Merrow Machine Company

Early in the nineteenth century, Joseph Makens Merrow established a gunpowder factory in Mansfield, Connecticut. When the mill burned in 1837, he and his son, Joseph Battell Merrow (1819-1897), built a knitting factory on the same site. That enterprise, known as J.B. Merrow & Son, not only made knitted textiles but also opened a machine shop to improve knitting machines. The machine shop developed an over-edging machine in 1877, and by 1888, when the company moved to Norwich, it devoted production entirely to the manufacture of crocket sewing machines. The Merrow Machine Company moved to Hartford in 1893 and was incorporated the following year by Joseph Millard Merrow (1848-1947) and his brother, George W. Merrow, both sons of Joseph B. Merrow.

The Machine Company specialized in industrial, high-speed overseam, over-edge, and shell-stitching machines, used for finishing all kinds of knitted and woven fabrics. Joseph Millard Merrow invented many of the machines. One of the company's distributors was Merrow Sales Corporation of New York, run by George W. Merrow's son, John G. G. Merrow.

In 1972, Merrow Machine Company moved from Laurel Street in Hartford to nearby Newington, a move precipitated by city redevelopment. For over fifty years the company was under the leadership of John Merrow Washburn, Jr., the great great grandson of Joseph M. Merrow; he became Treasurer and General Manager in 1953, and between 1978 and 2004, he was President. Another branch of the family has now acquired the company and plans to move its headquarters.