Business & Finance: Centenary

Andrew Jackson was President when the Brothers Cooper, Charles and Elias, went into business at Mt. Vernon, Ohio with a pair of horses as capital. They traded the off horse for equipment to build a small cupola iron foundry, kept the near horse to hoist ore to the top of the cupola. The iron was made into heavy castings for carding machinery, sawmills, farm implements. Last week Cooper-Bessemer Corp., direct descendant of the Coopers’ cupola foundry, celebrated its centenary. Nearly submerged in the panic of 1837, the Coopers were prospering in the early 1840’s, even built a steam engine more memorable for its size than its efficiency. Ten years later they sold to Baltimore & Ohio R. R. the first locomotive built west of the Alleghenies. But not until they obtained the rights to manufacture the famed Corliss stationary steam engine did Charles and Elias Cooper hit their stride. Some of their early Corliss engines are still turning over. In 1929 the company was merged with Bessemer Gas Engine Co. and Hope Forge Co. as $11,000,000 Cooper-Bessemer Corp., makers of marine Diesels, oil & gas pipeline equipment. A few old employes still on Cooper-Bessemer’s payroll can remember the time, during a money panic 50 years ago. when the Brothers Cooper paid wages in scrip, then passing in wide areas of Ohio.