CHRISTMAS IN
FITCHBURG

BREAD AND BUTTER FACTORY

SENTINEL
ARTICLE

Daniel Simonds
 8th generation
1847 - 1913


Daniel had 7 brothers and sisters. Abel and Jane were his parents. He attended the public and high schools of his native town and Gomer's Commercial College of Boston. He went to work for Abel, his dad, who was at that time manufacturing scythes and edge tools in West Fitchburg, a business he had carried on since 1832. About the time that Daniel entered the business, Abel began to manufacture mowing machine knives. Abel had taken as a partner, his oldest son Joseph Farwell Simonds. (Joseph was the only son Abel had with his first wife. Elizabeth Farwell). The firm name was A. Simonds & Sons for several years. In 1864 the business was sold to two other sons of Abel, Alvan Agustus Simonds and George F. Simonds, who with Benjamin Snow Jr., organized the firm of Simonds Bros. & Company.

Daniel Simonds worked for the new firm. Machine knives, mowing machines and paper sections were manufactured and the business prospered and grew rapidly.

 
In 1862 the Simonds Manufacturing Co. was incorporated to take over Simonds Bros. & Co. The capital stock was $50,000 and the works moved from West Fitchburg to their present location on Main and North Streets. The same line of work was continued until 1878, when on account of the consolidation of the mowing machine and reaper interest by western manufacturers, the Simonds company sold that department of its business and began to make saws by a new method of manufacture and tempering.

The Fitchburg concern found the field well occupied by older firms, but the new method gave them a start, and against all competition the Simonds saws made rapid headway in the markets! ... We are talking cutting edge innovation here....

The company had established branches and offices in Chicago and San Fransisco.

John Simonds, (Daniel's older brother) was treasurer of the Simonds Manufacturing Co. from the time Alvan A. Simonds withdrew in 1876 until 1886, and then became the head of the Simonds Saw Company of San Francisco, a company that handles the products of the Fitchburg concern in the west. The company had just acquired control (1908) of four plants in Montreal, Province of Quebec, Canada, and consolidated them under the corporate name of the the Simonds Canada Saw Company, with the main offices in Montreal.

Daniel Simonds held various offices in the company from time to time as the business grew and the active members of the company changed. In the eighties(1880's that is) he was superintendent of the manufacturing and vice president of the company. Daniel succeeded his older brother George F. Simonds, in 1888 as president of the new company. He retired in 1893.