In 1851 Thomas Prosser, Sr. established Thomas Prosser & Son in Paterson, NJ, to make steel and steel products. That same year his son, Thomas Prosser, Jr., travelled to England to attend the London Crystal Palace Exhibition, and he met and befriended Alfred Krupp, principal of the Friedrich Krupp Works. The two struck up a business partnership. Thomas Prosser & Son began importing Krupp steel and steel products, which were top quality. Their railway rails and car wheels were especially desirable and soon the Prossers were very wealthy men. Thomas Prosser, Jr., who by that time had become Thomas Prosser, Sr., died in 1896 but the business continued along with the "new" Thomas Prosser, Jr., at the helm.
The business continued until World War I severed the relationship between the two companies. Thomas Prosser & Son presumably found other steel makers to partner with, and in by the 1940s and '50s they were making, or at least putting their name on, a line of grinding machines for carbide tools.
Information Sources
- 1876 catalog of products from the "Cast-steel manufactory of Fried. Krupp, near Essen, Germany". Thomas Prosser & Son was their American representative.
- February 1896 American Engineer and Railroad Journal has an obituary for Thomas Prosser, Jr., who by that time was Thomas Prosser, Sr.
- 1908 The Iron Age Directory lists Thomas Prosser & Son, 26 Platt St., New York, as makers/suppliers of axles, steel billets and ingots, engine and other castings, ore crushers, forgings, gears and gear blanks, coffee, spice, corn and feed mills, connecting rods, piston rods, pump rods, crank shafts, rock-crushers shells, car and locomotive wheels and tires, boiler tubes, and wire.
- 1940 Aero Digest buyers' guide lists Thomas Prosser & Son as a supplier of grinders.
- 1944 issue of Metal Progress lists Thomas Prosser & Son, New York, as a supplier of carbide tool grinders.
- 1957 4-page catalog of Prosser Carbide Tool Grinders from Thomas Prosser & Son