Okemos, Michigan
In the Nov.-Dec., 1955 issue there is an article by Marcus
Leonard of Salina, Kansas, who has some remarks regarding the A. W.
Stevens engines, and how well he describes them.
In our family there were five boys and our father threshed
before us with a Dingy 12 horse sweep and an old Buffalo Pitts
engine made here in Lansing and changed the gears on the separator
and had to have a new cylinder shaft made to accommodate the
pulley. Dad took to the tall timbers and us smaller brothers went
with Dad for a time because that sizzling thing had us frightened
too. Later in life we all got in bed with steam engines and loved
them. One brother, who was in partnership with me, had two Stevens
engines. One a 12 and the other a 16 and we used them for nearly
everything. Had both in sawmills we owned and while we also had
other makes, the Stevens was our pride and joy. We had two Double
Rumleys that we liked quite well but the fire doors opened on the
right which was not handy to fire in the sawmill but they surely
were fine for threshing and on the road. The Stevens was slow and
the Double Rumleys were not too much faster but how they could pull
or lug a load.
We had an experience with one of our Stevens unhooking at the
cross-head end of the connecting rod and it sure did things but if
the fellow who was running it at the time could have had head
enough to hear the knock it should not have happened. The
connecting rod end had a strap over the boxes (two piece) that
keyed with a tapering key and fastened with a set screw, and if
that ever worked loose it would make a pound plainly heard. And it
would not have to be very loose either. When one of us boys was
operating it we knew when there was a crosshead pound and we
immediately took care of it.
After we boys got to be less afraid of the plain engine the
older boys bought, we used to thresh some with them. At 14 I drove
the team on the engine on the road and was water monkey. One day my
brother did not run the fire down enough on finishing the job and
had too much fire left. When Dad’s big Percheons lifted it from
the trenches it was in, it popped off and those big fellows headed
for an orchard 15 rods away. They had to cross a plowed field and I
had set the brakes so the rear wheels were sliding and they did not
run very fast. The men took out after us and kept yelling to me to
jump and just before they reached the orchard that is just what I
did. They went under a tree with a large limb and it took the stack
and governors, being at the side of the stack, off together, and
tore the pipe loose from the boiler. Steam went a hundred feet into
the air. There was no dome on the Cady. Took steam direct from the
front end of the boiler next to the smoke stack. About the time
they hit the tree the men arrived there. It surely was a mess and
threshing was off for a couple of days. The Cady plain engine was
not balanced at all and had to be dug in and blocked at all four
wheels but it was a sassy little 10 horse outfit. Leonard’s
experience with muddy water in the Stevens surely was the same
experience we had. We had an oil pump on the steam chest (hand)
that when the engine primed and washed out the oil in the cylinder
we would pump in a few strokes direct in the steam chest and again
get oil on the valve and cylinder. These engines having the dome on
the rear also would if water was high, draw over on a steep
incline. When not under load they surely were about the stillest
running engine one ever heard. Under load you could always tell if
the valve was right. There is not too many of us old fellows left.
It is a pleasing experience to get with a bunch like we find at the
Reunions as at Pon-tiac, Illinois, and Montpelier, Ohio.
At the college centennial here last August I, with another
fellow, operated a Huber and under mounted Avery for a week. The
engines were owned by Walter Knapp who had 5 more of them at his
home in Monroe. Walter is a swell guy to associate with too, and
his father was an old line thresherman. I am retired and have
plenty of time to go places and made several trips where they had
doings in the steam line. The brother who was in partnership with
me, went with the Huber Co., after we quit threshing and sawmilling
and was with them 31 years-up to his death in 1938. I was with the
Buffalo Pitts Co., two years but left that to enter government
service. But I operated my sawmill up to 1908. In 1924, the brother
who was with the Huber people got hold of a 40×60 Western separator
and a brother-in-law had a 25 Rumley double like we once had, and I
took my vacation off to operate that outfit for two years
(1924-25). That ended my threshing and steam experience.
