| Rick'ys Big Collection |
painting |
| Description |
Painting of the Walter Heywood Chair Company, ca 1875
The manufactory scene in this painting is of the Walter Heywood Chair Manufactory on River Street in Fitchburg, ca 1875, painter unknown.
The painting completed in oil, is drawn from a photographer by Fitchburg J.C. Moulton, of the manufactory on its River Street site from up on Haskell Street. Rollstone Hill is in the background. Walter Heywood had mde numerous attempts at establishing a successful chair manufactory, and after a disastrous fire in 1870, he bought nine acres of property along River Street for his manufactory. After his death in 1880, the business wanted for leadership, and 1890 was auctioned off to Fitchburg business, E.M. Dickinson for 60,000. Finally in 1861, buildings and the land were sold off to bygone manufacturers of arms and bicycle. |
| Object ID |
1993.033.001 |
| Object Name |
painting |
| People |
Moulton J.C.
Greenwood Robert
Timms Peter |
| Provenance |
The painting has an interesting yarn of its own: it once belonged to Mrs. Greenwood, wife of former Mayor of Fitchburg from 1934-7. Mrs. Greenwood gave the painting to Mrs. Lorraine B. Wilson of Fitchburg with the behest that it would be either donated to the Fitchburg Art Museum or the Fitchburg Historical Society when Mrs. Wilson no longer wanted it. But after Mr. Kenneth Wilson, son of Mrs. Wilson acquired it, it was given to the Fitchburg Art where curator Peter Timms still today thought it belonged in the Historical Society collection thus the Society won out. |
| Subjects |
Walter Heywood Chair Manufactory
Iver Johnson
Industry in Fitchburg
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