A Look Back, April 1: Booth Brothers Knife Factory in Sussex
By WAYNE T. McCABE
Sussex County Historian
Posted: Apr. 1, 2018 12:01 am
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, men and boys could often be found carrying penknives and pocketknives. These small, sharp tools proved useful for numerous functions, ranging from trimming fingernails to cleaning out pipe bowls or whittling small wooden objects.
The oldest recorded pocketknife company in New Jersey belonged to Booth Brothers. In 1864, Thomas Booth, from Sheffield, England, established the company in Newark. Only three years later, Booth Brothers exhibited pocketknives at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris, which was the second world's fair to be held there. In 1879, the firm moved to Boonton on the Morris Canal. The flow of water in the canal provided the power needed to operate much of the machinery in the factory.
In dry years, the canal's water flow was not sufficient to power the knife factory's heavy trip hammers and grinding wheels. The same was true during the winter, when the canal was frozen and nothing moved along the commercial waterway. As a result, in 1889, Booth Brothers moved again, this time to Stockholm on the Pequannock River. This site had been used for iron working since the 18th century and included a substantial stone dam and millpond that provided more than enough water to drive the large waterwheel and generate the needed horsepower.
The Booth Brothers knife factory in Stockholm remained at this location until 1903, when the City of Newark acquired the property for the handsome sum of $40,000. This parcel was added to the ever-expanding area of what is now referred to as the Newark Watershed.
THE SUSSEX FACTORY
Knowing the transaction with Newark was forthcoming, Booth Brothers had to find a new site to operate its business. The firm finally settled on a building in the Borough of Deckertown at the intersection of Main and Spring streets. This had been the location of the Ewald Shoe Company until March 1901, when a fire swept through their facility.
In the Dec. 3, 1903, edition of American Machinist magazine, the following listing was printed: "It is stated at Sussex, N.J., that Booth Brothers are making progress in fitting up their knife factory."
The phrase "fitting up" referred to the reconstruction of the remains of the Ewald Shoe Company building and the construction of the three-story addition that effectively doubled the size of the structure.
The shoe factory had a substantial number of large windows on each floor to provide natural light for the workers. The knife factory's addition maintained the same pattern, as seen in the photograph. By now, technology had progressed to the point that waterpower was no longer required to drive the heavy machinery.
By early 1904, Booth Brothers was fully functional and employed about 55 local men. The 1909 Industrial Directory of New Jersey included the Booth Brothers Knife Company as a principal industry in the borough and confirmed these employment figures.
At some point shortly after 1909, the knife manufacturer was bought by the Tidioute Cutlery Company and relocated to Tidioute, Pa. That firm, in turn, was reconstituted as the Union Cutlery Company and relocated to Olean, N.Y.
In what turned out to be reputably the largest single-structure fire in the history of Sussex Borough, the former Booth Brothers Knife Company factory burned to the ground Oct. 22, 1937.
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Sussex County Historian Wayne T. McCabe may be contacted at [email protected].
