A Sandy Hook Landmark Mill Was Once State Of The Art

By Jan Howard

On September 10, 1859, the New York Belting and Packing Company, located on Glen Road in Sandy Hook, was featured in a story in Scientific American, which described itself at the time as “A Journal of Practical Information in Art, Science, Mechanics, Agriculture, Chemistry, and Manufactures.”

The story was entitled “A Day in the Rubber Factory of the New York Belting and Packing Company.”

It was a “bright day in May” when the writer was in a Housatonic Railroad car on the way to the “manufactory” of the New York Belting and Packing Company, “the largest India-rubber establishment in the country.”

The writer was bound for Newtown, which he found to be “a quiet but pretty town, with nothing to distinguish it from many others; but when we left the town and drove towards the factory village we came upon a scene of romantic beauty, which would well repay the journey.”

The writer described following a road “through a deep and narrow valley, shaded by a forest of drooping hemlocks” through which could be seen “far down in the rocky gorge below, a small but rapid river,” the Pootatuck. “The villagers have had the good taste to preserve the Indian name,” the writer noted.

The story described the dam “thrown across the narrow gorge” and the millpond that was formed. Below was the factory “with its storehouses and workshops around it, and on the sloping hillside opposite the mountain, were the superintendent’s house, and the numerous cottages erected for the workmen.”

The “manufacturing village was beautiful,” the writer noted. The factory was described as immense, “nearly 300 feet long, and the white cottages half hidden among the trees, looked picturesque by contrast with the lofty mountain beyond and the wild forest scenery around.”

Upon arriving at the factory, the writer noted they were soon taking their first lessons in the art of manufacturing metallic rubber, beginning with the large storehouses where the raw material was stored. In the factory, they saw the “huge water-wheel that drives the powerful machinery.” The breast wheel, the writer noted, was 50 feet in diameter, “said to be the largest in the world.”

The manufacturing process began with cleansing the rubber of foreign matter. It was then placed in a large vat filled with hot water until partially softened and cut into slabs of about an inch in thickness by a circular knife measuring three to four feet in diameter, driven by machinery, and revolving with great speed. The writer saw the “crackers,” large, grooved iron cylinders that revolved in pairs, grinding the rubber and driving out bark and dust.

The rubber was then taken to the “washing machine,” a large vat, where it was cut into small pieces by numerous sharp knives that revolved under the water, removing dirt and foreign substances and leaving pure rubber. Following this, it was taken to grinding machines where it was pressed and kneaded into thick sheets or mats.

At this stage, the writer noted, the process was suspended so the rubber could dry and cure. The mats were suspended in long drying rooms, where they would hang for many months before they were fit to be used.

Once dried, the rubber was taken to mixing machines, where it was combined with metals and minerals. These cylinders were of great size and strength and heated by steam. Two placed together twisted and kneaded the substances like dough.

Sharp explosions, “as loud as pistol shots,” according to the writer, could be heard as the rubber was folded over and over. When the rubber was softened, the workmen would add various metals. Then the rubber was ready to be molded and shaped into various forms in which it was to be used, such as for cotton gins or sawmills.

After passing between the cylinders of a calendering machine, the rubber was rolled out in an even sheet, upon a web of cotton duck, similar to that used for sails. The “bolts” of duck covered with rubber were then taken to the belt room and unrolled on tables 100 feet long and cut in strips and folded together into machine belting. The belts were then taken to immense steam boilers that changed the tough dough into a substance called metallic or vulcanized rubber.

“All the attempts of the most scientific chemists in this country and in Europe to discover the cause of the change, or to produce it in any other manner, have been wholly baffled,” the writer noted.

The new substance had properties unlike any other, according to the writer. It was ten times more elastic than the best native rubber. Heat and cold had no effect on it.

The Scientific American writer was shown various items made at the factory, such as belts and bands for machinery, and all sizes and lengths, from an inch to a full yard wide. The writer also saw experiments to compare the strength of the belts to leather, writing that rubber belts were rapidly displacing leather and that the manufacturing corporations of New England were introducing them in their mills. The factory was run night and day to supply the demand.

The writer noted how Scientific American was the first to give the public information about this new belting and used it on its own machinery. It found it to be the means of a great saving of power and much cheaper and more durable than leather.

Other items the writer saw at the factory included sinks without a joint or seam made from hard India rubber, carpets for halls, stairways, and billiard rooms, spittoons, a door spring that could hold a door open or closed, hose for fire engines and gardening, and bedsprings.

The writer noted he witnessed proof of the value of patents. The company owned or was sole licensee of about 37 different American patents and because of that obtained a “monopoly of this business that defies competition.”

 

Later Developments

A factory building on the site later occupied by New York Belting and Packing Company and the Fabric Fire Hose Company was originally constructed in 1839. In 1844, it was rebuilt for the production of rubber goods. In June 1856 New York Belting and Packing bought out the Goodyear Company. Three months later the wooden building burned and was a total loss. The new brick building that replaced it was three times the size of the former one.

The enlarging of the business meant the influx of a large number of families to Newtown.

In 1900, New York Belting and Packing Company announced it was to move its business to Passaic, N.J., taking many families with them, and in 1901 the factory became home to Fabric Fire Hose Company, formerly of Warwick, N.Y., the only factory in the country devoted exclusively to the manufacture of fire hose.

Fabric Fire Hose was a main source of employment for residents of Newtown, some of whom worked there for 50 years. It became a subsidiary of Uniroyal, Inc.

In 1977, Fabric Fire Hose closed its doors and the building sat empty until 1980, when a restoration project was undertaken to convert the brick structure into a light industry and office building. It underwent another renovation in the 1990s.

The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Some information for this story was found in the League of Women Voters’ Newtown Connecticut Directions and Images and Newtown Past and Present.