Book Description

In 1797 a list of "Apprentices and Freedom" was advertised: "Belcher Zachariah rule maker Purchase knife maker Freedom 1797." Zachariah Belcher married Martha Harborne and they have six sons and three daughter who thrive. With the Napoleonic Wars over in Europe and the English Industrial Revolution and the Belcher Rule business underway in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, the state of the economy and the quality of life is at issue as machines have been replacing workers, sowing strife and hardship in England. Zachariah and Martha Belcher make a decision to commit their family to America. Five sons and a married daughter leave Sheffield for New York and New Jersey in the 1820's never to be seen again by their parents or first born, John Belcher, "Iron Man" of the family. This book brings to light my family genealogy as well as a century long family labor in Rule Making to find success and happiness through "Belcher Brothers & Cos." Not all the Belchers and their descendants worked the family business as they follow their own ways to self-actualize beyond the New York City and New Jersey area. My great grandfather was a farmer in Duxbury, Massachusetts and then bookkeeper for Oliver Edes & Son, zinc manufacturers in neighboring Plymouth. My grandfather, Arthur William Belcher, grew up with his siblings in Plymouth, graduating from Harvard College in the Class of 1904 and later earned an M.A. from Colombia returning to the Belcher Brothers home area in Essex County, New Jersey as Principal of Newark, New Jersey's South Side High School 1929-1949.