Joseph M. Merrow
Encyclopedia
Joseph Millard Merrow was president of the Merrow Machine Company.

Merrow was born in the community of Merrow, town of Mansfield
Mansfield, Connecticut
Mansfield is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,720 at the 2000 census.Mansfield was incorporated in October 1702 from the Town of Windham, in Hartford County. When Windham County was formed on 12 May 1726, Mansfield then became part of that county...

 in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

. His parents were J. B. Merrow and Harriet Millard Merrow. He was educated at the Munson Mass Academy and Hartford Public High School
Hartford Public High School
Hartford Public High School was founded in 1638. It is the second-oldest public secondary school in the United States , second to the Boston Latin School. It is a part of the Hartford Public Schools district.-History:...

.

At the age of 15 he was employed as a pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...

 and a postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...

, appointed by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

.

Established in 1838, the family business was the manufacture of knit cotton goods; it was the first of its kind in the country. In 1888 the family's mills were destroyed by fire related to an incident with gunpowder. J. B. Merrow held a patent on gunpowder. The destruction of the mill allowed the company to further develop a small shop that had previously supported the knitting mill, and the Merrow Mills thus became primarily a manufacturer of crochet sewing machines.

Joseph Merrow was the driving force behind Merrow developing new technology, growing the new business and transforming it from a regional supplier of crochet sewing machines, to the market leader manufacturing hundreds of models of industrial overlock sewing machines. Under his leadership the company achieved a place of prominence in the industrial machine field with sales world-wide, hundreds of patents and the industries first industrial overlock sewing machine.

Merrow was also active in politics. In 1880 he was elected to the House of Representatives of the General Assembly. He was founder and president of the Hartford County Manufacturers association. In addition he founded the Industrial Memorials Inc, a business group that devoted its time to commemorating pioneer manufacturers by funding and locating plaques and statues. He was president from 1939 until 1946.

Merrow traveled the world, taking several dozen trips to europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, while studying the industrial conditions of the countries he visited.

He was a writer and a poet. The Hartford Courant writing his obituary quotes him as having defined war as the 'history of the human race in a single word, Greed the cause of war and brotherly love the cure for greed and the end of war'.

Merrow never married, although his great nephews Owen and Charlie Merrow
Charlie Merrow
Charles Griswold Merrow Charles Griswold Merrow Charles Griswold Merrow (born November 11, 1976 is an entrepreneur who is now the Chief Executive Officer of the Merrow Sewing Machine Company. He is the great grandson of Lane Bryant and great great nephew to Joseph M. Merrow, who was the inventor of...

 maintain his legacy as the current managers of the Merrow Sewing Machine Company
Merrow Sewing Machine Company
the Merrow Sewing Machine Company is a manufacturer of sewing machines, established in 1838 as the Merrow Company by J. Makens Merrow. Originally a gunpowder manufacturer, in 1837 the company built a knitting mill, and in 1887 evolved to design, build and market sewing machines exclusively. Best...

.

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