1.  Our Town: Jamestown
2.  See Yourself in the Movies, Jamestown, NY
3.  Jamestown centennial, 1986
4.  Jamestown speaks for itself

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The Maddox Table Company began operation in 1898.  It was still operating in 1978, but the date of cessation is unknown to us.  It was founded by William Maddox, son of an English immigrant, who invented a variety of furniture making machines, which he sold to manufacturers throughout the United States.

 Mr. Maddox owed much of his success as a table manufacturer to his invention of a machine for polishing wooden table tops.  As late as 1900 however, the principal machines in the furniture factories were slash saws, band saws, planers, moulders and shapers, and many operations continued to be done by hand.  It was the mechanization of the industry and the fact that many of the Jamestown companies were small operations unable to afford to update, that lead to the demise of the industry in Jamestown.

 One of the first furniture manufacturers in the United States to trademark his products, in 1898, Mr. Maddox sent a showman named Cedarine Allen on a world-wide promotional tour to Great Britain, Spain, Egypt, Arabia, Ceylon, Malaya, China, and Japan.

In 1919 the Maddox family sold its table making business to the Shearman Brothers Lounge Company. 

The Elite Furniture Company began operation in 1909.  They came into being because of the pooling of ideas and resources by  a group of Swedish immigrants, as many of the furniture companies in Jamestown began.  Jamestown, at the beginning of the 20th century, had around 100 furniture factories.
It was started by Gustaf D. Danielson, Charles John Anderson, and Axel E. Bloomquist and associates.  Gustaf was born October 7, 1873, the son of Daniel S. and Marie Jones Danielson. Daniel was really a farmer, but also had a small wood-working shop where he fashioned furniture for relatives and friends.  Gustaf assisted in the shop and was a full fledged cabinet-maker by the time he left home for the US in 1890.  He was only 17, but quickly found work first at the Jamestown Chair Company, then at Maddox & Company.

Gustaf was working at Maddox when he joined a group of co-workers in starting a cabinet making enterprise of their own, the Corporation Cabinet Company.  After a few years, Gustaf sold his interest in this concern and in 1909 joined 13 friends in organizing the Elite Furniture Company.  Shoe merchant Charles J. Anderson became president of the new company; Danielson was named vice president; Gustaf A. Lawson, treasurer; Robert E. Jones, secretary; and Axel E. Bloomquist, general manager.

The company began operations in the former Martyn Furniture Factory on West Fourth at Clinton Street.  Its attractive line of tables, pedestals and tabourettes sold so well that the firm soon acquired land on Allen Street extension and erected a sprawling four story factory with basement.  Each department foreman was mad an Elite stockholder establishing an early precedent for employee sharing in a company's success.

Charles John Anderson was born June 21, 1862 in Sfrodinge in Kalmar Ian.  Charles, his mother and two sisters arrived to join their father and husband in Sugar Grove in 1871.  Charles was involved in many companies, and after helping start the Elite Furniture Company, he joined others in organizing the Jamestown Car Parts Company, a forerunner of the Blackstone Corporation.

He was involved in several other furniture companies before helping to form the Elite Furniture Company.

There are links to some information about the Jamestown furniture industry at our Local Information page at http://www.prendergastlibrary.org/jamestown/furniture.html  

Unfortunately, that is all the information we have here at the library.  Much of the library’s local historical information is in the  Fenton History Center here in Jamestown.  It can be accessed at fentonhistorycenter.org.  Their address is 67 Washington St., Jamestown, NY  14701.  Their phone is 716-664-6256..  Also the Bernice Bienenstock Furniture Library, at www.furniturelibrary.com will answer questions, and have a facility in North Carolina.   

At furninfo.com, they have copies of Furniture World Magazine, which has been in publication since 1870.  At last contact, there was no indexing to this publication.  The site does have a consumer message board though.  You might also look in the U.S.Patent Office site at http://www.uspto.gov/ for information on your specific piece.