His first stay was at Kirtland, Lake county, Ohio, where he purchased a farm and at the same time carried on the harness business. At this he continued until about the year 1850, when he purchased a factory and water power, put in a pail-making machine, and commenced, in a small way, the manufacture of pails. In 1854, he removed to Fairport, in the same county, where he purchased a larger building and carried on pail manufacturing upon a larger scale. In March, 1855, he sold out the establishment, taking in pay for it a note which he still holds.
In May of that year he came to Cleveland and organized the Cleveland Wooden Ware Manufacturing Company, built a factory on the ground now occupied by the present firm of Bousfield & Poole, and commenced manufacturing in the following September. The first operations of the company were on a small scale, making tubs, pails, washboards, and similar articles in a limited way, but gradually increasing the business until it reached what was then considered respectable proportions. In July, 1857, the company sold out to Greenman & Co., of Massachusetts, and Mr. Bousfield was retained by the new owners as superintendent of the works, until January 12, 1859, when the factory was destroyed by fire.
In March of that year, Mr. Bousfield rented a building on the West Side and commenced manufacturing again on his own account. Five months afterwards he was burned out. Nothing daunted, he immediately purchased the ruins of the Greenman & Co. factory, rebuilt it, and in January, 1860, associated with him Mr. J. B. Hervey, of Cleveland, and in the following month resumed work.
The new partnership was very successful. The business increased rapidly, the area of their trade enlarged until it comprised all the principal cities and towns in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. A planing mill was added to the factory, and this, too, was highly profitable. In 1864, the works were greatly enlarged to meet the rapidly increasing demand for their wares. In 1865, Mr. John Poole, of Harmer, Ohio, was admitted to the partnership, thus bringing in additional capital and experience gained in the management of a similar factory at Harmer. Mr. Poole has devoted himself principally to the financial and sales departments of the business, and has proved himself a man of more than ordinary business ability.
Thus far everything had been going on prosperously, but the old enemy, fire, was as relentless as ever. On the 23d of March, 1866, the whole of the extensive establishment was reduced to ashes, and the unfortunate proprietors sorrowfully contemplated the ruins of years of labor and enterprise, whilst a host of workmen stood still more sorrowfully by, and saw their daily bread swept from them by the pitiless flames. Seventy-five thousand dollars of capital were converted into valueless ashes in a few hours.
The owners of the factory wasted no time in fruitless sorrow. An old wooden building had partially escaped the flames. This was hastily patched up, and within thirty days they were making pails and tubs as earnestly as if they had never known a fire. Mr. Hervey sold out his interest to the other partners, Messrs. Bousfield & Poole, who went to work with almost unparalleled enterprise and energy, built one of the largest and most substantial factories in the country, and entered upon the work of manufacturing wooden ware upon a larger scale than had ever before been attempted. The factory has two hundred feet front on Leonard and Voltaire streets, with a depth of sixty feet, and five stories high; attached to the main building are the engine and boiler rooms. The cost of the building was forty-five thousand dollars. The present capacity of the works is twenty-five hundred pails per day, six hundred tubs, a hundred and twenty-five churns and other small ware, and a hundred dozen zinc washboards.
In May, 1867, the firm commenced the erection of a match factory which was ready for operation in September of that year. A superintendent was engaged who, unfortunately, was unqualified for his position and did much harm to the enterprise, but on his removal, Mr. Bousfield took personal charge of the match factory, and has succeeded in building up an extensive trade. The daily capacity of the factory is two hundred and ninety gross, which, if run to the full capacity throughout the year, would yield to the United States government a revenue of over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
The trade of Messrs. Bousfield & Poole extends from Buffalo through the principal cities of the central, southern and western States, to New Orleans on the south, and Salt Lake City on the west, two bills having been sold to the son-in-law of Brigham Young in that city. A branch warehouse has been established in Chicago as an entrepot for the supply of the vast territory of which Chicago is the source of supply.
The manufactory of Messrs. Bousfield & Poole is the largest in the country, and for the past three years has turned out about fifty per cent. more work than any other in the United States. It consumes ten millions of feet of lumber and logs annually, besides other material, and gives employment to from three hundred to three hundred and fifty persons, men women and children. Its influence on the population and prosperity of the city can therefore be judged. The money for the support of these people, and for the purchase of the materials employed, is almost wholly brought from abroad, the amount of the wares used in Cleveland being, of course, a very small fraction of the amount produced and sold. The same is true to a greater or less extent, of all the manufactories of Cleveland, and serves to account for the rapid growth of the city in population and wealth within the few years past, in which Cleveland has entered in good earnest on its career as a manufacturing centre.
Mr. Bousfield was married January 1, 1855, to Miss Sarah Featherstone, of Kirtland, by whom he has had ten children, six of whom are yet living. The oldest son, Edward Franklin Bousfield, is engaged with his father in the factory.