Formation of the Norwood Business Association & The Norwood Press-This Day in Norwood History-March 7, 1893

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF NINE.

Norwood, March 7, 1893.

To the Citizens of Norwood in Town Meeting Assembled: Your committee of nine, appointed at the March meeting of 1892, begs leave to make a final report of its doings since its appointment in relation to the Norwood Press.

At the annual town meeting on March 7, 1893, the following motion was made by John C. Lane and unanimously adopted by the town:

That a standing committee be appointed to further the general interests of the town and especially to consider and devise ways and means of increasing the business done in the town, such recommendation and plans of said committee as shall require any action by the town to be brought before it at some future meeting.

The moderator, Hon. Warren E. Locke, on the suggestion of Mr. Lane, appointed the following gentlemen: namely, George S. Winslow, James M. Folan, Thomas E. Clary, George B. Talbot, George Hill, Francis Doane, Edmund J. Shattuck, John P. Oldham, Lewis Day.

Your committee, shortly after the March meeting, in 1892, met and organized, by electing George S. Winslow, chairman; George Hill, secretary, and Lewis Day, treasurer.

We were not able to accomplish much the first year, and so reported at the annual meeting in March, 1893.

In April of 1893 your committee opened negotiations with J. S. Cushing & Co., Berwick & Smith, and H. M. Plimpton & Co. to see if we could induce them to locate their business in Norwood. After looking the town over for a suitable place on which to locate their plant, they decided that the “Everett lot,” located between Washington and Cross Streets and Everett Avenue, was the most desirable. And if the committee would present the above-named property to the above-named firms, they would remove their several plants to Norwood.

The following agreement was drawn up and signed by all the members of the committee and J. S. Cushing, James Berwick and H. M. Plimpton:

Whereas a committee has been appointed in the town of Norwood for the purpose of promoting the business interests of the town, of which George S. Winslow is chairman and George Hill secretary, and it has been proposed by said committee to furnish to the undersigned a lot of land in Norwood with buildings thereon lying between Cross and Washington Streets, Everett Avenue and the Norwood Central Railroad Station grounds, upon which to locate the manufacturing business of our firms, and said committee is now actively soliciting subscriptions from the citizens and taxpayers of said town to defray the expense thereof, we, the undersigned, in consideration of said subscriptions and the efforts of said committee given and performed, and to be given and performed, in relation to the premises, jointly and severally agree to and with said George S. Winslow as chairman of said committee and in behalf of said committee and the subscribers to said expense, that if said premises are furnished and conveyed to us in a reasonable time, we will at once and as fast as is reasonably possible proceed to erect suitable buildings thereon to accommodate our business aforesaid, equal in capacity at least to a three-story building 60 feet by 100 feet, and to remove said business thereto, and establish a manufacturing business thereon, including all the processes involved in printing and binding books, to as large an amount and extent as we are reasonably able to do.

In witness whereof, we hereunto set our respective signatures this sixth day of July, in the year of our Lord, 1893,

(Signed)

J. S. CUSHING & CO.,
BERWICK & SMITH,
H. M. PLIMPTON & CO.

(Originally published in the Norwood Advertiser & Review)