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TOOL TALK #20
(by Bud Bolt - February 26, 2008)
Well Folks, Saturday and Sunday March 3rd & 4th were two more exciting days at Bolt’s Antique Tool Museum. As usual we had interesting people come by to visit the museum and drop off donations. Now most of you know we have set up a couple of boxes for the hammers and knives for Rex. There was only a couple in each box Friday, but Tuesday when we went in both boxes was filling up.
Now we realize these are for Rex, but I can’t resist taking a look to see what might be historically important. Sure glad I did and I’m going to tell you what was in there but you have to promise not to tell Rex because we are going to try to talk him out of it and put it on display and we don’t want him to know the historically importance of it until after he agrees to give it to us.
I hope you are ready for this at its exciting stuff.
One item in the hammer box really stood out. It is a 10 lb. Sledge hammerhead well used but beautiful. After removing some rust and dirt, etc, we find the trademark. -- Yerkes & Plumb. So we go to our library and pullout the book that has the history of this famous but rarely heard of company.
We find that Yerkes opened a blacksmith shop in Philadelphia in 1856. Among items he made were sledge hammers. Primarily for Railroad construction. Now Yerkes liked his work but had no liking or tolerance for white-collar personnel and he commonly referred to them as office lice.
He became acquainted with a young hardware salesman by the name of Fayette R. Plumb who didn’t know a thing about blacksmithing but loves people so he took Fayette in as a partner in 1870. The business prospered with Yerkes running the shop and Plumb selling the goods.
In 1887 Yerkes retired and moved to Florida and the Company became know as Fayette R. Plumb, LTD and produced hammer – sledges, pick, railroad track tools and axes.
When we now take a closer look at this treasure in Rex’s box and con- sider what we have learned, we must conclude this tool is over 120 years old – made sometime between 1870 & 1887. No wonder it shows a little use. What a piece of tool history. So again, don’t tell Rex what he has but if you can drop by Bolt’s Antique tool Museum, 1650 Broderick St. in Historic downtown Oroville, Ca. and look this beauty and approx 6,500 other items over – We are open Tuesday thru Sunday, 11:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. While you are there, we will talk tools – Antique tools, that is -- If you can spare a few hours a month consider joining our capable volunteers and join in the fun.
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