In the early 1850s, Nelson Baker established a foundry in Woodstock, NB, which developed a specialty in stoves. A few years later Baker sold out to Robert A. Hay, who continued the business, adding a machine shop. In 1859 John Fisher, Jr, became a partner. In 1864 Fisher sold his interest in the business and instead partnered with A. J. Small, who since 1861 had a tinware manufacturing business. The new partnership, operating as Small & Fisher, manufactured tinware until 1867 when they bought out Hay's foundry and machining business and moved the equipment to their own premises. Small died in 1877 and Fisher continued the business by himself, along with about twenty employees.
 |
| McAlpine's York and Carleton Counties Directory for 1884-85 |
By 1884 Small & Fisher had focused on making agricultural and sawmill machinery. In 1891 they were making a patent shingle machine, and over the next few years they made improvements until it was a very popular and successful machine, and the mainstay of their business. Fisher died in 1898. The business survived into the early 1900s.
 |
| From May 1900 The Canada Lumberman |
Information Sources
- 1902-01-09 Hamilton Spectator. "CHAPMAN (Woodstock, Ontario [sic]) Jan 8 - Harry Chapman, aged 13 years, met an awful death in Small & Fisher’s Foundry this afternoon. He was putting resin on a moving belt, when he slipped and fell inside of the belt, which broke, wrapped around his body, and whirled him to death."
- From a Fisher family genealogy page. "John Fisher Jr. of Woodstock was granted a patent in September 1872. The 1871 Woodstock directory lists him as a partner or employee of Small & Fisher Bros while the census for that year lists him as a machinist. The town of Woodstock census for 1891 shows that he is a manufacturer of agricultural equipment and stoves. Only his widow and daughter are shown in the 1901 census because he had died in 1898."
- A page from the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick reproduces a series of articles written by Wallace Hale and printed in The Carleton Sentinel, a newspaper in Woodstock, New Brunswick, beginning on 1877-10-20, the subject of the article being the industries of Woodstock. The series includes a section on the Small & Fisher Foundry