d, daughter
of Ephraim Howard. He was a commissioned officer during the war of the
Revolution. A blacksmith by trade he also rendered the patriot cause
service by the manufacture of guns. His account book, still in
existence, also proves that he was engaged in the manufacture of shovels
in 1775.

Oliver Ames, third son of Captain John and Susannah (Howard) Ames, was
born in West Bridgewater April 11, 1779. For a number of years he was
employed at Springfield in the manufacture of guns by his brother, David
Ames, who was the first superintendent of the armory, appointed by
President Washington; and as early as 1800 was engaged in the
manufacture of shovels. In 1803 he married Susannah Angier, a descendant
of President Urian Oakes of Harvard College, and the same year he
removed to Easton where greater facilities were afforded for carrying on
his business. At first his goods found an outlet to markets at Newport,
Rhode Island, and at Boston; and a one-horse vehicle was sufficient for
the transportation of the raw material to, and the manufactured goods
from, his factory. He was a man who combined in himself rare executive
ability and mechanical skill, and gradually built up a large and
flourishing business. A great impetus was given to manufacturing during
the last war with Great Britain, and Mr. Ames availed himself of every
opportunity to enlarge his business. The one-horse method of
transportation was soon supplanted by six-horse teams; and when, on his
retirement from active business in 1844, the firm of Oliver Ames and
Sons was formed, the business had grown to large dimensions.

Honorable Oakes Ames, eldest son of Oliver and Susannah (Angier) Ames,
was born in Easton, January 10, 1804; married November 29, 1827, Eveline
Orville Gilmore; and entered heartily into the enterprises inaugurated
by his father. Under his supervision the manufacture of shovels grew
into giant proportions. A railroad, constructed to the very doors of the
factories, furnished facilities for transporting to them yearly fifteen
hundred tons of iron, two thousand tons of steel and five thousand tons
of coal, and for carrying away from them more than one hundred and
thirty thousand dozen shovels, in the manufacture of which employment
had been given to five hundred workmen. The fame of the goods kept pace
with the advance of civilization; and on every frontier, in all quarters
of the globe, were found as instruments of progress the Ames shovels.