Dudley Shuttle Company Graphics

The Dudley Shuttles, Inc., is a shuttle manufacturer in Wilkinsonville, a locality of Sutton, MA. Dudley Shuttles, Inc. was the successor company to D.T. Dudley & Son Company and was formed in 1962 when Howard S. Pellatt, the donor of this collection, purchased D.T. Dudley & Son after the death in 1961 of its president, Daniel M. Chase.

Pellatt was born in 1911 in Minneapolis. He studied textile design at the Rhode Island School of Design and business administration at the University of Rhode Island. He spent most of his career in the shuttle business, starting in 1932 at the Litchfield Shuttle Company in Southbridge, MA, and continuing from 1934 to 1955 at the New Bedford Shuttle Company in New Bedford, MA. From 1955 until 1962 he was Northern Sales Manager for Watson-Williams Manufacturing Co., a shuttle maker in Millbury, MA. During his employment there he had several customers requiring large shuttles which were made for Watson-Williams at D.T. Dudley & Son.

A card issued at the time of its formation lists Dudley Shuttles as making dogwood, persimmon, fibre and Duhide clad shuttles and specializing in Crompton & Knowles, Draper, carpet-maker and paper-maker felt shuttles. Howard S. Pellatt is given as both President and Treasurer. At the time of purchase there were only two people on the payroll, but Pellatt indicated when he was seeking a loan for the company that there was machinery enough in the plant to employ 30 to 40 people. His hope to increase the workforce to twenty or more was never realized. The company received few bulk orders; it made mostly specialty shuttles for carpet or felt looms. In the decade before the company closed in 1984, there was often only one worker in addition to Pellatt himself.

Watson-Williams traces its history from the L.S. Watson Manufacturing Company which was founded in 1842 in Leicester, MA by Lory S. Watson. Several generations of the Watson family were involved in the company which manufactured wire heddles, heddle frames, shuttles and other mill supplies. The J.H. Williams Co. of Utica, NY, a shuttle and heddle manufacturer since 1830, moved operations to Millbury, MA in 1909 and merged shortly thereafter with the H.W. Hakes Manufacturing Company of Millbury, makers of wire heddle frames. The Watsons appear to have been involved in the ownership and management of both Hakes and the J.H. Williams Co. In June 1930, L.S. Watson Manufacturing Co. of Leicester and the J.H. Williams Co. of Millbury combined as the Watson-Williams Manufacturing Co. The company moved to Pinebluff, NC in 1960.