.

[Sgt_Schultze]

This is a blast from the past. This is the only thing I’ve seen from Willie Green that didn’t have to do with trains.

[MSF BU]

I was searching for Fort Devens and Ayer on something entirely related. I also knew members of the Maxant famiy who were prominent in this firm. They made great machines and many are still in operation.

[Larry Lucido]

Wow, haven’t made top 10 on a Willie Green thread in years.

[Tijeras_Slim]

A virgin Willie Green thread!