Hancock / Binghamton, NY — [Nov. 1, 2025]
When locals talk about the mechanical know-how that has long lived in our hills and mills, few stories capture that make-do inventiveness better than the rise of Thomas Burr Crary — a Hancock-area maker who took a small-town enterprise and helped turn it into part of the region’s early washing-machine industry.
Thomas B. Crary’s arc — working and raising a family in the Hancock area, building a factory here, then expanding to Binghamton as his business grew — is a classic upstate story of ambition outgrowing Main Street and helped link our community to the birth of today’s large appliance industry.
Contemporary historical write-ups and local history notes place Crary at the center of late-19th / early-20th-century efforts to commercialize powered washing machines: he was involved with the enterprise known as the 1900 Washer Company around the turn of the century and was an active civic and business figure in Binghamton as the industry consolidated.
From Hancock workshops to Binghamton factories
Local newspaper fragments and biographical yearbooks of the era show Thomas B. Crary as a prominent entrepreneur in the Valley of Opportunity, active in civic life and industry as Binghamton expanded. While some modern accounts list him among the group that organized to produce motorized wringer washers in the late 1890s (often referenced as the 1900 Washer Co.).
The regional appliance story is complex: other inventors and companies in New York state and the Midwest — including the Uptons and later mergers in Binghamton — all contributed to what eventually became the Whirlpool lineage. Still, Crary’s trajectory — starting in Hancock area workshops and moving production into larger Binghamton facilities when capacity demanded — is attested in multiple local histories.
What that means for Hancock
This isn’t just a footnote in corporate histories; it’s a Hancock legacy. The essentials are simple and proud:
- Local ingenuity: Crary’s work shows how small-town mechanical skill and entrepreneurship fed larger manufacturing clusters in nearby cities.
- Economic migration: the story explains a common pattern — factories and founders starting in hamlets like Cadosia/Hancock, then expanding to bigger towns (Binghamton) when demand and capital required it.
- Civic roots: Crary’s name appears in civic rosters and yearbooks of the period, underscoring that Hancock-area people were central players in regional industry and commerce.
A balanced historical view
To be clear and fair to history: national histories of the electric washer and the Whirlpool corporation trace the corporate lineage through several firms and inventors (including the Upton interests and other manufacturers in Binghamton). The best way to honor Hancockian pride is both to celebrate Crary’s local role and to acknowledge the wider web of inventors and firms that together created the modern appliance industry.
A call to action for Hancock
This story is ready for commemoration in our town:
- a dedicated exhibit at the Hancock Historical Society showing artifacts, photos and documents connected to Thomas B. Crary and any surviving machinery,
- an oral-history drive to capture family memories from descendants and longtime residents, and
- a “Crary & Company” walking tour or marker noting the original workshop sites and the place where the company later moved production to Binghamton.
📑 Key source items found
- “How a household name got its start in Binghamton” (Press & Sun-Bulletin) — This article mentions Crary and his partners acquiring rights and being part of the early washer-machine business in Binghamton.
- BusinessHistory.com listing — Under “Household Appliances – Business History” it lists: 1897 – Thomas B. Crary incorporated Nineteen Hundred Washer Company; merged with Binghamton Washing Machine Company; 1929 – merged with Upton Machine …
- Yearbook “The Valley of Opportunity; Year Book, 1920. Binghamton…” — On page(s) it lists Thomas B. Crary as a member of the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, showing his civic role.
- “How the Whirlpool Brand Got Its Start in Upstate New York” (981 The Hawk) — States: “In 1898, Crary and a group of partners established the 1900 Washer Co., to tap into the growing demand…”
- NY Historic Newspapers – The Record, Sept 18 1920 — A clipping with a letter from Thomas B. Crary, President of the Company, in a newspaper.
