Bird, Barde, Brooke & Boro

Near Boyertown, Pennsylvania's first iron forge, in 1733 an Englishman named William Bird earned two shillings sixpence daily cutting wood. By 1740 he had accumulated enough capital to set up two charcoal-fired forges of his own where Hay Creek entered the Schuylkill half-dozen miles south of Reading. From these two forges sprang the present town of Birdsboro and the Birdsboro Steel Foundry & Machine Co. William Bird's eldest son Mark added other forges, a rolling mill, slitting mill and what is believed to be the first U. S. nail factory. By the Revolution he was wealthy enough to outfit 300 men to aid Washington after the Battle of Brandywine. Continental Congress minutes record fat payments to Birdsboro for munitions of war. In 1783 Mark Bird petitioned Congress that the "chain prepared to throw across the Hudson River" be returned since it was not paid for. Soon thereafter he failed and the iron works were rented to an extraordinary character named Captain John Louis Barde.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1756, Captain Barde reached Birdsboro via the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, England, and war with the Spaniards at Pensacola, Fla. where he wooed and won the 14-year-old daughter of his landlady with a ring chopped from a gold guinea. He did so well renting Birdsboro that he bought it in 1796. Plant Manager Matthew Brooke married his daughter and Brooke-Barde descendants have owned and operated Birdsboro ever since. Chairman now of the Birdsboro board, which contains six Brookes, is tall, 70-year-old Robert Edward Brooke, grandson of Matthew. President since 1933 has been hard-bitten John Edward McCauley, onetime machinist's apprentice, who states in his hoarse steelman's voice that the C. I. O. "hasn't got us yet" and that Tom Girdler is "doing a yeoman's job for all of us" (see p. 9). With total assets of $2,400,000, Birdsboro employs 800 men, had gross sales of $3,000,000 last year, net income of $233,000. The stock of this company, whose story would make a perfect Joseph Hergesheimer novel, has always been closely held but last week Birdsboro was granted permission to list 200,000 shares of no-par common on the New York Curb Exchange. Reasons: to provide extra working capital, pay off bank loans, redeem outstanding preferred stock, establish a price for the common stock for the convenience of present owners, mostly family members and widely scattered.

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