I unearthed another original document related to the Hamilton Watch Company. This one is dated 1883. You might find this quite interesting, especially given the amount of mythology surrounding the Company. In this document, you will discover the original shareholders names and the real donor of the property deeded to the Company. It appears the land on which the Company’s headquarters and plant wasn’t donated by James Hamilton granted to him by William Penn. Who really knows why the company became known as Hamilton? I surmise that the original shareholders were members of the elite Hamilton Mens Club. This will become clear as more original documents come into my hands.
This extensive manufacturing company was the outgrowth of the Adams & Perry Watch Company of Lancaster, which was organized at the Board of Trade rooms June 10, 1874 with a capital of $75,000, which had nearly all been subscribed at that time.
The company was incorporated under the laws of the State on Sept 26, 1874. Soon after, these men were sent here and began in a shop near the Best Boiler Works, the manufacture of machinery to be used in the watch manufactory.
At the meeting of the board of directors, December 2, 1874, it was reported that Mr. C.A. Bitner had made the company a deed of gift of three and a half acres in the western part of the city as a site for the proposed works.
Upon this the present building, which is exceedingly well adapted to the purpose for which it is used, was erected under the personal supervision of Mr Bitner and G. M. Zahm. It was first occupied in the summer of 1875. (The Lancaster City Association wrote that the architect was Clarence Luther Stiles of Chicago, Ill.)
The company carried on the manufacture with varying success until September 1877, when a reorganization decided by J.P. McCaskey, B.F. Breneman, Lewis S Hartman, Abraham Bitner, manager, deemed it expedient and the Lancaster Pennsylvania Watch Company was formed On April 1, 1879.
A change in the organization was effected (this was followed April 1, 1883) by reorganization into a stock company with a capital of $250,000. Stockholders in the present company are Messrs John I. Hartman, C.A. Bitner, A. Bitner, John D Skiles.
The officers of the board are Messrs John I Hartman, president, John D Skiles, treasurer and JP McCaskey, secretary. About four hundred thousand dollars has been expended in the (organization) thus far of which three hundred thousand were used for wages alone.
Now, fourteen grades of watches are manufactured. The factory has a capacity for turning out one hundred and fifty daily and is running at about two thirds that production.
A capital of $250,000 is invested and hundred and fifty men employed.
Abraham Bitner:
Abramham Bitner, the son of Abraham and Porter Bitner, was born in Lancaster City on Jan 22 1836. He started out in life for himself at the age of thirteen years without pecuniary assistance, but with a determined self-reliance and resolution carved out a fortune for himself, that has his whole very active business career.
For years, he was employed by Bitner & Brothers, at their freighting business in Lancaster and in their individual line of cars from Lancaster to Philadelphia.
Subsequently, he was a clerk in a flouring mill and operated a stationary engine. In 1857, went to Philadelphia and took charge of the interests of Bitner & Brothers in that city and engaged in the produce commission business until 1861, when he formed the partnership of Acheson Bitner in the flour and grain business, which continued for about one and a half years.
Returning to Lancaster County, he purchased a farm in Warwick township upon which, he resided in 1864. In 1865, he opened a coal yard in Lancaster City and in 1867, built the first coal chute erected in the city on the Reading and Columbia Railroad.
He disposed of this business in 1872, and purchased one hundred and thirty six acres of land on the New Jersey coast worth then some ten thousand dollars. (He) organized the Ocean Beach Association, which was comprised of men from that State and neighboring cities.
As superintendent of the association from 1873 to 1876, he laid out and founded what is now the famous and favorite summer resort of Ocean Beach. The first year, 1873, he built the Ocean Beach Methodist Episcopal Church. The Church was almost wholly at his own expense. He constructed the first building completed on the beach and made other important improvements. The value of an acre of ground at Ocean Beach in a desirable location in 1883, is fifteen thousand dollars. (He paid $10,000 for the entire one hundred and thirty six acres).
In 1874, he was elected a director of the New Egypt and Farmingdale Railroad Company. He reorganized the board of directors by requesting the resignation of four of its members and causing the election of four others.
Subsequently he obtained full control of the railroad by purchase and built the railroad and when completed sold it to the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey. From 1877 to 1879, Mr. Bitner was a clothing merchant in Lancaster City. In 1875, he was induced to take an interest in the Lancaster Watch Company.
By close application and personal interest in this (to him a comparatively new field of operations), he mastered the minutest details of the business, reorganized the company on Sept 1 1877, and put it upon a systematic working foundation.
He is the general manager of this company and is the joint inventor of an improved safety pinion, which constitutes one of the most important and valuable features of the Lancaster watch, which experts pronounce superior to any other device for a similar purpose. This device is necessary to protect the delicate movement of a watch from injury in case of the breaking and sudden expansion of the main spring. It was patented on August, 12 1879.
Mr Bitner is also the inventor of other very valuable patents in the construction of a watch. He is the patentee of the watch dial as of April 5 1881; he (was awarded) a patent for handsetting and stem winding device on July 25 1882; a patent for a compound regulator on Oct 10 1882; a dustproof watch plate on Nov 25 1882; and an improvement on the latter in 1883.
Mr Bitner has recently engaged also in the purchase of real estate near the watch factory building and has erected a fine and substantial home residence besides several tenant houses the whole comprising Cottage Place. He has given little attention to matters outside of his business interests; never sought office nor held any, but stands firmly entrenched in the principles of reform laid down by the Republican party
.
His first wife Sarah Ann daughter of John Retallick died in 1874. Their children are Elizabeth (deceased), George W (deceased), John Wesley, Mary Margaret (deceased) and William Yard Bitner. By his present wife, Anna, a daughter of David B Hostetter of Lancaster County, he has children Grace Herbert and Walter Bitner
LANCASTER PENNSYLVANIA BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MANY OF ITS PIONEERS AND PROMINENT MEN.
BY FRANKLIN ELLIS AND SAMUEL EVANS.
ILLUSTRATED, PHILADELPHIA by EVERTS & PEG.
K OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 77 0 1 04116017 QI 5 min Ha 1883 HISTORY
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