Steptoe was not an originator or an inventor. He was a rough man, plain spoken, honest and well informed. He died in 1888 at about eighty-four years of age. Thomas P. Egan of the J. A. Fay & Egan Company, who had worked for Steptoe and was the administrator of his estate, sold the business for the widow to Otting & Lauder.[218] In compliance with Steptoe’s wish it was stipulated that his name should be retained and it has been perpetuated in the various changes through which the business has gone. Today the John Steptoe Company manufactures shapers and milling machines. Steptoe’s name should be remembered, for Cincinnati tool building owes its start more to him than to anyone else, with the possible exception of William Lodge, who was himself one of Steptoe’s workmen. [218] The above facts are given by several of Steptoe’s old workmen. Mr. Lodge, the son of George Lodge, a skilled mechanic in the textile industry, was born in Leeds, England, in 1848. After serving his apprenticeship in the shops of Fairbairn & Company, Leeds, he came to Philadelphia, where he worked for Chambers Brothers from 1869 to 1872, making paper-folding machinery. He came to Cincinnati in 1872 and worked for Steptoe for eight years, first as a journeyman machinist and later as a foreman. Having saved $1000, he formed a partnership with William Barker and they started in business the first day of January, 1880, at Fifth Street and the C. H. & D. tracks. Associated with them for a short time was Mr. Bechle, another Steptoe workman. Their first task was to true up a few second-hand machines which they had bought for their shop, after which they went out, secured some business, and came back and executed it themselves, since they had no one in their employ. Part of this first business was making some opening dies for Powell and a small turret lathe for Lunkenheimer. Lunkenheimer immediately ordered three more and during the following year eighteen lathes were made and sold. Beginning with $1000, the business inventoried at the end of the first year $7000; at the end of the second year $32,000; and at the end of ten years $400,000. Fifteen months after starting they employed seventy-five men. There is little doubt that this rapid success induced quite a number of the better and more ambitious mechanics in Cincinnati to take up similar work. Mr. Lodge was well known among the mechanics of the city and had been president of their union. If one of their own number could build up a successful business, why could they not do the same? Some of the best known of the Cincinnati tool building firms were established during the few years after Mr. Lodge’s start.