Early Threshing In North Dakota

Concrete, North Dakota 58221.

I was exposed to steam threshing at a very early age here in
North Dakota in the extreme northeastern part of the state. My
father and mother were married in 1893. Just when my father began
threshing for himself, I am not sure of, but probably before he was
married. His first engine was a return flue portable and probably a
Northwest. It had done a lot of work as the rigs were few and far
between in those days and the runs were long. I am sure that some
falls the threshing was not finished when we were snowed in for the
winter, and finished up in the spring. This old engine was sold for
scrap in 1922. He had also bought a Case traction before 1900, and
ran two complete rigs or outfits. He sold the case engine in 1915
to a man in Minnesota to use on a sawmill.

For some years we had in our grave yard on the farm two Advance
and a Peerless grain separator. One of the Advance had a straw
carrier and the other a Maple Bay blower. More about that blower
later on. They made a lot of noise and could be heard for some
distance.

The enclosed picture was my father’s outfit in 1900, the
year I was born. The engine was a new Northwest belted up to a much
used Peerless separator. This picture was taken in 1904. I was four
years old and am sitting on the tool box of the engine. The crew in
the above mentioned picture was made up of Indiana from the White
Earth Reservation in Minn. which was east of us in Minn.

In 1907 Dad bought a new 36′ Minneapolis separator without
feeder or blower. He took the self feeder and the Maple Bay blower
off of the old Advance and put them on the new Minneapolis. In 1912
I started as straw-monkey, hauling straw to fire this Northwest
engine. Later coal was used in place of straw. In those days the
owner of the outfit usually furnished the bundle wagons and teams
too. My father kept thirty-five head of work horses for this job as
well as farming, as we did not have tractors for field work except
in a few cases. I fired this engine the last year we threshed with
steam which was 1918.

Cook cars as they were usually called was a very important part
of the threshing crew. They were usually built on an old separator
frame and wheels, and were self contained and often were over
twenty feet in length. A poor cook and you were in trouble. Usually
two women did the cooking. One time Dad had one man who took care
of it alone. Cooks put in long hours. Five A. M. breakfast,
forenoon lunch, dinner, an afternoon lunch, and supper at from
seven to eight P. M., and for a crew of twenty-five hungry men. A
flunky would take the lunches out to the rig and the men would eat
as they came in to unload. When the cook car was some distance from
the machine Dad would take the cook with the food in large kettles
and eating utensils to where the machine was and there was a short
noon hour while the men and horses ate.