C.M. Long Trowel Co., Toledo, Ohio

The Bricklayer Mason and Plasterer, April 1918

C.M. Long Trowel was a small company that was in business in Toledo, OH from 1918 to the early 1920s. Clyde M. Long, C.C. Montis, Asa Smith, T.P. Crawford, and H.M. Crawford filed for incorporation 19 March, 1919, with capital of $10,000. Clyde Merit Long was a union brick mason and also an inventor with at least 2 US patents. He ran the company from his home at 728 Parker Ave., but it is not known where the tools were manufactured. As pictured in the 1921 advertisement, he made a forged brick trowel, plasterer's finishing and browning trowels, and a level with an adjustable vial in pine or mahogany.

The brick trowel has a distinctive crook in the shank (neck), which would make it easy to identify to a collector today. This feature was advertised as being more ergonomic and giving greater control, but the curve was reduced between the 1918 and 1921 ads. The trowel was made in 2 widths and 2 pitches (heights, lifts), with wood or leather handle.

Clyde Merit Long was born in Ohio 22 Dec., 1877, and died after 1937. He married Sarah Almina Smith, and their one child, Asa Alden Long, was a world and US checkers champion, a game he learned from his father and grandfather.

Company ads appeared prominently from April 1918 to 1921 in The Bricklayer, Mason, and Plasterer, the journal of the Bricklayers, Masons, and Plasterers International Union of America. The ads stated that their tools were invented by Clyde M. Long, but I was unable to find any US patents for trowels or levels. He received US Patent 1,162,790 for prepared mortar on 7 Dec., 1915, and US Patent 1,547,178 for a milk-bottle holder on 28 July, 1925.

The Bricklayer Mason and Plasterer, 1921