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The Last Lasts
A one-of-a-kind Taylor engine is getting well again in Maryland
By Jill Teunis
If anyone out there knows of another Taylor dry steam engine - or another American "dry steam" engine, period -Joe Rogers would like to hear about it. He won't be holding his breath, though. As far as he can tell, he knows where the only one is sitting.
"I've heard rumors that there's one in the Carolinas somewhere," he said. "And just maybe there's one in Paris, France."
Joe is the caretaker at the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster, Md. He and his grandfather, Bob Frederick of Cockeysville, Md., have spent the past several years restoring the museum's Taylor steam engine as a volunteer project.
"They first opened in 1852 as the Union Agricultural Works," Joe said. "They made saw mills, threshing machines, plows, hominy mills. As I understand it, this engine spent its life powering hominy mills. It's called a dry steam engine because the piston is encased in steam."
Joe said there are still many things they have to learn about the engine though. "There's a number stamped on the boiler that reads 01-01," Joe said, "but we don't know if that's a serial number. I'd love to know more about it."
Joe's fascination with steam engines began when he was just a toddler and went with Bob to steam shows.
Bob stumbled upon the hobby a little later in life. "I retired from the Baltimore County Fire Department in the 70s and wanted something else to do," he remembers. "So I got involved with flea markets. I wasn't a collector, but I went to a lot of steam shows and set up (a table), which is how I got interested in the engines. It's so good for the younger generation to see all this equipment. It teaches them how things were."
Bob regularly attends the Mason-Dixon Historical Society's annual steam show event at the Carroll County Farm Museum, which opened in Westminster in 1966. The Taylor dry steam engine was one of its earliest exhibits. In 1975, the museum purchased the engine from owner Jesse Byers of Littlestown, Penn., for $5,000. That was the last time it was operational. Sadly, the engine would be mostly forgotten for two decades, until Bob and his grandson went looking for it in the museum's storage area.
"I knew it was back there somewhere," Bob said. "It had been sitting for more than 20 years. We were just going to free it up. The grease was hard in the grease cups. The piston was stuck. It took a lot of oil and elbow grease. The stack was full of birds' nests. There was five bushels of hay and sticks in there. We had to take the stack off to get it cleaned out."