Meriden Firearms Co.

Meriden is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 59,653. Meriden was originally part of Wallingford. It was granted a separate meetinghouse in 1727, became a town in 1806, and incorporated as a city in 1867.... It was named for the town of Meriden, West Midlands, England. The oldest house in town still standing, built by Solomon Goffe in 1711, is now a museum, the Solomon Goffe House. In the 1800s, Meriden earned the nickname “Silver City”, due to the large number of cutlery and related products which were manufactured here by companies such as International Silver and Meriden Cutlery. Charles Parker and his younger brother, opened their first manufacturing factory in Meriden in 1832, with a capital outlay of $70.00. Over the years they manufactured a wide variety of products‚ from steam engines, train wheels and printing presses to piano stools. During the American Civil War Parker's Meriden Machine Company was under Union contract to produce 10,000 repeating rifles and 15,000 Springfield rifles. Parker began producing his own shotgun, referred to as “The Gun of 1866”.
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Sears, officially named Sears Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores, which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century. Formerly a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Sears merged with Kmart in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation. From its mail order beginnings, the company grew to become the largest retailer in the United States by the mid-20th century,... and its catalogs became famous. Competition and changes in the demographics of its customer base hurt Sears following World War II, as the country's suburban areas thrived, hurting the company's inner-city strongholds. Eventually, Sears' catalogs were discontinued in lieu of more web-based alternatives. Richard Warren Sears was a railroad station agent in North Redwood, Minnesota, when he received an impressive shipment of watches from a Chicago jeweler which were unwanted by a local cube jeweler. Sears purchased them, then sold the watches for a considerable profit to other station agents, then ordered more for resale. Soon he started a business selling watches through mail order catalogs.
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