From: A Business Review and Sketch Book, The Eastern Shore, Maryland, 1901, R.  H. Woodward Co.,  Publishers, Baltimore, Maryland.

The conversion of raw material into finished product adds to the permanent value and wealth not only of individuals, but to the community and the State.  An enterprise here that occupies a foremost position among manufacturing establishments is the Salisbury Machine Works, Grier Brothers,  proprietors.   This is the largest plant of the kind on the Peninsula.  It was finished 1889.  These works are located on the N.Y.P.&N. railroad from which is a private sidetrack running through the  Boiler and Locomotive Building to the rear of the lot where machinery, coal, iron, sand and other supplies are received, and finished machinery shipped out.  The plant may be described, in detail, under the following heads: Foundry, Machine Shop, Round House, Pattern Department, Saw-mill and Blacksmithing, and Sales Department.  In the foundry are made iron and brass castings for engines and saw-mills, and machines of every description.  These works make a specialty of manufacturing machinery for the manufacture of baskets used for shipping berries, peaches, etc.  They also make stake-cutting machinery.  The foundry adjoins the machine shop, and is forty by thirty feet, while the latter is two story and thirty by one hundred feet, the machines being operated by a modern high speed engine.  In the Locomotive department a Locomotive can be jacked up and stripped of the machinery for any necessary work, and the steel ties of driving vehicles turned down in a large lathe especially for that purpose.  This lathe weighs over nine tons.  In the round house all kinds of boilers from the largest locomotive down to a boiler of the smallest traction engine are repaired on short notice.  In the saw mill department, saw mills are constructed from foundation to the competed milling plant.  The pattern department is supplied with turning lathes, gig and circular saws and the best improved machinery for making all kinds and sizes of patterns.  Blacksmithing of every kind is done in the most substantial manner, and also general repair work of all kinds.

There are two warehouses, one two story, forty by seventy feet in dimensions, used for the storing  of pulleys, shafting and light miscellaneous machinery.  The other thirty by sixty feet in size, is used for the exhibition of heavy machinery, such as engines, boilers, threshers, etc.  The entire plant covers over an acre.  Messrs. Grier Brothers are manufacturers agents for all the machinery and agricultural implements of the A. B. Farquar Company, York, Pa.  Among these may be mentioned the Pennsylvania Improved Fertilizer Grain Drill, Farquar’s Rake Separators and vibrators, threshers, steam engines, portable engines, boilers of all kinds, corn shellers, shingle machines, saw mills, etc.  Also The Famous R. Hoe & Co. Inverted Tooth circular Saws.

In short, there is no part of kind of machinery pertaining to the farm, to th mill, or any kind of business but what this firm can furnish on short notice.  Messrs. Grier Brothers give their personal supervision to all work.  They are both practical men and skilled machinists, having worked at the trade many years.  Their customers may be found throughout the Eastern Shore, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina, and business is growing rapidly, and has nearly, if not quite, doubled in the last four years.  The individual members of the firm are Robert D. and Frederick A. Grier.  The former is Vice President of the Farmers Merchants Bank, of Salisbury.  Both are valued members of the Board of Trade, and while active in the prosecution of their own interest, they are nevertheless enterprising and public spirited citizens.

August 1997, web page author, George E. Richardson, III