Kearsarge Peg Co., Inc. an Historical Perspective

1865 - 2011

Edited by David A. Davidson

Society of Manufacturing Engineers

Machining/Metal Removal Technical

Community

Deburring/Finishing Technical Group

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ddavidsondeburr

Introduction

The Kearsarge Peg Co., Inc. was established in 1865 as a manufacturer of hardwood (birch) shoe pegs, it currently continues to manufacture this product and is in fact the sole North American source for hardwood pegs and media. It has diversified into other products for use in abrasive metal finishing as well.

This presentation was developed to give the viewer some sense of the history and background of the company

Topics of Discussion

Early history of the company

Andover, NH location

Early Bartlett, NH location

The company’s product

Use in Shoe Manufacturing

Transition to Tumbling (Mass

Finishing or Polishing) media for

plastic and metal consumer items

Early History

Company established in 1865

following the close of the American

Civil War

Initial operations in Andover, NH

were powered by water power

Company named for Mt. Kearsarge

located close by, which was the

source of the streams which

powered the Andover mill.

Shoe Pegs in 19th century shoe manufacturing

Shoe-pegs had been invented about fifty

years earlier, by Joseph Walker of

Massachusetts. Prior to that time, all parts of

the boot were sewn by hand, but pegging

proved to be such a time saver that they

were soon widely-adopted. To save even

more time (the earliest pegs were made by

hand from long slivers of wood), machinery

was developed to produce shoe-pegs

quickly and efficiently. There were over two

dozen factories in New England alone that

produced shoe-pegs by the thousands

FROM: a blog by Nancy Cleveland, As a

Laura Ingalls Wilder Resercher Thinks –

2011

(1) Section of block showing pegs prior to being split

(2) Split Shoe Pegs

(3) Bottom of shoe showing location of shoe pegs

The Antique Tool Collector's Guide to Value by Ronald S. Barlow (El Cajon

California, 1991) states that

Short wooden pegs were hammered through both layers of leather into the

underside of the form. Temporary tacks which held the insole in position on the

last were then removed and the outer sole and heel were either nailed or pegged

thru the whole assembly with longer willow pegs. After the final trimming and

shaping with various knives and shaves, the wooden last was removed and pegs

were filed flush with a long handled peg cutting rasp which reached inside the

assembled shoe or boot.

1 2 3

Shoe Peg Manufacturing in 1877

Here’s what was written about shoe-pegs in 1877:

Shoe-pegs are made by machinery. The bark is peeled off the log, which is then

sawed into slices across the grain, a little thicker than the length of a peg. The face

of each block which is intended for the heads of the pegs is planed smooth.

The block is grooved by a machine in which a V-shaped cutting tool recriprocates

rapidly across the face of the block, which is advanced the thickness of a peg

between each stroke of the cutter, by feed-rollers. After the block has been

grooved one way, it is again grooved at right angles to the first grooves, the

surfaces of the block on one side now presenting a regular succession of

quadrangular pyramids, which are the points of the yet embryo pegs.

The splitting is done on machines by a vertically reciprocating knife, which drives

into each groove in turn, as the block is fed beneath it, the object being not to split

the pegs entirely apart, but to have them hang together at the heads. The blocks

are fed to the splitting-knives by fluted rollers, the flutes of which fit the grooves in

the blocks made by the grooving-machine. When the block has passed through

the splitting-machine once, it is turned and fed through again at right angles to the

direction in which it was first fed, and after this operation the pegs are nearly split

apart, but they still hang together somewhat like a bunch of split lucifer matches.

After the second feeding, knotty and faulty parts are removed, and the block is

forcibly thrown off the table of the splitting-machine on to the floor, and the pegs

fall asunder. The pegs are then dried in a tumbler heated by steam-pipes,

bleached with sulphur fumes till they assume a uniform white color, run through a

fanning-mill to free them from dust, and finally packed for market.

The largest factory of shoe-pegs in this country is at Burlington, Vermont, where

one factory transforms every day four cords of wood into four hundred bushels of

shoe-pegs.

Debarking and sawing

blocks at Kearsarge

Splitting blocks into

pegs at Kearsarge

Andover, NH Plant This early photograph shows

the Kearsarge Peg Co, location in Andover, NH. It

was a water-powered facility that was in operation

from 1865 – 1878. Water power was provided by

streams coming off nearby Mt Kearsarge, hence

the name . After 1878 operations were located in

Bartlett, NH and were steam powered.

Kearsarge Peg Co., Andover NH, 1870 photo.

Note the female employees standing on the trestle

bridge between the two buildings. Female

employees were favored for the peg pointing and

splitting machinery operations as it was felt they

were more dexterous than their male counterparts

The Red Star Trademark was to be

adopted by the Kearsarge Peg Co. in

later years Note this New York

company was established in 1847.

In 1878 the company purchased a 75 HP

PORTLAND (D-slide) Locomotive and

Marine Engine Works Steam engine with a

ten foot flywheel and a 24 inch flat belt drive,

and moved operations to Bartlett, NH. The

mfg facility in Andover had been a water power

operation. This steam engine continued to

power most of the peg making machinery up to

the 1980’s (The steam engine still operates at

Maine State Museum at Augusta, ME.) This

facility burned down in 1905 and was replaced

by the same structures currently in use in 1911

Kearsarge Peg Co. moves to

Bartlett, NH – 1878 -1911Plant Layout similar to Andover plant shown in

previous slides, the brick building and

smokestack housing the wood fired boiler and

steam engine survived the 1905 fire and was

used to power the mill rebuilt in 1911

Location of 1878 Kearsarge plant as

shown in an early topographical map of

Bartlett village, NH, which was also a

teeming lumber manufacturing and

railroad center

Kearsarge Peg Co.

location as shown on

Bartlett Village map of

the late 1800s.

Note the rail spur

shown connecting the

company to the rail

lines to accommodate

shipment of the

hardwood shoe pegs

to New York, Boston

and overseas.

In the 1800’s numerous shoe peg manufacturers were active throughout New England in support of

the shoe industry, which was a major part of the New England economy.

Kearsarge Peg Co. Rebuilt 1911

The Company’s manufacturing plant was lost in

a fire (see the previous mill photo) in 1905 and

was rebuilt as shown in this sepia tinted

photograph in 1911. At the time rail spurs were

used to bring in raw materials, and ship out

pegs packaged in wooden barrels or burlap

(coffee style) bags

The brick building next to the large

smokestack housed the 1878 steam engine

which had survived the 1905 fire. The building

next to the smaller smoke-stack housed a

cooper shop. The company manufactured its

own wooden barrels in which it packaged

shoe pegs for export to European and South

American shoe manufacturing operations.

Rail was the primary means of moving both raw

material and finished goods. Numerous rail

lines had been laid down in the Northern New

Hampshire area, especially within what was to

become the ¾ million acre White Mountain

National Forest to facilitate timber harvesting

Kearsarge Peg Co. 1920’s photo shows both log length and

four foot bolt cordwood inventory of white birch. At this time wood

inventory was manhandled, 4 foot bolts were brought into the mill

on rail carts that were pulled into the debarking and sawing area by

a friction drive winch device that was powered by the steam engine.

An historical journal noted in the 1880s that it was considered much

easier for loggers to transport wood in the winter when it could be

sledded out of the woods on snow. At a competing peg company

located in nearby Conway, NH the winter purchase price for a cord

of birch was $12.00 per cord, the summer price was 14.00. (Note

one cord = 128 cubic feet or 4’H x 8’L x 4’D)

Shoe Peg Manufacturing Operations

.

1

2

3

Four foot long birch bolts would

be initially processed in this

area. (1) the birch bolts would

be debarked, at the time this

picture was taken this was a

manual operation performed

with “draw shaves”.

(2) A slab saw was used to saw

one side of the bolt flat so that it

would lay flat on a table and

would not roll during the cross-

cut sawing operation

(3) The bolt was then fed into a 38

inch crosscut saw with a manually

operated reciprocating table and

was sliced like a loaf of bread.

The wood blocks were then

conveyed to another area where

they were processed into pegs.

MANUFACTURING

OPERATIONS CLOSE UP:

Four foot bolts of white birch (a

four foot log length is referred to

as a “bolt”) are sawn with a

cross-cut saw into “blocks”

birch

Splitting Operations: Blocks that had been sawn would be conveyed to this room for pointing (not shown) and

splitting (shown here). Pointing was done by feeding the block into a feed roll, and having a V shaped reciprocating

cutter cut grooves into the top of the block which would form the points of the pegs. Splitting was done on this

machine. The pointed block would be fed

into a fluted roll which advanced the block

one groove at a time (using a ratchet and

pawl mechanical movement), a

synchronized reciprocating knife would

split the block into strips, and then split

the strips into pegs. (at 900 cycles/min) A

cup elevator would transport the pegs to a

third floor storage area where they would

be placed into gravity feed hoppers used

to feed pegs into rotating kiln driers for

drying.

DRYING OPERATIONS:From the 3rd floor holding area pegs

would be loaded into rotary kilns. A typical

batch would have included fourteen 55

gallon drums of wooden pegs. The dryers

had angle iron paced on the interior of the

drum surface which would lift the pegs and

cascade them through a 200 degree F.

airstream. The process time to finish

drying a batch of pegs was 1-1/2 hours.

Typical batch yield was 12 – 20 96 lb.

bags depending on the size and type of

shoe peg processed. Shown in the picture

is factory manager Fred Hodgkins. The

company’s operations were run by Fred

and his father, True F. Hodgkins before

him for many decades. The business was

very much a family affair, being owned by

Edwin and George Foster of Plymouth, NH

until 1944 when the operation was

purchased by Stanley Davidson, a Boston,

MA architect, and Frances Brannen a

Berlin, NH general contractor. The

Davidson family owned and ran the

business from 1962 - 2002

Screening OperationsAfter drying, pegs would be fed into

rotating basket style screens. Pegs that

were of the correct gauge or width would

come out of the screen and onto a floor

deck and then were raked into a cup

elevator that would feed them onto a

“Rotex” style flat screen that could screen

out fines and dust.

From there the pegs would be bagged

into burlap bags and weighed at 96 lbs.

net, and the bags stenciled with the

appropriate product and trademark

information. The bags were hand sewn

with jute twine to complete the packaging.

The burlap bags would be stacked on a

rail cart, and a steam, powered friction

drive winch would pull the cart up to a

second floor warehouse area. When

shipments were made by truck, hardwood

polished slides would be used to convey

the bags from a second floor warehouse

door into the back of a semi-truck trailer.

Full truck loads of 400 and even 500 bags

were not uncommon.

Primary Power Plant

Both the 1878 and the (rebuilt) 1911

facilities were powered by the same 1878

Portland Locomotive and Marine Engine

Works steam engine. The steam engine

provided both the mechanical drive power

to run the plant’s machinery (by jackshafts

with flat belting) as well as provide lighting

through a small generator run by the main

drive belt.

Although a product of 19th century

technology, the operation was remarkably

green and self sustaining. Steam was

developed with a hand-fired wood boiler

that used wood bio-mass as fuel (the wood

waste byproduct generated by the

company’s operations).

The writer spent many an early morning

(5:00 am) firing the boiler to the necessary

100 lbs. of pressure. Then using a10 ft long

wooden cantilever wrench would position

the 10 ft. flywheel properly so the initial

cylinder stroke would create enough

flywheel momentum to carry the flywheel

through a full rotation with the initial surge of

steam.

In over 110 years of continuous

operation the engine experienced one major

failure. In the mid 1960’s, the piston

cracked and seized inside the cylinder

causing the flywheel shaft to be twisted by

the stopping torque

Kearsarge Peg Co. 1942In this photo, railroad tracks have been

removed as motor transport starts to

become more common. Cord wood is

stacked next to the debarking and sawing

area. When birch bolts (four-foot long logs)

were supplied with diameters too large for

the 38 inch cross cut saw to accommodate

they would be blasted.

Blasting entailed using a hand

auger to drill a hole into the

center of the log, and filling the

hole with black gun-powder

and capping it. A fuse would

be lit from a safe distance and

the log would be blasted,

splitting it neatly in two

longitudinally. Yankee

Ingenuity with explosives…

Kearsarge Peg Co. Aerial view 1965

Wood yard

Boiler and Steam Engine

Building

Debarking and Sawing Area

Pointing and Splitting Area

Undried peg storage 3F,

Drying operations 2F,

Screening and Bagging 1F

Trestle rail car to

second floor warehouse

Warehouse

Building

Product catalog - 1948

Shoe Pegs as Tumbling Media:

Example of plastic eyeglass frame tumble

finishing and polishing. The frame to the

right shows the as-machined condition,

the frame to the left has been radiused,

smoothed and polished using shoe pegs

and abrasives

In tumbling

barrels

Transition – from Shoe Pegs to Tumbling Media

WHAT IS MASS FINISHING?

Mass finishing is a term used to describe a

group of abrasive industrial processes by

which large lots of parts or components

made from metal or other materials can be

economically processed in bulk to achieve

one or several of a variety of surface effects.

These include deburring, descaling, surface

smoothing, edge-break, radius formation,

removal of surface contaminants from heat

treat and other processes, preplate and

prepaint or coating surface preparation,

blending in surface irregularities from

machining or fabricating operations,

producing reflective surfaces with

nonabrasive burnishing media, refining

surfaces, and developing superfinish or

microfinish equivalent surface profiles.

All mass finishing processes utilize a loose

or free abrasive material referred to as

media within a container or chamber of

some sort. Energy is imparted to the

abrasive media mass by a variety of means

to impart motion to it and to cause it to rub

or wear away at part surfaces. Although by

definition, the term mass finishing is used

generally to describe processes in which

parts move in a random manner throughout

the abrasive media mass, equipment and

processes that utilize loose abrasive media

to process parts that are fixtured come

under this heading also.

Barrel Finishing

Barrel finishing is unquestionably the oldest

of the mass finishing methods, with some

evidence indicating that crude forms of

barrel finishing may have been in use by

artisans as far back as the ancient Chinese

and Romans as well as the medieval

Europeans.

Barrel FinishingIn this method, action is given to the media by

the rotation of the barrel. As the barrel rotates,

the media and parts within climb to what is

referred to as the turnover point. At this point,

gravity overcomes the cohesive tendencies of

the mass, and a portion of the media mass slides

in a retrograde movement to the lower area of

the barrel. Most of the abrading or other work

being performed on parts within the barrel takes

place within this slide zone, which may involve

as little as 10–20% of the media mass at any

given moment. A variety of process elements

may have an effect on this slide zone and its

efficiency. (See diagram on previous slide)

Shoe pegs and other dry process media were

used in 30 x 36 inch maple lined barrels such as

the one shown to the right. Eyeglass frame

manufacturers used double barrels with a lower

and upper barrel contained in one stand for

processing plastic eyeglass frame components.

Larger firms utilized hundreds of these units to

perform tumble finish and polish operations on

large production lots of eyeglass frame and

sunglass components. Shoe pegs treated with

fine abrasive and polishing creams and powders

were capable of producing mirror-like low micro-

inch surface finishes with bulk-processing in

contrast to costly manual buffing procedures

often used prior to he tumbling process adoption.

Many plastic items are still finished in dry process tumbling procedures…

Plastic items polished with hardwood shoe pegs by barrel tumbling

Other Applications for Wooden Shoe Pegs

Pegs primary uses were: (1) shoe pegs/shoe

nails in shoe manufacturing and (2) a media or

carrier for abrasive and polishing materials for

the tumbling or barrel finishing of buttons,

jewelry and plastic eyewear frames.

Additionally pegs were utilized in

manufacturing novelty items for kindergarten

or school use such as those modified by the

Ideal School Supply Co. in the picture to the

left. Other uses included toy manufacturing,

splicing factory flat belts, coopers plugs,

making boxes, lacquer ware, brushes, window

sashes, life rafts, small cabinet ware, foundry

cores, piano actions and fireworks. By far the

most bizarre application was the use of very

small pegs coated with explosive material to

stuff into cigarettes and cigars by novelty

companies to create exploding cigarettes and

cigars.

Other wooden shapes in addition to

shoe pegs were utilized by the company

for barrel finishing. The different shapes

made it possible to access parts with

more complex and difficult to reach

geometries…

Tumbling Product Line Expansion

Other hardwood shapes were utilized in addition to shoe pegs, including wooden diamonds, cubes

and double ended pegs fur tumbling. Additionally, granular agricultural products including sawdust

chips, corn cob granules and walnut shell were treated with fine abrasive material for use in

vibratory and centrifugal polishing of metals

Hardwood Media for Dry

Process Finishing in Vibratory

Finishing Equipment

Centrifugal Barrel

Finishing… Hardwood

Media shapes would be used

in mixtures with other dry

process granular media to

produce final finishes on

metal parts. Although similar

to barrel finishing the added

centrifugal force produced

finishes 10 – 15 times faster

than traditional methods.

Kearsarge Peg Co., Inc. – 1990’s