Probably has to do with Cheney's ax and hatchet making business, that seems to have been a major part of Cheney's output.
As far as I know they only made axes for 3-6 years. The axe factory was sold the year after Henry died and then run by the Trask brothers for a little over a decade until they sold out to the Hard Edge Tool Trust in 1892 -- ending axe production in Little Falls.
Interestingly, I've found some traces of a law suit brought by the Henry Cheney Hammer Company against a Henry P. Collins over some utility work being done near the factory, but I don't have anything indicating that this Collins was in any way related to the Collins family that ran the Collins Company.
I found a huge trove of old newspapers on
http://fultonhistory.com/ it takes some digging, but there's a ton of good stuff in there.
Jeff
