In 1874, Joseph Banigan, owner of the Woonsocket Rubber Company, traveled to France and purchased the American rights to manufacture Hurtu Sewing Machines. The following year, he established the Hautin Sewing Machine Company in Woonsocket to produce the Hurtu designs.
In 1886, the Wardwell Sewing Machine Company took over the Hautin Sewing Machine Company and moved operations to this site. Concurrent with the move, the company hired Edwin J. Peirce, Jr., as its superintendent. Peirce was an associate of Daniel W. Taft, a wool merchant in Uxbridge and Boston, Massachusetts. In 1895, Taft provided Peirce with the capital to acquire control of the Wardwell Company. At that time they renamed the operation the Taft-Peirce Manufacturing Company. Through the 1890s, the business continued to manufacture sewing machines and the Columbia Bar-Lock Typewriter.
<i>Images courtesy of the Woonsocket Historical Society</i>
