The story of Judge & Greenough Paper Company began in the 19th century with Martin J. Judge. A brief history follows, leading to the formation of the Judge and Greenough Paper Company.
Martin J. Judge was born in South Hadley in 1865, one of ten children of Anthony and Barbara (Loftus) Judge. His first employer was the Glasgow Mills in South Hadley, a cotton business. He was later employed as a bookkeeper at Albion Paper Company in Holyoke, where he became very familiar with the paper business.
With an entrepreneurial spirit and connections to the paper industry, he started his own wholesale and retail business at 149 Main Street in Holyoke in 1885. The business was known as Judge Brothers, paper dealers. The company sold paper and stationery, as well as butcher’s and grocers’ coated paper.
After 28 years of success and a need for more space, the then-named Martin J. Judge Paper Company relocated to the more spacious 139 Main Street in 1914. According to the 1925 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, the business occupied four of the building’s five stories.
Mr. Judge was also Treasurer of Eureks Blank Book Company and a director of the Highland Manufacturing Company. With his business experience, he was also a trustee of the Mechanics Savings Bank, Vice-President of the Holyoke Day Nursery, a Director of the Dunbar Murray Company, and the Lowell Oakland Company, among others.
On March 5, 1929, Martin J. Judge died at the age of 63. The business operations were then conducted by his son, Martin J. L. Judge. The younger Mr. Judge was 28 at the time and had been with the company for 8 years. His wife, Mary C. (Cronin) Judge, later became a partner in the business in the late 1930s. Mary Judge was a graduate of Bridgewater State Teachers’ College and had taught in the Holyoke school system.
The business was renamed the Judge Paper Company in 1940, and Mary Judge was identified as the operator. Martin J. L. Judge was employed by Worthington Pump and Machinery Corporation in 1943.
Martin J. L. Judge died in 1946, and Mary Judge continued the Judge Paper Company. In 1949, a partnership was formed with Alvin R. Greenough, who had 27 years of experience in the paper industry. The business was renamed Judge & Greenough Paper Company, which continued to operate in the Judge building at 137-139 Main Street. The business had six employees at the time, with expansion plans on the horizon. The company intended to act as a wholesaler or franchise agent for paper mills producing coarse and industrial papers.
Mary Judge died in 1968. The company reestablished itself as the Greenough Paper Company, moving to 60 Jackson Street in 1968, then to 44 Race Street, and to 42 Commercial Street. The company later moved to West Springfield during the 1980s.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
Massachusetts Cultural Research Information System, Boston, Massachusetts
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Holyoke, Massachusetts (1915)
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