The standards so obtained became the basis of the gauges which Pratt & Whitney have produced. In 1888 the company received its first order for Hotchkiss revolving cannon, and for three- and six-pounders rapid-fire guns. They have made hundreds of these guns for the secondary batteries of war vessels. In 1895 they brought out a one-pounder invented by E. G. Parkhurst, an expert mechanic, who had entered their employment as assistant superintendent in 1869 and later took charge of their gun department. For many years the Pratt & Whitney tool-room lathes were the standard for the country. Later their leadership was materially affected by the Hendey Machine Company of Torrington, Conn., who built a high grade tool-room lathe having the change-gear box which has since been applied to nearly all types of machine tools. The change-gear box is one of the important contributions to tool building made in recent years. Among the later developments introduced by Pratt & Whitney is the process of thread milling, and they have designed a full line of machines for this work. The Pratt & Whitney works, like the Colt Armory, has been a training school for successful tool builders. Worcester R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey were both foremen at Pratt & Whitney’s and left there to go west, first to Chicago and then to Cleveland. Some account of these two men will be given in a later chapter. Pratt & Whitney have had a marked influence on tool building in Cleveland, for, in addition to Warner and Swasey, E. C. Henn and Hakewessel of the National Acme Manufacturing Company who developed the multi-spindle automatic lathe, A. F. Foote of Foote, Burt & Company, and George C. Bardons of Bardons & Oliver, come from their shop. Johnston of Potter & Johnston, Pawtucket, was chief draftsman at Pratt & Whitney’s; and J. N. Lapointe who later developed the broaching machine, Dudley Seymour of Chicago, Gleason of the Gleason Works in Rochester, E. P. Bullard of Bridgeport, and F. N. Gardner of Beloit, Wis., inventor of the Gardner grinder, were all workmen there. Mr. Gleason was also a workman in the Colt Armory. He went to Rochester in 1865 and the works which he developed form the most important tool building interest in western New York. There have been “a good many starts there in tool building and almost as many finishes.” Mr. Gleason always said that but for the training and methods he had gained at Hartford he would have shared their fate. Like many others, his company began with a general line of machine tools but has come to specialize on one type of machine, bevel-gear cutters, of which they build a most refined type.