Galloway Engine Collector Builds Registry

Enlarge Image Image Gallery John Cullom of Westminster, Md., brought his great-grandfather's 1926 Galloway saw rig to the Mason Dixson Historical Society's annual gas and steam show at the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster.

John Cullom, Westminster, Md., is a Galloway engine enthusiast who collects serial numbers.

It all started when Leopold Umber bought a new Galloway saw rig in 1926 to use on his farm in Charles City, Va. Leopold was John's great-grandfather. When Leopold's son, Philip, had to replace a flywheel on the saw rig sometime in the early 1940s, he didn't get one made by Galloway, so the rig wasn't correctly balanced. In fact, it shook the engine so badly that Philip stopped using it and it sat in the barn for half a century. About five years ago, John rescued the rig and took it home to Westminster, where he undertook a total restoration process.

"I took it completely apart," he said. "I cleaned, primed and repainted everything, then put it back together. I was able to get a Galloway flywheel from a fellow collector near me, so the engine now runs nice and smooth."

John said he had no idea of the manufacturing date of the rig, so he did some research and discovered that all the Galloway company records had apparently been lost many years ago.

"Before my mother found the original certificate of guarantee showing the manufacturing date in some old family papers, I had no idea what that date would be," he said. "There didn't seem to be any way of putting an exact date on any Galloway engine unless one still had the original paperwork on it. I began collecting information from other Galloway collectors and soon put together a list of serial numbers of Galloway engines, some of which had verified manufacturing dates. It's with this list that I can put an approximate date to any Galloway engine."

John said that from his research he has established that his 7 hp Galloway engine, which is mounted on the original Galloway saw rig, is of the "Masterpiece" style, which Galloway began producing in 1915.

"It is distinctive from the earlier style in that the hopper edges are rounded and the water hole has a rounded opening," he said. "The edges on the head and base are more rounded as well. The connecting rod on the Masterpiece style engines was changed from the pre-1915 'roundrod' style to the cast 'I beam'. The Galloway engines are one of the few that can be made to run backwards, as they need to run that way on the saw rig."

John, a captain in the Baltimore County (Md.) Fire and Rescue Service, has always been interested in antiques and used to collect old firehouse equipment. But once he got his grandfather's saw rig restored, the engine bug bit him.