How Gorham Became One of the Motherships

Over the years Gorham managed to adsorb, purchase, or make many of the smaller silver companies part the Gorham Company. Here is a chart of how they managed to get some familiar companies such as Mt. Vernon, Alvin, Durgin, Knowles, Whiting, and Woods and Hughes just to name a few, under their umbrella. Often after several years of having the smaller companies on board, Gorham would break the dies and casts of the smaller company's designs. The idea being that there was not enough demand for production of so many different patterns. The more popular patterns were kept.

I'll offer my caveat -  The following is best I could do to chart out the flow. It may not be correct. The information is confusing at best coming from different sources. But it gives you an idea of how all the smaller companies ending up merging.