It’s one thing to use diaries and journals to flesh out the 150-year history of a business, and quite another to be confronted with boxes – dozens of boxes full of pieces of paper, some as small as 1-by-2 inches.

But out of this wealth of material, author Trudy Scee and five generations of the Bragg-Eames family have honored one Maine business very well with “N.H. Bragg & Sons: 150 Years of Service to the Maine Community and Economy 1854-2004.”

With its inception as a blacksmith supply shop on Broad Street, the business started by Norris Hubbard Bragg and Sumner Basford as Bragg & Basford took advantage of the availability of transportation by steamship, stage and railroad. Patrons from miles around knew they could find what they needed in iron, steel and other materials for building horse-drawn carriages.

Written orders for materials were succinct, like this one:

Patten Nov 1 1854

Mrrs. Bragg Basford

Please to send me by the bearer 2 bars of 3/4 round iron. Yours …

Henry Perry

An East Dixmont man wanted iron, shoe shapes, carriage bolts, “malable teas,” nuts and a set of whiffletree rings, while a Parkman man was seeking enough “Swedes steel” for one sleigh. Still other orders were for coal.

By 1856, the company also was offering anvils and vises, screw plates, sledges and hammers, bellows, washers, side and elliptic springs, rasps and files, sleigh shoe bolts, iron wire, plows and shovels.

Supplies often arrived in Bangor via schooner from Boston on vessels such as the Sanford, the Prudence, the Express, Teazer, Iowa and A. Hamlin.

But Bragg & Basford also bought locally, and the book is quite a history of Bangor and the region as it brings in the company’s dealings with customers, suppliers and other businesses owners dealt with as the firm grew.

In 1863, the pair dissolved their partnership, and Bragg continued the company as N.H. Bragg. A few years later, the name N.H. Bragg & Son acknowledged the father’s partnership with Norris Everett Bragg, his son. Just months later, the father passed away.

When Norris later brought his brother, Charles Fred Bragg, into the business, N.H. Bragg & Sons became the official name.

The history offers fascinating glimpses into Bangor of long ago. In June 1880, Bell Telephone Co. charged the company $41.98 for connection to the Bangor Telephone Exchange and equipment rental for 12 months.

Water, in comparison was a better deal – about $2 a quarter, payable in advance to the city.

The brothers were active in the community, but it was Charles who was the most prominent, expanding his interests to mining companies and an ice business and serving as Bangor’s mayor from 1887 to 1889.

Charles also was the first generation of the family to be involved in the Bangor Mechanic Association and the Bangor Public Library, relationships which have been continuous through his son, Franklin E. Bragg, grandson Charles F. Bragg II and great-grandson Franklin E. Bragg II.

The company changed with the times, adding automotive supplies and tools in 1911, power tools in the 1920s and acquiring other businesses later in the century. In the 1960s, the company moved to its present home on Perry Road.

Two years ago, the firm went back to the name N.H. Bragg, adding as its slogan, “Industrial Supplies & Solutions Since 1854.”

The book benefits not only from Scee’s detailed work on the history of the family, the business and the community, but from the recollections of three of the presidents – Charles II, G. Clifton Eames and John W. Bragg.

There are amusing stories and wonderful pictures. A most telling quote is the question a patient once asked John’s brother, Dr. Franklin Bragg: “Are you one of those nuts-and-bolts Braggs?”

Indeed, the members of the Bragg-Eames family fit that description – in civic activities as much as in business. And this book is a fine way to mark their 150 years of service, as a business and as individuals in the community.

“N.H. Bragg & Sons: 150 Years of Service to the Maine Community and Economy 1854-2004” is available at bookstores. Roxanne Moore Saucier can be reached at familyti@bangordailynews.net.