On Christmas Day 1861, the 6th New Hampshire Infantry departed Keene aboard a twenty-two-car train enroute to Washington, DC. The regiment had mustered in a month prior for a three-year enlistment in response to President Lincoln’s call for volunteers to serve in the United States Army following the attack on Fort Sumter earlier that year. Twenty-four-year-old Morton E. Converse (1837-1917), who had been operating a clothing business in Salmon Falls, returned to his hometown of Rindge and joined Company K, of which his father, Ebenezer, was captain.

After three long years, having served in a slew of historic engagements including Antietam, Vicksburg, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg, Converse returned to New Hampshire at the end of his enlistment. Despite his good fortune having escaped enemy fire, he suffered severely from exposure and hardships and for two years was in poor health and not actively employed.

Converse came from a line of industrious landowners engaged in the manufacturing of lumber and woodenware in the town of Rindge dating to the turn of the century. Recovered from the maladies of war, he started his own company in 1867 in the village of Converseville producing Pyroligneous acid, or wood vinegar, which at the time was a commercial source of acetic acid. Five years later he decided to change course, retrofitting a nearby mill to craft woodenware including men’s shirt collar boxes popular with Victorian consumers of the day. Little did he know this new venture would lead him to open the first factory in the United States devoted exclusively to toys and ultimately become the largest toy manufacturer in the world.

As the story goes, Converse’s daughter, Grace, fell ill one day and so to help her feel better, he took a collar box and made her a tea set out of scrap wood. The set fit in the box, which could also be used as a table. When the factoryworkers saw what Converse had created, they asked if he could make a set for their little girls as well. Seeing the opportunity for a promising new enterprise, Converse looked south to the neighboring town of Winchendon, Massachusetts where his mother grew up, and entered into a partnership with prominent citizen and successful manufacturer, Orlando Mason, forming the Mason & Converse Company in 1878.

Following Mason’s departure from the prospering business a few years later, Converse explored a handful of partnerships, eventually renaming the firm Morton E. Converse Company in 1887. It has been said that Converse had a special aptitude for anticipating the wants of young Americans, creating novelties that attracted not only the children of the United States but of the whole world. Over the years the company manufactured a wide variety of toys including rocking horses, doll houses and furniture, drums, miniature Saratoga trunks, and even toy trains; everything a child-of-the-time’s heart could desire.

The business grew rapidly as more and more families were willing and able to purchase high-quality American-made toys at a much more affordable price than those that previously had only been imported from Germany. Converse ensured capacity increased to keep up with the ever-growing demand and saw to it that his factories were equipped with state-of-the-art systems and technology, which by this time was also producing more modern lithograph toys. At the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the Morton E. Converse Company received the highest awards for exhibiting the finest toys in the world—a testament to his business acumen and commitment to producing a superior commodity.

In 1914, Winchendon celebrated its 150th anniversary with a special parade to mark the occasion as it had not been able to properly observe its centennial due to the Civil War. Every business in town was asked to design a float, so Converse decided to craft a large horse modeled after company’s best-selling #12 rocking horse toy. The townspeople loved the horse so much that it was on display in various locations throughout the town and affectionately became known as Clyde.

Three weeks shy of his 80th birthday, Morton E. Converse passed away at his home on Front Street, remembered by his grandchildren as the “Red House.” In addition to his successes as a toymaker, Converse was elected state senator and representative to the general court, served on the board of numerous other local enterprises and was an active member of multiple fraternal organizations. Upon his death he left a $5,000 gift to the town with the instructions that it not be touched for 100 years.

Today, Converse’s memory lives on in myriad ways: the Winchendon History & Cultural Center holds his collections, including many of the company’s original toys; Clyde (though now in his third iteration) is an iconic roadside attraction still visited by families throughout the area; and perhaps most importantly, the small town of Winchendon (pop. 5,687, 1910), was bestowed the lasting legacy of an identity — Toy Town, U.S.A.

Sources: Winchendon History & Cultural Center, Supporting Winchendon, Athol Daily News, Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal…