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Mainly clear. Low 63F. Winds light and variable..
Mainly clear. Low 63F. Winds light and variable.
A drill press designed and manufactured by Peter Broadbrooks. The model was patented in 1897.
A drill press designed and manufactured by Peter Broadbrooks. The model was patented in 1897.
Industries that grew quickly in Batavia during the latter half of the 19th century were blacksmiths and toolmakers.
Several of these shops popped up around the downtown area of the village at the time. Many of the smiths were German immigrants who had come to Batavia and Genesee County in large number.
One of the better known and respected of these was Peter Broadbrooks, who was not only a blacksmith, but also a toolmaker and inventor. Collectors today still seek out the many different tools that he developed.
Peter Broadbrooks was born in 1840 in the Alsace-Lorraine regain of Germany near Stuttgart. He made his way to the United States at 9 years old with the rest of his family.
His father was a smith himself, and most likely was Peter’s first instructor. Peter also learned from many of the other similar aged blacksmiths that also traveled from the same region and settled in the area.
Upon making his way to Batavia, Broadbrooks eventually set up his own shop — his first was a large stone building on Exchange Place, now the location of the Sav-a-Lot parking lot. He also quickly adapted to the culture of his new home, by teaching himself English.
In the 1870s, he also built another building, this time brick, on Ellicott Street next door to Henry B. Fisher’s Agricultural Works. Broadbrooks’s final shop, and the one most remembered, was located along the Tonawanda Creek to the east of the Walnut Street Bridge.
Peter was a skilled metalworker and was an avid inventor of various tools that he meant to improve his work and those of others of his trade. Some of the tools that he would go on to invent, and actually patent, included hand tools such as metal shears, hand punches, clamps, drills and quick-setting vises.
He would make scale drawings and wooden models of his inventions for display, and thus when it came time to submit to the patent office, he only needed a final survey by a patent lawyer.
As Broadbrooks became a veteran smith and inventor, he often assisted other young smiths and inventors, whom he saw a younger version of himself in and often took their suggestions to improve his many inventions. One of those younger smiths was Frank Ott, who also hailed from Alsace, and went on to become another popular blacksmith of Batavia.
In 1887, Peter Broadbrooks expanded his enterprises and bought the neighboring Fisher Agricultural Works, and then sold the horseshoeing part of his business to William Doyle. Broadbrooks made several improvements to his new enterprise by adding a new front, office, and showroom, to expand his skills to the manufacturing of farm tools.
He sold this part of his business to Utica Drop Forge Tool Company in 1902 when into his 80s. He then retired to his home at 3 South Main St.
In 1910, Peter then sold his building on Ellicott Street to Marshall Rumsey, who then used it to store cabbage. This building would be one of the first to meet its end during Urban Renewal.
Peter Broadbrooks died Feb. 4, 1929 in Batavia at 89 years old and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery.
Ryan Duffy is executive director of the Holland Land Office Museum in Batavia. His “History with the HLOM” column appears twice a month in The Daily News. To read past columns, go to thedailynewsonline.com.