Person:Simon Wardwell (5)

Listed in 1897 Attleboro Directory as the President of Mossberg Wrench Co., living in Woonsocket, RI.

Living in Providence at 1900, 1910 & 1920 census. No children.

Simon, the 8th child and 3rd living son of Matilda Ann (Ackland) and Simon Willard Wardwell, was born September 9, 1849, in Cumberland, Allegany County, Maryland. In the following year, the family moved westward to Grantsville, and by 1861 they were living in Oakland, Garrett County, Maryland, nearby to the West Virginia border. On December 12, 1871, shortly after his 22nd birthday, Simon received his first sewing machine patent. In the following year, Patent No. 128,684, with its pioneer concept of two spools rather than the customary one spool and a separate bobbin, was issued, and it became the remote ancestor of important machinery to follow. Other patents were taken out in 1873, 1874, and 1875. Some time during this period Simon moved to St. Louis, where he formed his own company. The United States Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia in 1876, and though his latest machine was not thoroughly completed nor ready for the market, Wardwell's sewing machine received the Centennial Medal of Award---"commended for simplicity and ingenuity, and evincing progress in lock stitch machines'". The pioneer-inventor's corporate descendants, such as The Wardwell Braiding Mchine Company of Central Falls, Rhode Island, are "entitled to display this unusual piece of medallic art from the United States Mint". The Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition was Wardwell's first presentation of his invention to an international market. One more patent--a sewing machine table--taken out in 1877, was needed to prepare for the next international exhibition at Paris in 1878. These World Fairs had begun in 1851 as a way to bring together the best that each country had to offer in an atmosphere of peaceful competition...As he had before, Warwell garnered another now historical medal for his two spool machine at the Paris Exposition. Shortly after this, Wardwell moved to Bristol, Rhode Island (where his collateral cousin, Uzal Wardwell, had settled as early as 1684). Here, on April 23, 1907, a patent was granted to Simon W. Wardwell for a high speed braider that increased the production rate of braiding textile and wire filaments. Subsequently, 37 more patents were granted to Simon Wardwell on the braider and its various components, encompassing a span of years from 1907 to the last one granted after his death on July 25, 1922. The Wardwell high speed braider is an intricate precision machine. The design of the high speed braider is such that when operating at proper speed, the pull of gravity on the package of material is balanced by the centrifugal force so that the upper carriers and spools of material run in the track in a perfectly balanced and stable condition. A recent computer analysis of the design proved that Simon Wardwell and his engineers had years ago come up with a correct proven mathematical design. There have been few changes in this basic design over the years that it has been manufactured. Over 60,000 of these high speed braiders have been built, and have been sold in almost all of the countries of the world. Products manufactured on the Wardwell high-speed braiders included shoe laces, thread, candle wicks, surgical sutures,, catheters, rope, tire cords, high pressure hoses, shielded wiring harnesses, and hundred of others. Wardwell was honored by having the high speed braider on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., from July 1923 until 1944. At about the same time, another of his inventions, the Universal winder, was on display. An article in the Pawtucket, Rhode Island, "Times". in 1975, quoted Jonathan K. Farnum, President of The Wardwell Braiding Company, thusly: "Our braider was the product of a real American inventor--Simon Wardwell. It does its thing better than anybody else's machine. There have been some refinements in the machine but in over 60 years, nobody in any other country had improved on the basic design, the basic process". The Smithsonian had run the machine continuously from 1923 to 1944 before one small part began to give evidence of minor wear. "They asked for a free, part after 21 years Farnum said. "We sent it. That struck us as good advertising." In 1975, an old 1923-style braider was acquired and rebuilt by The Wardwell braiding Machine Company, and then donated to the Slater Mill Museum in Pawtucket as part of their exhibit of the most significant textile machines. A variable speed control was incorporated on this braider permitting it to be run at a slow speed so that the braiding process could be observed, and then run at full operating speed to show how fast the braider can produce the braided product. Wardwell spent his career as an inventor and executive with a number of successful machine manufacturing companies including the present-day Taft Pierce Manufacturing Company and Leesona Corporation. During his life time he was granted 170 patents on such items as sewing machines, textile looms, commercial winders (the well-known Universal Winder, now Leesona), stamped wrenches (Mossberg), rotary shuttles for sewing machines, a method of waxing sewing thread for higher sewing speeds, a collapsible canoe, toy whistle, and many varied items. Simon's creative talents were also expressed in his avocation of writing poetry. Under the pen name of "Simon Durst", his "Rhymes, Book One, Rhapsodies of Poeticus Hungricus", was published in 1901. His will of July 9, 1920, was an innovative and remarkably far-sighted document. The preamble declared "my dominant talents and tastes are positive for invention-mechanical and literary,. and negative for commerce and finance". He further stated that everything connected with the "Wonder" (i. e. his braiding machine) was at his own instigation and direction..."a hard, uphill struggle except all the onerous. details". He named four managers and directors of his Company to continue the business by establishing one of the first 'profit-sharing incentive programs". Each man was given a proportionate share of the Company's profits with "profits with progressive distribution to each", assuring "the continuance of their active support of its growth and to become and remain a director of the Company and a trustee of the estate". In addition to the usual bequests to his wife, Simon also gave her proportionate profits of the Company, which at her death, since they were childless, were to be inherited by her nieces. Proportional profits were also given to Simon's brother and four sisters: Ernest H. Wardwell, Margaret W. Crane, Lucy W. Elliott, Hannah B. Wardwell, and Carroll W. Lipman. "I direct that upon the death of any one of my sisters, her income be distributed among her daughters and their deaughters. And upon my brother's death, his income be distributed among his daughters and their daughters." Family recollections are that Uncle Simon frequently declared that "no man ever contributed anything worthwhile to my life" and that, except for a few exceptions, all persons named in his will were "women and their female descendants". Simon's confidence in his inventions and the "Wonder" were well founded, as to this day, the Wardwell women so inheriting continue to receive annual checks. "It is my intent while living, the income from my 'Wonder' machine permitting, to invent some much needed systems of public service, to design, erect and endow a model hospital, a model kindergarten, a model school for boys whose mind are more eager for useful knowledge than their bodies are for useless sports, and a model Cottage-Village-Home for aged couples." Simon was one of the first environmentalist, for in an era when it was not a general procedure, he asked to be cremated "in the firm belief that the general welfare will be promoted by the substitution of incineration for burial as a means of disposing of the dead". Simon Willard Wardwell III died on February 19, 1921, in Bristol, Rhode Island, aged 71 1/2 years. -Marjorie Wardwell Otten

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 William Wardwell of Andover With an Informal Collection of His Descendants through the 8th Generation, Majorie Wardwell Otten 2002.
2.   Patents