The company attracted a number of talented immigrant machinists and designers to its ranks, including O.F. The company's name changed again to Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works in 1891, when the company relocated to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, (sometimes incorrectly referred to as 'Fitzburg') in order to have better and larger manufacturing facilities. The company's name changed to Iver Johnson & Company in 1883, upon Johnson's purchase of Bye's interest, but Bye continued working in the firearm industry for the remainder of his life. Their primary revenues came from the sale of their self designed and manufactured inexpensive models of revolvers. Beginning in 1876, Johnson and Bye filed jointly for, and received, multiple new firearms features and firearms feature improvement patents. In 1871, Johnson merged his and Martin Bye's gunsmithing operations to form the Johnson Bye & Company. On April 9, 1868, Johnson married Mary Elizabeth ( née Speirs, born January 1847) in Worcester and the couple had three sons, Frederick Iver, John Lovell and Walter Olof, and two daughters, Mary Louise and Nellie. Seeking new and creative uses for his partially idle manufacturing equipment after the American Civil War, he worked not only gunsmithing locally in Fitchburg, but also providing designs and work to other firearms companies notably making pepper-box pistols for Allen & Wheelock. Johnson emigrated from Norway to Worcester, Massachusetts, United States in 1863, and continued his work as a gunsmith by trade and an inventor in his spare time.

He was educated as a gunsmith in Bergen in 1857, and had a gun store in Oslo.

Iver Johnson was born in 1841 in Nordfjord, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. Iver Johnson revolver advertisement, pre-1907

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