Bassick Company Hardware Manufacturer. This hardware and components manufacturer grew from a Nineteenth Century Meriden, Connecticut screw maker. After many changes and incarnations, Bassick formed in 1916 from M.B. Schenck of Meriden, Connecticut, the Burns & Bassick Company, and the Universal Caster and Foundry Works of Newark, New Jersey, and continued to expand throughout the 1910's and 1920's. By the late 1920's, Bassick had moved all company operations to Bridgeport and became the world's largest producer of furniture and automobile hardware. During WWI Bassick plants became government equipment production centers and by Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, the company was delivering 50,000 hand grenades a day to the US government. Bassick became a well established name in industrial and home-use markets and in 1929 alone paid out almost $2,000,000 in salaries and wages to its employees --nearly all of them Bridgeport residents.