A stitch in time: Davis Sewing Machine a once thriving manufacturer
July 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
An advertisement for the Davis Sewing Machine, ca. 1870s. The manufacturer started producing sewing machines in Watertown in February 1868.
The Davis Sewing Machine Co. manufactured a new and greatly improved machine for heavy work, which seems to have taken precedence over all others.
In the mid-1860s Job Davis, an inventor, traveled to Watertown and displayed his Davis Sewing Machine at the Woodruff house. The Davis machine was a great improvement over the sewing machine previously invented by Elias Howe and it aroused the interest of brothers John and Joseph Sheldon.
Business boomed in Burrville
May 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Now quaint village was once a center of commerce
By Lenka Walldroff
Jefferson County Historical Society
The village of Burrville is located just east of Watertown on Route 12 and is best known for the fresh cider and hot doughnuts made by the Burrville Cider Mill every fall. What many don’t know about the village is that during the first half of the nineteenth century, Burrville was a bustling commerce center, rivaling and even eclipsing Watertown in social and economic prominence.
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