Pretty interesting, though its apparent someone has been tinkering with this thing quite heavily in the last 30 years or so. (The hex headed bolts on the babbitt bearings give that away.) Mine had the same thing on a few bolts, but I was able to take some 3/4 stock at work, turn down the shoulders and re-thread these into square headed bolts. My efforts at trying to find ½ inch, 1-½" long square headed bolts with a British thread (12 threads per inch instead of 13 threads per inch) came up dry. In a way, that is a stealth warning for you, before driving any bolt down a tapped hole, be sure you are using the right threaded bolt. Threads back in 1865 or whatever were hardly standard. In my case, they used the Bristish thread system.
No matter, you did well to find a jointer of that size and class with fence on it. Most fences on Ship Wright models were tossed into the garbage as there was really no need for them. They merely wanted to flatten a big chunk of wood. Consider yourself very lucky there, that certainly increases the value of your machine. By all accounts too,that fence looks original. Mine is again identical in design which leads me to further believe my jointer was cloned from the Fay model.
As for the rebuilding companies. They are quite common here in the Northeast,especially in Massachusetts. These companies buy up foreclosed businesses or have warehouses full of this old iron. They tweak with the bearings here and there, clean them up a bit, stick their name plate on the side of them, and then sell them. Mine had the same thing done to it via a company in North Billerica, MA. They are still in business, but never answered my email back...apparently they don't keep much information on individual machines. I think I will tear off their name plate and have my own nameplate added since they had nothing to do with the true history of the machine. They did it, so I figure why can't I?
(more later, headed to work right now, but thanks for sharing. I really love this old iron stuff, as I know Paul and Jeff do as well).