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Ohio Tool Co. Manufacturer History
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Ohio Tool Company
A major plane manufacturing company in the 19th and early 20th century.
There may have been some form of company as early as 1823. It was incorporated in Columbus, OH in
1851 by Peter Hayden and others and had a tradition of periodically utilizing prison labor.
The first president was George Gere, a hardware dealer. In 1851 the company was reported employing 200 hands
with carpenters planes as the main line.
By the 1870’s and 1880’s the ready acceptance of metal and transitional planes and other competition was
increasingly felt.
In 1887, the company employed only 70 hands with the use of prison labor having ceased in 1880. In 1893
Ohio Tool merged with the Aubrn Tool Co. with the Ohio Tool Co the survivor.
In 1913 the Ohio factory was destroyed by a flood and in 1914 manufacturing was re-established in a
new plant in Carlstown, WV. Operations ceased altogether in 1920.
The 1910 price list still offered an extensive line of wooden planes.
The G imprint with the “U.S.A.“ occurred after the 1893 merger with the Auburn Tool Co. and was
intended for marketing in Canada, partly in response to the shrinking U.S market.
A style number usually appears on the H imprint in the space unter “OHIO TOOL CO”.
The J imprint includes the ‘PATENTED/AUG. 29, 1854” Multiform Moulding Plane Co patent of Thomas D.
Worrall and appears with the single notch in the body for a removable handle.
The K imprint has the embossed "COLUMBUS/OHIO” that was also possibly used by Hall Stone & Co. P Hayden
& Co., Gere, Abbott & Co and Kilbourne Kuhns & Co.
The L imprint was used after 1893 and the merger with Auburn Tool Co. The "PAT. JUN. 11-95” appears on
a 16” jack plane.
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