100 Years of Dividends

When Boston's famed old Pepperell Manufacturing Co. mailed out a $1.25 first-quarter dividend to its 5,600 stockholders last week, it joined the select group of U.S. companies which have paid a dividend every year for a century. Moreover, with all four of its textile weaving mills (sheets, blankets, denim, etc.) booked solid, and with a tidy $4,000,000 profit on fiscal 1950's sales of $66 million, Chairman William Amory, 81, could report that Pepperell's future looked as promising as its past.

Stockholders could hardly ask for more. Pepperell was founded by Samuel Batchelder, a Yankee engineer who had built one of the early American textile mills. He issued 2,000 shares of stock at $500 apiece, but had his troubles marketing them: investors were so dubious that it took six years to sell all the securities. Since then, each share has grown by splits to 105 shares, worth $7,800, has paid $14,000 in dividends. Total gain on each original share: $21,300, or 4,260%.

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