In 1889 the Willets Machine Co. was manufacturing lathes and other machinery for jewelers and silversmiths. Sometime before 1901 this company's assets were acquired by another maker of jewelers' and silversmiths' machinery, the McWilliams Manufacturing Co.
Information Sources
- 1889 Providence Business Directory, text ad on page 1155: "Willets Machine Co., Jewelers' and Silversmiths' Machinery. Machine Tools, Lathes & Machinery. Office: 6 & 8 Cove Street, Providence. Works, Phenix, R. I." The listing under Machinists' Tool Manufacturers provides the manager's name: Charles Benson. An ad on page 1091 is titled, "Willett's Machine Co." and otherwise has the same text as the ad for Willets on page 1155. The listing for Charles Benson says that he was manager of "Willetts' Machine Co., 6 Cove".
- 1901 book Biographical History of the Manufacturers and Business men of Rhode Island at the Opening of the Twentieth Century, page 120, in a writeup of the McWilliams Manufacturing Co., manufacturers of jewelers' and silversmiths' machinery: "Their assortment of patterns is the largest of any firm in the business, they having bought the patterns formerly owned by the Willets Machine Co. and H. Blundell & Co. ...