H.M. Quakenbush
Henry Marcus Quakenbush, the great-great-grandfather of the company's
current owner, founded the H.M. Quakenbush Company in 1871. Henry
quit his job at Remington Arms in nearby Ilion, NY to start his
own metalworking and gun shop. Over the succeeding 130 years the
company has manufactured a variety of products, including air
rifles, bicycles, stove pokers, sporting firearms, seafood implements
and other specialty kitchen gadgets.
In 1878 Henry was approached by a local dentist to make some steel
dental tools. Henry felt that these items would make good nutpicks,
so he invented the spring jointed nutcracker found in most houses
today, and sold them as a set. Today the company is America's
largest and oldest manufacturer of nutcrackers and related items.
Job-shop electroplating for customers in the Mohawk Valley began
in the 1950s and gradually expanded over the years. Today H.M.
Quakenbush Inc. and its parent, HMQ Metal Finishing Group, LLC,
are two of the largest metal finishing and electroplating companies
in the Northeast.
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