Montague Rod Production Facilities

History of the Montague Rod Co. Feel free to discuss Montague Rods here.

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TEJJR
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Montague Rod Production Facilities

#1

Post by TEJJR »

Fishnbanjo notes in his inaugural posting that Montague merged Chubb rod production with its own facility in Montague City, but my understanding is that the Chubb line continued to be produced in Vermont. This plant closed in 1931, along with a third Montague production facility in Pelham, MA. It was there that the higher-quality/value Montague rods were produced - understandably in lower numbers. Any ideas what models might have been included in this small-batch factory?

My understanding is also that Montague produced a few custom split-cane rods there as well, examples of which can be seen on the Pelham Historical Society website. They came from the collection of Mark Aldrich, Eugene Bartlett's great-grandson. I am interested in identifying and preserving additional high-quality rods produced in Pelham, as opposed to Montague City, to the extent they can be identified. I'm in contact with the Society and Bartlett's still-living family members to assist in this task. Thanks...

uniquafly
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Re: Montague Rod Production Facilities

#2

Post by uniquafly »

I visited the Pelham Historical Society website but didn’t see anything pertaining to Montague or their products.
“He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”

Norman Maclean


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roycestearns
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Re: Montague Rod Production Facilities

#4

Post by roycestearns »

Get in touch with TheMontyMan on this forum. Rex has visited sites and with employees, photographed and presented the Monty history. The production numbers were nuts!

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TheMontyMan
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Re: Montague Rod Production Facilities

#5

Post by TheMontyMan »

Thomas,

At some point we should connect so I can fill you in with what I've been able to gather about Montague and the Pelham rod shops.

First off, Fishnbanjo's inaugural posting about Montague was made over 10 years ago. He was a wealth of knowledge, but presented the information that he could support from research at that time. In the past 10 years, the efforts of several people have filled in a lot of the gaps and contributed extensively to the history of Montague. You are correct about the Chubb factory. It was operated fairly independent of the other Montague factories, by design. This has been thoroughly documented over the past ten years or so. You could do yourself a favor by searching this Forum for other Montague and Chubb related articles.

I am a member of the Pelham Historical Society, and the Montague Historical Society. In my visits there over the past years, I've reviewed all of their materials on the company and it's history that they have, and I've contributed material, advertisements, presentations and other resources to help build up their knowledge base. I've also interviewed living relatives of people that worked in the Pelham rod shop.

Within weeks of the donation to the Pelham Historical Society, I was asked to appraised and identified the rods from the Royal Aldrich collection (Eugene Bartlett's son-in-law), that was passed down to Mark Aldrich and his family. The same week, I appraised and identified the collection of Jack Hubbard, Eugene Bartlett's other son-in-law. Both collections were marvelous, though there were very few, if any, "custom" made rods. There were a few with some upgrades and embellishments, but most, or all of them were great examples of Montague's stock rod models that were owned and used by these family members.

By the 1890's, the Pelham rod shop was not a "small-batch factory". They were producing some very impressive volume that ran the spectrum between high-quality and lower quality rods. Some people try to implicate that ONLY the higher quality rods were built in Pelham, but I have found no evidence to support this theory. In fact, I've seen a pre-Montague factory catalog that lists low-end and high-end rods. I have yet to find a way to identify rods that were built in the Pelham factory, versus the Montague factory.

Eugene Bartlett's two son-in-laws, Jack Hubbard and Royal Aldrich, both worked for the Montague City Rod Company for decades. It is nearly impossible to tell which factory made the rods that they owned. If you or anyone else can find a way to tell which factory the rods were made in, I'd love to hear about it.

I appreciate your enthusiasm and I look forward to sharing my findings and experiences with you.

. . . Rex
The Monty Man

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