The Northampton Cutlery Company was incorporated in 1871 with Judge Samuel L. Hinckley, its largest stockholder, as its first President. The property was purchased from J. H. Lyman and located along the Mill River in Northampton, Massachusetts on a site in which previous manufacturing plants had operated, beginning with Northampton Papermills (1836-1848), and subsequently Hampshire Flax & Hemp Company (1848-1850), Bay State Tool Manufacturing Company (1854-1858), Bay State Hardware Company (1858-1870), and Riverside Cutlery Company (1870-1871). Cutlery production began as a sideline venture for Bay State Tool during the Civil War, a time when 81% of cutlery produced in the United States was made in plants in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 1885, a Knights of Labor Assembly of knife grinders was established in Northampton, considered by the Northampton Tercentenary Commission to be the first union of”real significance” in the town. The company closed in 1987.