From the old Phelps & Bickford and S. C. Coombs shops came the two Whitcomb brothers, Carter and Alonzo, who formed the Carter Whitcomb Company in 1849, which became the Whitcomb Manufacturing Company in 1872. From the Coombs company also came successively Shepard, Lathe & Company; Lathe, Morse & Company, and the Draper Machine Tool Company. P. Blaisdell & Company was founded in 1865 by Parritt Blaisdell, who had been fifteen years with Wood, Light & Company; and S. E. Hildreth, who had worked for more than twenty years with Flagg and Pond, became a partner in this firm eight years later. The Whitcomb, Draper and Blaisdell companies were united in 1905 into the present Whitcomb-Blaisdell Machine Tool Company. From the old Blaisdell shop came also J. E. Snyder & Son through Currier & Snyder, who began building drills in 1833 and were both old workmen at Blaisdell’s. The original Reed & Prentice Company was started by A. F. Prentice, who sold a half interest to F. E. Reed in 1875. The Woodward & Powell Planer Company comes from the Powell Planer Company, incorporated in 1876. This maze of relationships is made clear by reference to the table given in Fig. 45. The Norton Company comes from F. B. Norton, who began experimenting on vitrified emery wheels about 1873 and put them on the market in 1879. At his death the business was incorporated as the Norton Emery Wheel Company, now the Norton Company. Charles H. Norton’s work in developing precision grinding has been perhaps the most distinguished contribution to the later generation of Worcester mechanics. He began work in the shops of the Seth Thomas Clock Company at Thomaston, Conn., under his uncle, N. A. Norton, who was master mechanic there for about forty years. At his uncle’s death, Norton became master mechanic. He was with the Clock Company about twenty years in all, most of the time in charge of the design and building of all their tools, machinery and large tower clocks. [Illustration: WILLIAM A. WHEELER, PHELPS & BICKFORD ICHABOD WASHBURN 1823 Textile Machinery Cards and Textile Foundry--Came from S. C. Coombs Machry. Brookfield, *2* *3* Plant closed in 1914 *1* #3# WASHBURN & HOWARD Cards, Textile Machry. and Wire 1820 *4*