Auburn Ball Bearing Company

In 1860, Mark Dean Knowlton founded a Chicago-based paper box manufacturing business. The business, operating under the name M.D. Knowlton & Company, lasted until the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.

Knowlton rebuilt the business and resumed his paper box manufacturing operation within the same year. In March 1892, he sold his interest in the paper box manufacturing portion of his business in order to concentrate on inventing production machinery for the paper box manufacturing industry. In 1888, Knowlton moved his machinery business to Rochester, New York, where he then formed a partnership with Fred H. Beach, and the two business men began operating under the new business name Knowlton & Beach.

In 1893, Knowlton & Beach introduced a near frictionless ball bearing to the market, presumably the first such bearing of its time, and in 1900, the company's bearing business was incorporated as the Rochester Ball Bearing Company and became a division of Knowlton & Beach. A year later in 1901, Knowlton & Beach further expanded their bearing business with the acquisition of the Auburn Ball Bearing Company, a manufacturer of ball and roller thrust bearings established in 1898 in Auburn, New York. Auburn Ball Bearing became the second division of Knowlton & Beach and was relocated to Rochester, New York to continue its operations. Auburn Ball Bearing's primary product, their Auburn Four-Point-Cone-Contact Ball Thrust Bearings, incorporates an exclusive "V" groove raceway, designed to distribute the load evenly over the balls as they travel on four points of contact, creating a straight line rolling effect and decreasing the amount of friction created by a full contact round groove design. Auburn Ball Bearing Company manufactured various sizes and configurations of their "V" groove thrust bearings for applications in industries including paper box manufacturing, railroad jacks, U.S. submarines, and U.S. Government Light Houses. Early company documentation illustrates Auburn Ball Bearings were used to support revolving lenses in the Carysfort Reef Light,

Jupiter Inlet Light, and the St. Simons Island Light in the early twentieth century.

In 1904, Fred Beach retired and withdrew his interest in the Knowlton & Beach co-partnership. Knowlton subsequently took over the entire interest of the company, and later that year, he incorporated the company in New York under the name M.D. Knowlton Company. Knowlton served as president of the M.D. Knowlton Co. and the Auburn Ball Bearing Co. until his death in 1906. Knowlton was succeeded by his son, Colonel Frederick K. Knowlton, who served as president of the company until his death in 1939. During his time as president, the Auburn Ball Bearing Division of M.D. Knowlton Company was able to patent a number of new and useful improvements in the design of bearings, particularly in the design of ball thrust bearings, under inventor Francis A. Collins, Jr.

Ball Bearing Patent US1219919A — Triple-race ball bearing which is self-contained, readily positioned, and high efficient in its operations (patented March 20, 1917).

Ball Bearing Patent US1219920A — Double thrust ball bearing which is self-contained, and, therefore, capable of being handled and positioned as a unit (patented March 20, 1917).

Ball Bearing Patent US1219921A — Double thrust ball bearing which is capable, when installed, of slight radial movements to accommodate itself to the radial position of the shaft, due to wear of the bearings, but is also capable of accommodating itself to angular changes in the position of the shaft, while providing a means for holding the parts of the bearing together to form a unit of the same so that it may be readily handled and positioned (patented March 20, 1917).