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W. C. H. Badger & Co., furniture manufacturers, are located in a large brick building on Albany Street, near Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridgeport.
The members of the firm are
W. C. H. Badger and
George F. Tyler, who are the successors to a business established more than fifty years. The factory is two hundred by fifty feet, and five stories high, and is complete in every department for the manufacture of furniture, having a 150 horse-power engine, latest improved drying apparatus, and storehouses for lumber with capacity for one hundred and fifty thousand feet.
The firm manufacture only the fine grades of furniture, using principally mahogany and quartered oak, and when in full operation employ about one hundred and twenty-five men. They have a large trade all through
New England.
A. B. &
E. L. Shaw, East Cambridge, are makers of parlor, church, and lodge furniture.
The business was established in 1780 by
Jacob Foster & Son, and has been continuous since that date.
The successors to
Jacob Foster & Son were
Charles Foster, 1828;
Foster,
Lawrence & Co., 1833;
Edward Lawrence, 1856;
Braman,
Shaw & Co., 1863;
Shaw, Applin & Co., 1877; A. B. &
E. L. Shaw, 1887.
The old firms of
Foster,
Lawrence & Co. and
Edward Lawrence employed convict labor at the
Massachusetts State Prison in
Charlestown, but when
Braman,
Shaw & Co. succeeded to the business it was removed to East Cambridge.
For the past ten years the present firm have occupied the Geldowsky factory, and they employ from one hundred and fifty to two hundred hands.
The firm do the largest business in the manufacture of fine upholstered furniture in
New England, and have furnished some of the finest clubs, lodges, and hotels in the country, among the latter The
Niagara at
Buffalo, Hotel del
Coronado of
San Diego, Cal., The Imperial, The
Netherlands, and The
Savoy of New York city, The
Walton of
Philadelphia, and the
Jefferson of
Richmond, Virginia, and they now have the contract to furnish the new
Manhattan of New York, a fourteen-story building, which will be run by
Hawk &
Wetherbee, the present proprietors of The
Windsor of New York.
Irving &
Casson have been located in East Cambridge about fifteen years. They have a large factory at the corner of First and Otis streets, and employ between two and three hundred men. They make fine custom cabinet work, mantels, and interior finish for high-class dwellings, and have a large business in
St. Louis,
Buffalo,
Chicago,
St. Paul,
