Annual Champlain calendar chronicles Sheridan Iron Works

It's time again for the release of the annual Champlain historical calendar. The theme for this year's offering is the iron industry in Champlain with emphasis on the Sheridan Iron Works. Hundreds of people in Clinton County today worked at the Sheridan plant before it closed in 1988. This year marks the thirteenth annual calendar, which has come to be a tradition across the Norther Tier. Each year's calendar has a different theme and includes 13 vintage large format images in each calendar. Along with the historic photos, calendar creator David Patrick includes an essay, chronicling the subject of that year's calendar. Patrick chose the subject of the iron industry and Sheridan Iron Works because of the 158 year history of that business in Champlain. HISTORY LESSON The history of the Sheridan Iron Works goes back to 1840 when Thomas J. Whiteside of Champlain established a small iron foundry on Main Street in the Village of Champlain. In 1847 he leased it to David Finley and James Smith, and in 1854, after a significant capital investment by Champlain's leading businessmen, a new foundry and machine shop were built on Elm Street. These buildings are still present today. The name of the foundry changed over the years from "Finley and Smith," "D. Finley & Co." and "H.W. Clark & Co." After the shareholders died the foundry was sold to James Averill Jr. and Sylvester Alonzo Kellogg, both from Champlain, in 1883 and it was at this time that the foundry started to grow into what we know today. Averill named it the "Champlain Foundry and Machine Shops" and later the "Champlain Iron Works" by 1886. Averill also operated a large boat yard on the Great Chazy River in the Village of Champlain and this was mentioned prominently in last year's calendar. BOOK BINDING When Averill bought the foundry, it made equipment for sawmills, waterwheels and steam engines. He wanted to expand his foundry's portfolio by moving into more markets. He partnered with a small book binder in NYC and this opened up a second opportunity a few years later. In 1887, he sold the Champlain foundry to two brothers named T.W. & C.B. Sheridan. The Sheridans operated a 50 year old book binding manufacturing business and were looking to expand their operations. The Champlain foundry now made only book binding equipment for the publishing industry under the name of "T.W. & C.B. Sheridan Co" or "Sheridan Iron Works." The foundry expanded for the next ninety years to what we see today on Elm Street. Hundreds of workers and their families benefited from working in James Averill Jr.'s foundry and canal boat businesses and he is credited as being one of Champlain's most important industrialists. After the Sheridan's bought the foundry, a machine designer named Alfred Bredenberg moved to Champlain and supervised the building of the book binding machines he had designed. In the 1890s, Alfred designed a novel bookbinding machine called the Perfect Binder and this bookbinding method is still used today. During World War II, the plant's mission temporarily changed and it instead made equipment that was used to build tanks and aircraft. The foundry made huge aluminum sheet stretchers that weighed 150 tons. These sheet stretchers were shipped to all the aircraft and automobile manufacturers in the country for about 15 years. More manufacturing buildings were added during WWII. HARRIS In 1964, the Harris Corporation bought Sheridan Iron Works and their bookbinding equipment became more modern and computerized. The bookbinding equipment manufactured in Champlain was used to bind all of the country's major newspapers as well as large city telephone books, major magazines and periodicals as well as popular catalogs. The plant closed down in 1988 and operations were moved to Ohio, costing the region about 650 jobs. For a list of local businesses selling the calendar, contact http://moorsfieldpress.com/to_order_a_calendar.html.

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Annual Champlain calendar chronicles Sheridan Iron Works

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