Well, I guess its nice to know that Bob Nelson can get "his juices stirred"
even as retirement homes loom on the horizon.  :-)
>
Bob reported, "It took a bit of tracking to get there, but I
> eventually found a Ford Auger Bit Co. which was also reported as the
> Ford Bit Co. They worked in Holyoke, MA, from (assumed) ca. 1891. One
> source  says they only worked until 1910, but another shows their bits
> still being sold in 1914." (snip) "The DAT does not show the full
> paptent date cited by Sandy - only the 1891 from the marking.".

Bob's research stirred my own somnolent early morning juices enough to
stumble downstairs, and root out some of the Ford pattern bits that I have
down there.  What I found is essentially that Bob (as usual) is correct, and
that my memory of a "Holyoke Mfg. Co" seems to be in error.  But after
arraying a number of my Ford patent bits, and some similar ones, some
interesting things arise (don't they always when you look critically at
tools?)

First, my earlier report of the complete 1891 patent date comes from Jim
Price's book on bitstock tools, and that reference notes Ford's location
when the patent was awarded as New Haven.  At my side I have eight auger
bits that are marked with Ford's name.  Five conform to the patent for a
"single twist auger bit with 1 floor lip".  The bits are  distinctive,
having a single twist with very heavy sidewalls.  Imagine an open circular
staircase with wide, flat risers.  This is quite different from the narrow
tapered risers in the typical Jennings pattern double twist bit.  In the
Ford pattern, imagine looking at the working end of the bit so you are
looking directly down the length of the lead screw.  If you orient the
single cutting edge so that it points to 12 o'clock, the single spur or
"floor lip" is centered at about 2 o'clock.  This is true for three of the
eight bits.  All three are marked, "The Ford Bit.  Pat. Oct. 27, 1891."  I
regard these as the earliest of the bits I have.  Note that there is no
Holyoke location given, and the patent date is complete.   Of the remaining
five bits, an additional two are marked, "Ford Pat. 1891 Holyoke U.S.A."  A
closer look at these shows that they have two cutting edges (not one), and
there are two spurs, one at about 2 o'clock, and the other at 7.  A third
example also shows the two cutting edge arrangement, but it is marked, "Ford
Pat. 1891 Hudson."  Finally, the remaining two bits (of the eight) are
marked only, "Ford, Holyoke U.S.A."  And these have but a single cutting
edge, and the lip is located right adjacent to the edge, essentially at
12:30.  Clearly there is considerable variation here, and not all of it
conforms very closely to Ellsworth Ford's original patent.

While on the subject of single twist bits, I have another group of them that
are very similar to the Ford pattern.  But these are marked with the patent
date of June 1, 1869 of patent number 90,759 awarded to Henry C. Lewis, also
of New Haven, Conn.  The patent is for "auger bit with one lip, one spur."
Three of these bits differ only from the Ford pattern by having the single
spur located at 6 o'clock rather than 2 o'clock.  A fourth bit with the same
feature is marked only "Atlas Tool Co."  The patent records assembled by Jim
Price show another patent for an "auger bit with one lip, one spur" that was
awarded on the same day, June 1, 1869 (#90,755) to the brace maker, William
A. Ives, also of New Haven.  I don't have an example of this bit, but it
seems remarkable that New Haven was host to three patents for very similar
bits over a span of 22 years.

    Best regards,
    Sandy