The New England Wireless and Steam Museum

Armington & Sims produced high-speed piston valve steam engines. The Rites governor that was used on these engines responded to the changing speed of the engine as well as the rate of change in the speed. This caused to engine to have very acurate speed control, even with large load changes. Thomas Edison used these engines for his Pearl Street power plant because the excellent speed control would not let the lights flicker when the load changed.

In 1881 Armington & Sims built an engine for the research vessel Albatross to power an Edison dynamo for illumination. In an 1887 Navy report the Trenton, Omaha, New Hampshire, Dolphin, Atlanta, and Boston were listed as illuminated by Armington & Sims engines.

Armington & Sims was chosen to light the first electric lights of the Houses of Parliment in London.

Armington & Sims donated an engine to Notre Dame in 1885 to power an Edison dynamo making it one of the first colleges to be illuminated with electricity.

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey,  has a WWW seachable file of Thomas Alva Edison papers. These include correspondence and other documents relating to Edison's dealings with Armington and Sims.

Armington & Sims was originally located in Lawrence Massachusetts, moved to 546 High Street, Providence, Rhode Island in late 1881, and then to the former Monohasset woolen mill on the corner of  Eagle Street and Kinsley Ave., Providence, Rhode Island in 1887. The company failed in 1896 probably due to the depression that followed the the panic of 1893. The factory and equipment was purchased by Julius Palmer, F. M. Bushnell, and James M. Scott. Their company was called the Eastern Engine Company and failed in 1903.

The original officers of the company were:
    Henry Howard        President
    Pardon Armington   Treasurer
    Gardiner C. Sims    Superintendant
    C.T. Howard          Secretary

Later letterhead shows the officers as:
    Henry Howard        President
    John W. Danielson  Vice President
    Pardon Armington   Treasurer
    H.C. Cranston        Assistant Treasurer
    Gardiner C. Sims    General Manager
    Theodore Andrews Secretary

Gardiner C. Sims was on the board of the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, now URI. He was also Vice President of the GLOBE NATIONAL BANK, No. 48 Weybosset Street, Providence, RI.

John W. Danielson was on the board of MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK, No. 14 Westminster Street. Providence, RI.

The 1890 photograph above shows the south side of the Armington & Sims factory which was originally the Monohasset Woolen Mill. It is located on the south-east corner of Eagle Street and Kinsley Street, Providence, RI. I visited the location in March of 2001 and was quite surprised to find that the buildings are still there. The smoke stack and the building to the far right are gone, the peaked roof on the small building in the front center is now flat, the peaked roof of the stair/elevator shaft is now flat, additional windows have been installed in the second floor of the building behind the smoke stack, and there is an addition on the left of the building in the foreground. I will attempt to take a new photograph of the buildings from the same direction.

The overhead image above shows the factory buildings in 1995.

The Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village has a reproduction of the Armington & Sims machine shop. Its not 100% accurate, but it does have a large selection of early machine tools that are powered by belts and shafting.

The New England Wireless and Steam Museum has two operating Armington & Sims engines.