User:Potvinr

This is a test run with the History of North Brookfield, Massachusetts. The crux of the history is the birth of a shoe industry in Early America. Oliver Wrd came to North Brookfield a little before 1810.(1.) Ward Street is named after Mr. Ward. the state of the art in showmaking was in its infancy when Ware came to NB from Grafton, Massachusetts.. The Town Seal shows a Cobbler sitting making shoes on a Cobbler's bench. Subsequent to Oliver Ward's shoe making entrprise came the American Industrial Revolution. Tyler and Ezra Batcheller picked up the trade of shoemaking from Oliver Ward and began a very successful shoe making industry in North Brookfield. The large boot factory was located where Qyabaug Corporation (The Rubber Shop) is located today. In 1875, as appears in the Census Report Batcheller Shoe employed 927 males and 150 females. It was in that year the North Brookfield Railroad Company began. Before that time ox carts would take boxes of shoes to the train in East Brookfield.