Background
Charles Pickney S. Wardwell (1824-1879) was a New Hampshire inventor. Wardwell was born in
Oxford County, Maine, son of Joseph H. Wardwell and Lydia Wardwell; in the early 1850s he
moved to Lake Village, New Hampshire. In 1854 to 1855, 1858, and 1862 to 1863, he patented
various tenoning machines and circular sawing machines. During the Civil War, he worked at
the Springfield Armory (Massachusetts). Wardwell was the founder of the C.P.S. Wardwell
Company and in 1878, he was the owner of The Wardwell Needle Co. in Lake Village, New
Hampshire. He died in Boston, Massachusetts in March 1879. Wardwell's elder brother George
J. Wardwell had worked as a painter and tried his hand at farming before moving to Canada
and taking a job at Page's Oar Factory at Coaticook, Quebec (1859). His other brother,
Jarvis traveled to California and in 1852 was working at a mine in Deer Creek. He then
returned to New England and in 1861 worked in Boston for James Boy and Sons on harness work
for the government. In 1863, Joseph W. Wardwell worked at a mill in Oneida, New York, and in
1864, enlisted in 7th unassigned Company of Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, which was
organized for the garrison of forts in Boston Harbor, and later attached as company C to the
3rd Massachusetts regiment of Heavy Artillery. After the war, in 1867, he worked at
Springfield Armory. His brothers William H., Nathaniel, and Spafford H. Wardwell and his
sister Sarah E. (Lizzie) Wardwell Farnum lived in Rumford, Maine.
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