Levi Heywood was born on December 10, 1800, at Gardner, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Benjamin and Mary (Whitney) Heyvvood, and a descendant of John Heywood who came from England and settled in Concord, Massachusetts, about the middle of the seventeenth century.
Levi's early life was that of the normal farmer’s boy of the time and included the usual short terms in the village school. When Levi was twenty years old he had, in addition, two terms at the academy in New Salem, Massachusetts.
For a year Levi Heywood engaged in general contracting in Rochester, New York, and then returned to Gardner and in partnership with a brother operated a country store for six years. In 1826 he began in Gardner the manufacture of wood-seated chairs. Five years later Heywood closed his factory and went to Boston where he opened a store for the sale of chairs. In partnership with a second brother and a friend, he also started a sawmill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, for sawing veneers from mahogany and other woods. This mill was destroyed by fire in 1835, and the following year, after giving up his retail store in Boston, Heywood returned to Gardner and, with a third brother, again engaged in the manufacture of chairs. For the first few years Heywood Brothers & Company, as the firm was called, made chairs mainly by hand, the only machinery being turning-lathes and circular saws operated by water power.
About 1841 Levi turned his attention to the invention of machinery especially adapted to the various processes of chair manufacture. His brother, however, not being at all enthusiastic in this direction, sold out his interests in the business to Levi. Thereafter the latter gave his every thought to the devising and constructing of special machinery for chair construction, and to the adapting of existing wood-working machinery to that purpose. He introduced constantly new and valuable features into the methods of manufacture which, in turn, resulted in the enlargement and variety of the style of product. One of his inventions not connected directly with chair manufacture was a substitute for whalebone which he made by injecting India rubber into rattan. Probably the most original and valuable of his inventions was that for bending wood.
Through the introduction of Heywood’s machinery, his business grew steadily during the first twenty years until in 1861 it yielded over $300, 000 a year; a decade later it brought in more than a million dollars annually. The factory employed between twelve and fourteen hundred workmen, and in addition, nine wholesale warehouses employing over five hundred people were maintained in various parts of the United States. Besides his own interests at Gardner, Heywood was a partner with W. B. Washburn in the manufacture of chairs and wooden ware at Erving, Massachusetts. These partners, too, engaged in the manufacture of lumber, owning large acreages of timber land in various sections of New England.
After he had secured his patents for machinery to utilize rattan, Heywood’s company about 1876 began the manufacture of rattan furniture and a second company, known as the American Rattan Company, in which he was a large stockholder, was organized. Heywood erected, too, in 1876, as part of his establishment, a foundry to make the various iron parts used in chair manufacture. In 1853 he represented the town of Gardner in the convention for revising the constitution of the State of Massachusetts, and in 1871 he served a term in the lower house of the state legislature.
Levi Heywood was married, Dececember 29, 1825, to Martha Wright of Gardner. They had five children.
