Norway Tack Co. of Wheeling, 1886

- from The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, September 14, 1886.
 

THE NORWAY TACK CO.

An Important and Promising Wheeling Manufactory.

The Norway Tack Company is composed of Isaiah T. Jones, Hiram H. Heald and Theo. Phinney. Their works are an extensive affair, the site extending on Eighteenth street from Market to Chapline, and the main building being of brick, five stories high. Mr. G. C. Hannan is in charge of the office and Mr. Charles Davis of the factory. The company makes all sizes and kinds of tacks, small wire nails and hob nails. It has enjoyed a boom this year, the strike in the nail factories stimulating the demand for small nails such as they make. The factory employs about thirty-five hands. Most of the work is done by machinery. The consumption of metal reaches from fifteen to twenty tons of iron per month. This is larger than it sounds, since the smaller sizes of tacks run 16,000 to a pound, and the average is perhaps 1,000.

The present company dates back to 1869. Prior to that a company having the same title had been in operation about four years, but with poor success, their energies being too diffused. Messrs. Jones, Heald & Phinney were experienced tack manufacturers at Sandwich, Mass., before they came here. The concern here was a part of the late tack combination while that lasted, retiring when the combination disbanded this year. Among the future possibilities is understood to be an enlargement of the works to nearly twice its present capacity, with a view to making tacks of soft steel, the advantages of which industry in this locality can be readily seen. At present the company uses almost exclusively Norway iron, and their product has a well earned reputation for its high quality in these days when many manufacturers have burdened the markets with spurious metal sold as Norway iron. The business is even in its present shape a considerable item in the sum total of Wheeling manufactures, and much more is hoped from it in the not remote future.
 

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