Codger_64
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This is a picture taken early 1900's of some of the workers of the Ulster Knife Company in Ellenville New York.
In 1871 The Ellenville Co-Operative Knife Co. set up shop in the old Ellenville Iron Works, also known as the Bloomer Foundry on Canal Street. The cooperative association organized for the purpose of engaging in the manufacture of pocket cutlery was formed in Naugatuck, Connecticut. It consisted of fifty members, all of whom were skilled workmen, and a majority of whom had been trained in the cutlery center of Sheffield, England.
In 1875 the company reorganized as the Ulster Knife Co. "The Ulster Knife Company" was incorporated by Jacob Hermance, John Lyon, Alfred Neafie, R. Harvey Brodhead and Dwight Divine.
In 1878 Dwight Divine took over the entire responsibility for the Ulster Knife Co., and continued the business as an individual enterprise, although he retained the organization of the Ulster Knife Company. William Booth, one of the original group, was retained as foreman, and so continued until his death many years later. Mr. Divine proved to be a very efficient business man, and gradually straightened out the tangled financial situation and placed the business on a paying basis, in spite of a fire which destroyed the plant in 1880. The buildings were soon replaced. About four hundred workmen were finally employed.
In 1926, Mr. Divine organized as Dwight Divine & Sons, Inc., taking into partnership his two sons, C. Dwight and John H. Divine, who carried on the business of The Ulster Knife Company after the death of their father in 1932. John H. Divine died in November, 1943.
In 1941, the Ulster Knife Company was sold to a group headed by Albert and Henry Baer of New York City, and the control of the company was transferred from the Divine family.
In 1942, Ulster Knife and Imperial Knife join to become Imperial Knife Associated Companies. The company commits itself to producing knives for the military throughout World War II.
In 1946, Albert M. Baer bought Schrade Cutlery Company and renamed it the Schrade Walden Cutlery Corp. It became a division of Imperial Knife Associated Companies Group.
After moving the manufacturing of Schrade Walden Cutlery to Ellenville in 1958, the next year, 1959, Schrade's Old Timer Series was introduced. As odd as it may seem, the first three of these Old Timer knife patterns were made under the Ulster tang stamp. After a promotion in the early 1960's in conjunction with Prince Albert Tobacco, the schrade Walden tang stamp began being used on these knives, and the series was expanded.
In 1967, another line was introduced, the Uncle Henry Signature Series, bearing the likeness of Henry Baer's signature.
Together, these two series of knives became the world's best selling knives.
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