Iver Johnson died in 1895, and his sons took over the business. Mary Elizabeth Adams on April 9, 1868, in Worcester, with whom he had 3 sons and 2 daughters over the next several years. His early work involved not only gunsmithing locally in Worcester, MA, but it also included providing designs and work to other firearms companies (notable Allen & Wheelock for whom he made so-called ' pepperbox' pistols). Johnson was a gunsmith by trade at the time, but also worked as an inventor in his spare time, which would come in handy later on as he sought new and creative uses for his partially idle manufacturing equipment, a thought process which would eventually lead him and his heirs to diversify the corporation's businesses. Iver Johnson is documented as having immigrated to Worcester, Massachusetts from Norway in 1863 at the height of the American Civil War, a time when gunsmithing was a welcome skill in the country. However, there is more documented information on Johnson. Not much is known about Martin Bye, as there is very little documented information about his life. Their primary revenues came from the sale of their self designed and manufactured inexpensive models of revolvers. During this period, Johnson and Bye filed for and received several new firearms features and firearms feature improvement patents. In 1871, Johnson joined Martin Bye to form the Johnson Bye & Company, merging his own and Martin Bye's gunsmithing operations. He was educated as a gunsmith in Bergen in 1857 and had a gun store in Oslo. Iver Johnson was born in Nordfjord, Western Norway in 1841 and later emigrated from Norway to the United States.

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