The facilities which the Jerome Manufacturing Company had over every other concern of the kind in the country, and their customers in this and foreign countries, are worth to the present company more than one hundred thousand dollars.  Their method of making dials, tablets and brass doors was a saving of more than ten thousand dollars per year over any other company doing the same amount of business; and I know that the present company would not give up the customers of the Jerome Manufacturing Company for ten thousand dollars per year:  they could not afford to do it.  The workmen who came with me from Bristol, were an uncommonly energetic and ingenious set of men.  Many years they had large and profitable jobs in the different branches, which encouraged them to invent and get up improvements for doing the work fast, and in a great many things they far surpass the workmen in similar establishments—­all of which have resulted to the benefit of the present manufacturing company of New Haven.

In the year 1850, I was induced by a proposition from the Benedict & Burnham Co., of Waterbury, to enter into a joint-stock company at my place in New Haven, under the name of the Jerome Manufacturing Co.  They were to put in thirty-five thousand dollars, and I was to furnish the same amount of capital.  We did so, and went on very prosperously for a year or two, making a great many clocks, and selling about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth per year in England, at a profit of twenty thousand dollars.  They were very thorough in looking into the affairs of the company, which was all right of course, but did not suit all of the interested parties.  My son was Secretary and financial manager of the company.  He seemed to have a desire to keep things to himself a little too much, which also did not suit many of the interested parties.  My son told me he thought we had better buy the company out, and said that we could do so without difficulty, and he thought it would be a great advantage to us.  Some were willing to sell, and others were not.  Mr. Burnham made an offer what he would sell for, which the secretary accepted, others of the stock-holders made similar propositions and the bargain closed, we paying them the capital they had advanced and twenty-one per cent. profits, and buying, in the mean time, seventy-five thousand dollars worth of brass—­the profits on which were not less than twenty thousand dollars, which they had the cash for in the course of the year.  About this time a man by the name of Lyman Squires bought stock in the company, and took a great interest in the business.  A wealthy brother of his bought, I think, ten thousand dollars worth of stock.  The stock was increased in this way to two hundred thousand dollars.  The financial affairs were managed by the Secretary, Mr. Squires, and a man by the name of Bissell.  They made a great many additions to the factory which I thought quite unnecessary, enlarging the buildings, putting in a new engine and a great