The Merger of Massey and Harris

By Sam Moore
Published on November 1, 2008
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by Sam Moore
2007 Canadian plowing champion Nelson Sage, Thamesville, Ontario, competing with a Canadian Massey-Harris plow behind a team of Belgian horses.

Massey-Harris history starts in southern Ontario, Canada, since just before the middle of the 19th century. Daniel Massey was 49 in 1847 when he turned over operation of his successful farm on the northern shore of Lake Ontario to his 21-year-old son, Hart. The elder Massey had become interested in labor-saving farm machinery (some accounts characterize it as more of an obsession) and determined to become a manufacturer. He took a partner, R.F. Vaughan, who owned a small foundry and machine shop, but who was starving for capital. The two men began the manufacture, using iron castings and wood, of simple implements such as plows, harrows, scufflers (cultivators) and rollers.

In a daguerreotype taken in about 1850, Daniel Massey projects a stern, lantern-jawed visage, with bright, piercing eyes. His English great-great-great-great-grandfather landed in Salem, Mass., in 1630, and his descendants migrated steadily westward, ending up in Watertown, N.Y., where Daniel was born in 1798. A year later, the family moved across Lake Ontario and home-steaded 200 acres of virgin forest in Haldimand Township in what is now the province of Ontario.

At age 19, Massey rented land of his own. By 1820, he owned 200 acres. Over the next 10 years he bought and cleared more than 1,200 acres of land and sold the timber. He later sold the land at a nice profit. By 1830, the lumber and land speculation business was in decline so Massey turned to raising wheat full time. To thresh his wheat, Massey visited Watertown, N.Y., and brought back a crude threshing machine and a horse power.

The acquisition of the thresher seems to have spurred local interest in modern farm implements of the day and Massey imported many into Ontario from the U.S., before opening a factory in 1847 to build his own. The new company prospered, with Massey buying out his partner after only a year. In 1849, he moved the plant to larger quarters in nearby Newcastle, Ontario, on the main road into Toronto.

By 1851, business was so brisk that Massey brought his son, Hart, into the business as factory superintendent. The Massey company was already building a reaper and Hart obtained rights to build the Ketchum mower as well. The business continued to grow. In 1855, Daniel Massey retired and Hart became the boss.

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