D. T. Dudley & Son Company, Inc. Records

D.T. Dudley & Son Company was a manufacturer of shuttles for power looms and was located in Wilkinsonville, a part of Sutton, MA. The company traces its origins to 1825 and a series of individuals and partnerships under a variety of names until D.T. Dudley and his son, Henry T. Dudley, gained exclusive control in 1867 and renamed the company. Some of these earlier name included Jefferson Bellows; Ruggles & Fowler; Fowler, Pratt, and King; Sumner Pratt & Co.; Wilkinsonville Shuttle Company; Chase & Dudley; Chase & Wilder; and Wilder & Co.

David Tyler Dudley was born in Sutton in 1817, the son of David Dudley, a scythe manufacturer and descendant of early settlers of Sutton. By 1842 D.T. Dudley had become a partner in the Wilkinsonville Shuttle Company with Charles King, Leonard Woodbury, A.D. Chase, and Warren Wilder, all of whom had been in the employ of Sumner. Pratt & Co. Dudley left the business in 1855, apparently for health reasons and was in charge of the Wilkinsonville railroad station for about ten years until he returned to the business in 1867. At this time his son, Henry T. Dudley, born in 1841, joined his father in the business. It appears that Warren Wilder had become sole owner of Wilder & Co. (as it was then called) in the meantime. Wilder sold the business to the Dudleys, in 1867, father and son, becoming sole owners of what was re-named, D.T. Dudley & Son Company.

The decade of the 1870's was one of expansion for the company. The Blackstone River Valley was, at this time, an area with many cotton and woolen mills, along with companies manufacturing textile machinery. The Dudleys were able to capitalize on this location and to add new machinery for making shuttle irons (iron parts for shuttles). By the end of the 1870's the company had a market throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and South America. The company employed machinists and other skilled workers who designed and built both shuttles for power looms and the machinery needed to do so.

In 1885, the company's plant was almost totally destroyed by fire, with loss of most of its buildings and much of its stock and tools. The Dudleys were able to find the capital to rebuild and the process was completed rapidly. By 1893, D.T. Dudley was no longer able to be active in the company, and several investors from Providence, Rhode Island, including Fred A. Chase, Fred L. Chase, and M. Eugene Gleason, became involved in the firm. In 1894 the company obtained a charter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with Charles H. Norcross and Louis E. Chase, local Sutton men, becoming majority stockholders. Members of the Chase family had long been involved with the company and were important to its success. Daniel M. Chase, a machinist, and his son, Louis E. Chase, were instrumental in building and adapting the company's highly specialized machinery in order to make the shuttle-manufacturing process more profitable. Louis E. Chase and Daniel M. Chase, a third-generation family member, were its presidents during much of the 20th century.

The period from 1895 to 1930 saw the company's greatest prosperity. By the 1930's there were fewer textile manufacturers in the northern states and the company's business eroded. By the late 1950's most of Dudley's shuttles were ordered by another maker, Watson-Williams Manufacturing Co. in Millbury, Massachusetts. At the death of Daniel M. Chase, company president, in 1961, the company was sold to Howard Pellatt who had worked for Watson-Williams for many years. Pellatt formed a new corporation, Dudley Shuttles, Inc., which existed, much reduced in size and manpower, until 1984.

The researcher interested in the history of D.T. Dudley & Son Company should also consult the volumes entitled Dudley Shuttle Company, prepared by the Museum of American Textile History in 1989. It is located with research materials in MS 1989.231.1 The Museum also o