A. W. FRENCH, president of the French Oil Mill Machinery Company, of Piqua, of which he was the organizer, is also interested in the Piqua Handle Manufacturing Company, and is one of the city's most representative business men. He was born and reared in Connecticut. From the public schools of his native place, Mr. French entered the Massachusetts School of Technology, at Boston, and was graduated there in the class of 1889, remaining in the school for two years longer as an instructor. Following this came three years of work in the employ of the Government and he was then connected in an official capacity with an engineer's office in Boston. Just prior to coming to Piqua he was connected with the National Linseed Oil Company.

The French Oil Mill Machinery company, of Piqua, was organized and incorporated in 1900, with an authorized capital stock of $172,000, and with A. W. French as president; J. W. Brown, vice-president; and William Cook Rogers, secretary and treasurer. The business is the manufacture of oil-mill machinery. The plant is situated at No. 1014 West Ash Street, where a new building has recently been erected, with dimensions of 319 by 70 feet, two stories high, with perfect equipment, while the foundry is another large structure with dimensions of 75 by 80 feet. Employment is given from fifty to sixty men, and as the wages of these are mainly spent in Piqua, this plant contributes largely to the city's commercial prosperity. The machinery produced by this plant is protected by patents and it includes automatic change valves, cake trimmers, cake packers, continuous cookers, Faherty cylinder knives, accumulators, cake formers, as well as presses, power pumps, rolls, hullers, etc., these machines representing the highest standard of perfection in workmanship and material. Although the company has been operating for only a comparatively short time, it has placed its machinery in mills all over the United States, in Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Norway, and keeps representatives at many other points.