by Dan Wiswell
Growing up in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts I have always been aware of the mills that are in my area. I knew at an early age the difference between an old mill and a really old mill. I used to look at the large water wheels on display outside of some of them that used to distribute mechanical power to the looms and spinning machines on the various floors inside. Most of the mills were for spinning yarn and thread or for making cloth. Some were used for more heavy industrial production of things like boots, axles, bearings and machine parts. Alongside of the mills you can still see the homes and housing for people that worked in these places. But I always wondered. How did things go from a Victorian-esque, mechanical world to the electrified one that we see before us today? The answer is that it all started with the flip of a switch. Electricity broke the bonds between industrial manufacturing and waterpower. When that happened, industrial manufacturing no longer needed to be located on or near river systems. The effect of this was the creation of what we now call “suburbia.”
When electric power first became available to society in the late nineteenth century it set off a kind of pre-Cambrian-like explosion of innovation. It seems to have happened with such speed that it is hard to comprehend today. The imaginations of inventors around the world were literally and suddenly electrified. What burst forth became an unending myriad of electrical creation that could barely satisfy the appetites of an increasingly prosperous and educated consumer class. Appliances and electrified products literally leaped into existence. This fueled a decades-long economic boom. Nations in various parts of the globe began to embrace the advantages that modern technology could bring, and in many instances, used technological superiority successfully in conflicts with their enemies. It’s easy to see the larger picture of how the world changed when electrical energy became available. It actually all started on the local level, everywhere, and nearly all at once. By taking a step back in time we can see the foundations of our own electrical instrument industry in some surprising places. Surely the suburbs of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago can be likened to the petri dishes of our national industry, but instrument manufacturing occurred in more bucolic settings as well. As it is with many things, sometimes change comes when the right individual arrives at the perfect moment. A good example of this happened in the Merrimack Valley of central New Hampshire in the late 1880s.
Dr. Adrian Hazen Hoyt was that kind of guy. Born in 1862 in Magog, Quebec he attended grammar school there and went on to attend the business college of Davis and Dewie in Montreal. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1887 with a degree in medicine. However, it wasn’t an interest in medicine that attracted him to Dartmouth. In those days courses in electricity were part of the medical curriculum. Shortly after college he began working for Standard Electric Company in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. These were heady times in the newly developing instrumentation industry. Edward Weston had just patented his version of the d’Arsonval meter movement in 1888. Science journals and magazines of the day were full of articles that discussed the latest developments in electrical research. After a brief tenure at Standard Electric Company, Adrian Hoyt moved to Manchester, New Hampshire and began his work in electrical research. He is credited with patenting over twenty-five electrical measuring instruments and scientific apparatus. One of his first patents was for an alternating-current ammeter which caught the interest of investors.
In 1891, the Penacook Electric Light Company began operations just a few years after the Boston Edison Company was established about eighty miles to the south. The business grew rapidly and in 1900 it purchased a large tract of land with waterpower rights on the Merrimack River in Concord, New Hampshire. The purchase included several mills and buildings, one of which was known as the Electric Mill that had been built ten years before in 1890. The company leased the Electric Mill to the newly formed Whitney Electrical Instrument Company that had been organized by investors from Manchester, Lowell and Boston. The Whitney Electric Instrument Company manufactured electrical measuring instruments under patents granted to Dr. Adrian Hazen Hoyt, whom they retained as an “electrician.”
The business was an immediate success. The operation grew so rapidly that in 1892 a considerably larger factory was constructed in West Penacook, New Hampshire. Dr. Hoyt became the general manager just a few years later in 1894 and became a resident of the town as well. Whitney Electrical Instrument Company was very well regarded for the high quality of its measuring instruments. They were very popular in laboratories and universities all over North America.
As the company grew, Dr. Hoyt was also able to pursue his other interests, particularly in automobiles. He began manufacturing automobiles and electrical instruments at his own company called the American Manufacturing Company, also in Penacook. He has been credited as being the first person in New Hampshire to have owned a car, obtain a driver’s license, and was one of the founders of the New Hampshire Automobile Club. He was a long-time friend of Henry Ford. He owned the first car dealership in New Hampshire. The building still exists to this day.
In 1904 Dr. Hoyt founded the Hoyt Electrical Instrument Works. The company manufactured dashboard panel meters for vehicles, and gentlemen’s pocket meters that men fashionably wore in vest pockets that had been previously used for pocket watches.
At the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the electrical instrument manufacturing industry began moving in many new directions and it diversified as its applications grew. Many larger companies purchased their competitors to seek market share and to expand their product lines. In 1909 The Whitney Electrical Instrument Company was purchased by the Roller-Smith Company and moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. When this occurred Dr. Hoyt took ownership of the factory that The Whitney Electrical Instrument Company vacated.
During the First World War, Adrian Hoyt developed a magnetic explosive device that would attach itself to submerged U-boats and detonate. This caused Germany to nearly halt its submarine activity. The Hoyt Electrical Instrument Company also produced a broad variety of panel instruments for the general electronics manufacturing industry. It has been a fixture in the town of Penacook for nearly one hundred and twenty years and still produces high quality panel instrumentation.
Today, it is perfectly situated in the center of its universe in the Wallace Hoyt building at 23 Meter Street.
Another founding father of Penacook’s test and measurement industry was Walter E. Beede. Born in 1879, Walter Beede founded the Beede Electrical Instrument Company, Inc. in Penacook, NH in 1917. Walter Beede sold the company in 1927 but reassumed control after the stock market crash in 1929. In its early years the company made small, hand-held portable meters used to test batteries in portable equipment such as radios, flashlights and other consumer goods. It also made pocket meters similar to the Hoyt meters that were designed for the same purpose. From its inception, Beede Electrical Instrument Company was also a supplier of dashboard instruments that included voltmeters, speedometers and tachometers that were used in the automotive, avionics and marine industries. There was quite a bit of overlap between the two companies’ product lines.
In the early twentieth century, Beede meters were sold domestically through a variety instrument distributors and dealers that began to appear around this time. Like other manufacturers, Beede Electrical Instrument Company offered a broad range of what were called “mod” meters through these vendors. Mod meters were designed to be easily modified by the metrologists that worked in this instrument after-market by providing value-added instrumentation solutions as well as instrument repair and calibration services. These meters were modified for unique customer applications that often included the printing of a customer’s logo on the meter’s scale or dial. This relationship allowed panel instrument manufacturers to concentrate on the production of stock instruments and allowed the after-market distributors to focus on the specific and often unique needs of their customers. Hundreds of people all over the United States and Canada were employed in this second-tier industry which contributed significantly to size of the metrological workforce.
A signature piece of instrumentation that will always be associated with Beede Instruments is the Beede Meter Relay. This device was sold as a mod meter and looked like a panel meter with a beer can attached to the back of its meter housing. Inside this elongated case were relays that could be programmed to trip when the meter’s pointer crossed adjustable setpoints on its front panel. This device was one of the first products to combine measurement and control technology in one convenient package.
Mr. Beede’s nephew, Paul Pelletier, began working at the company in 1934 and became its president when Walter Beede passed away in 1948. Paul’s son, Walter Pelletier, assumed control of the business in 1988, and by 2001 the company employed approximately seven hundred people at its locations in Penacook, Belmont, and Northfield, New Hampshire. The Thomas G. Faria Corporation of Montville, Connecticut purchased the company upon the retirement of Walter Pelletier in 2013. The company’s 60,000 square foot building, built in 1957, can still be seen at its Village Street location in Penacook, New Hampshire.
There are many test and measurement companies in New Hampshire that can trace their beginnings to these early days. Marion Electrical Instrument Company for example, produced hermetically sealed panel meters and was bought by the Jewell Instrument Company, presently located at 850 Perimeter Road in Manchester, New Hampshire. In later years, the Jewell Instrument Company also purchased Modutec, a panel meter manufacturing company that was also located in Manchester, New Hampshire.
These companies were just a few of the many test and measurement companies that appeared on the scene in northern New England at the turn of the last century. Some are still around today. They created an environment that nurtured the development of a talented, technical workforce. Thousands of people worked in these companies, and many went on to start companies of their own. Back then, generations of families made their livelihoods by working in jobs that are still employing people to this day. After a full day of work, they went home, fed their families, went on vacations, and celebrated life. And ultimately, they became us.
Once again, I wonder. Did people like Adrian Hoyt and Walter Beede have an inkling as to how their dreams would play out over time? As I have written previously, I believe that we all owe these gentlemen a debt of gratitude, for they are both directly responsible for making the American Dream a reality for many of us.
During the research phase of writing this article the thing that stood out the most for me is how similar the times were back at the beginning of the last century when compared to the world we live in today. I would like to thank Jeffery Hoyt and the employees at Hoyt Electrical Instrument Works, Inc. for taking the time to meet with me and for allowing me to take a deep look into the way things were in those days of old.
Dan Wiswell (dcwiswell@repaircalibration.net) is a self-described Philosopher of Metrology. He is President/CEO of Cal-Tek Company, Inc. and Amblyonix Industrial Instrument Company.
