Hamilton, Ohio’s Contributions to Agricultural Steam Power

‘The third event was the trial of a traction engine, or
steam road wagon more properly speaking… Through the woods we
went, turning out to the right and left to avoid trees, and backed
up to a huge threshing machine, which was coupled on, and away we
went again.

‘The little engine responded nobly, as we passed over the
rough ground until we reached the road. Seemingly the crowd had
abandoned everything else. They covered the hill side and filled
the grand stand until it was one dense mass of humanity. Closely
following the wagon came a regiment of boys and men, each eager to
see the novel sight. Then a piece of wet ground was crossed, the
drivers sink deep into the yielding soil, but without any effort
the engine regains the firm ground, and then we go down a steep
declivity, and out into the ring, past the judges’ stand. The
thresher is then detached, and the wagon is put through some very
fancy movements, in fact going through all the motions that a span
of horses are required to do. The Committee on Machinery are then
taken aboard and we pass out of the ring up an abrupt little hill
nearly at an angle of forty-five degrees, and up the avenue to the
President’s headquarters… Every one was highly pleased with
the exhibition, and many prophesied that a new era had arrived in
the application of steam to agricultural purposes, for the engine
can be used as a stationary as well as a traction engine.’
(Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company’s Traction or Road
Engine 2.)

The engine came in two sizes, ten horsepower and twelve, both
suitable for ‘moving and operating Threshing Machines, and for
Hauling Loads of any kind, within the power of the Engine.’
(Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company’s Traction or Road
Engine 1.) The company admitted that ‘[we have not yet…
tested them in Plowing, but we have no question (from our knowledge
of the construction of others) that in every respect they will
perform in such work equal, if not superior, to any that have as
yet been tried for use in this country.’ One engine
‘threshed 25,326 bushels of grain in 48 days, including time
lost by wet weather.’ Another ‘threshed 25,796 bushels of
grain in 49 days, that also including several days lost by wet
weather.’ Belted to an Owens, Lane and Dyer traction engine,
the ‘California Chief,’ as the company’s separator was
named, could thresh ‘3,814 bushels in 5 days,’ while moving
and setting the machines ‘eight times.’

Despite the success of the firm, a resolution appearing as early
as 1873 sounded an ominous note: ‘Owing to the large aggregate
amount of unsettled accounts unpaid or partially unpaid Notes, at
times accumulating upon our Books, and due to us from our
customers, the board of Directors on the 9th day of May, 1873,
adopted the following Resolution… .’RESOLVED, that no past
due Notes or Accounts will be carried by this Company and that the
privilege of renewal and extension of time, will be allowed only,
when promptly made and with satisfactory security.’ In 1876only
two years after the stunning achievements of the firm’s road
and field locomotive the Owens, Lane & Dyer Machinery Company
applied for a receiver so as to continue business. According to the
written request, dated August 31, 1876, ‘fully two-sevenths of
the entire indebtedness of the Company is due to the former firm of
Owens, Lane, Dyer & Co., all of whom are stockholders under the
new organization of the Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine
Company.’ Clark Lane, one of the original partners, was
appointed the receiver (General Machinery Corporation 11). The late
1870s witnessed an economic slump harder on some farmers than on
others with currency deflation and record numbers of farm
foreclosures (Bogue 283-85); not even a leader with
Lane’s reputation for sound financial planning could rescue the
Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company, which went out of business
in 1879 (Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio 746).
Public minded Lane went on to donate to Hamilton the city’s
library, which has perpetuated the Lane name.

The second chapter of Hamilton’s history of agricultural
steam power begins with John C. Hooven. While Hooven’s parents
were born in Pennsylvania, he was born September 29, 1843, in
Montgomery County, Ohio (A History and Biographical Cyclopaedia
of Butler County, Ohio 386). His father worked as a farmer and
cooper. After his family moved to Franklin, Ohio, in 1849, Hooven
attended the common school there. In 1864, Hooven’s father
began a hardware business in Xenia. Called Hooven & Sons, the
firm soon moved to Hamilton and specialized in agricultural
implements. Young Hooven was a member of Company B of the 146th
Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry of 100-day service men. In
1876, Hooven’s father retired, but the sons retained the
shop’s name. In November of 1878, Hooven’s brother, E. P.
Hooven, retired, and the firm’s name was changed to that of the
only one of the original partners still involved in the business
John C. Hooven. Since 1876 the firm had manufactured threshers and
engines (Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton, Ohio
257). His machines were called ‘Monarch,’ a trade name
bearing no connection to the Monarch road rollers produced by the
Groton Manufacturing Company in New York. Hooven’s ‘boilers
were built in one shop and his engines were built in another
shop’ (Republican-News 48)’and his thresher parts in
several shops.’ (Centennial Anniversary of the City of
Hamilton, Ohio 257.) Although ‘[in three years he had sold
seventy-five of these engines and sixty-five of the threshers,’
in September of 1879, Hooven sold the implement business (but not
the patents and patterns for engines and threshers) to Clark &
Stanhope. Hooven sensed that change was in the wind.

The once-great Owens, Lane & Dyer Company had dissolved that
year. Hooven, ‘as bright a commercial man as one will meet in
many a day,’ hoped to capitalize on that fact. He needed
partners.

Enter George Adam Rentschler. Born in Schmee, Wirtemberg, County
Calw, Germany, on July 8, 1846, Rentschler had come to America in
1852 with his father and his six older siblings (A History and
Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio 358). His
mother had died ‘in his infancy.’ Rentschler, his father,
his brothers, and his sisters began their new life in Newark, New
Jersey, where Rentschler attended school. The death of his father
in 1858 prompted Rentschler to seek a trade. He spent seven years
with Oscar Barnett & Company starting as an apprentice in
molding and pattern-making, then quickly passing through the
journeyman phase to genuine mastery of his craft. Working long
hours, he managed to attend high school.

In 1864, Rentschler began a series of moves which would carry
forward his knowledge and experience while bringing him to
Hamilton. First, he traveled to Peru, Indiana, in 1864. After a
year of molding work there, he went to Indianapolis to take charge
of the Novelty Iron Works. From 1870 to 1871, he ran the stove
foundry of Adams & Brith in Cincinnati. In 1872, he accepted
the position of superintendent of Variety Iron Works in
Indianapolis. The firm transferred to Hamilton in March of 1873,
and Rentschler remained with Variety Iron until June of 1875. At
that time, he joined the firm of Sohn, Rentschler & Balle,
makers of shelf hardware. The sturdy German master ‘had
acquired a vast stock of experience, and he thought he could
utilize it more thoroughly for himself than by working for another
man.’ With little capital but vast energy, the new manufactory
survived. On July 25, 1876, Balle retired from the company; the new
business was known as Sohn & Rentschler or the Ohio Iron Works.
Rentschler began to make money, as is said, ‘hand over
fist.’ With Joseph B. Hughes, he founded the Royal Pottery
Works. He developed financial interests in the Phoenix Caster
Company, the Fairfield Township Ice-House, and the Cincinnati
Brewing Company of Hamilton. Indeed, Rentschler’s success was
‘not owing to any advantages given him by his parents or his
friends’ but resulted from ‘his own hard labor’ and
‘by observation and reading.’ Rentschler could take over
any task from the craftsmen in Ohio Iron Works and perform as well
as or better thanthey. His talent and ability earned him the
respect of his employees.

Hooven turned to Rentschler, persuading him to absorb the Owens,
Lane & Dyer firm. Rentschler turned to his partner Henry C.
Sohn and to George H. Helvey to discuss the prospect. Helvey had
apprenticed in the machine shop of Long & Allstratter in
Hamilton and had become a journeyman machinist ‘working in
various parts of the country.’ (Centennial Anniversary of
the City of Hamilton, Ohio 257 and General Machinery Corporation
11.) In 1873, he returned to Hamilton. Like Rentschler, Helvey
‘was ambitious and worked in the shops by day and studied at
nights.’ Soon, Helvey ‘had developed into an outstanding
engineer.’ Helvey joined Sohn and Rentschler in Hooven’s
plan to buy the Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company, now for
sale. Entering into the association was James E. Campbell, later
Governor of Ohio. Job E. Owens came on board. Accordingly, the firm
of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler & Company was founded with a
capital stock of $250,000 (Centennial History of Butler County,
Ohio 254), and, in 1880, the group took over the Owens, Lane
& Dyer facilities at the corner of Heaton and Fourth Streets
(Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton, Ohio 265 and
Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio 254). Eventually,
the manufacturer would expand from Lowell Street on the south to
Vine Street on the north (Republican-News 48).

As president, Hooven contributed to the firm his Monarch
portable engine, Monarch traction engines, and Monarch thresher. By
January 1882, the factory had made ‘one hundred of the Monarch
[portable] engines, fifty traction engines, and one hundred and
fifty threshers’ (Centennial Anniversary of the City of
Hamilton, Ohio 257). The former Owens, Lane & Dyer
productsthe Eclipse line also were built and sold. The manufacturer
thus became known as the Monarch and Eclipse Machine Works (A
History and Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio
386). Stationary, skid, portable, and traction engines,
threshers, and sawmills lined the shipping docks of the new
company.

In 1882, Owens retired from the firm, although his son Joe Owens
became a stockholder (Centennial Anniversary of the City of
Hamilton, Ohio 258). Retaining the Owens name, the reorganized
business became known as the Hooven, Owens & Rentschler
Company.

The factory concentrated its efforts on designing and building
‘high-class stationary engines of the Corliss style’
(Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio 254). The first
of these engines appeared in 1883 (General Machinery
Corporation 11). It boasted ‘a cylinder eighteen inches in
diameter and forty-two inch stroke…and produced results as to
economy of fuel and close regulation of speed which were up to the
highest standard.’ (Centennial Anniversary of the City of
Hamilton, Ohio 258.) By 1892, 750 ‘of these magnificent
engines’ had been constructed, varying from thirty-five to two
thousand horsepower. In 1901, the manufacturer’s name again
changed to The Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Company, and, in 1902,
‘[the present shop with its very high bays was completed’
(General Machinery Corporation 11). At the 1904 St. Louis
World’s Fair, Hooven, Owens, Rentschler stationary engines
powered several machinery exhibits (Republican-News 48).

The future held vast promise for Hooven, Owens, Rentschler. In
1928, the well-known Niles Tool Works merged with the company to
form General Machinery Corporation (General Machinery
Corporation 12). Hooven’s 1880 plan to acquire the firm of
Owens, Lane & Dyer thereby contributed to the birth of an
industrial giant.

In the late nineteenth century, Rentschler attained considerable
prominence, gaining a ‘standing in business and social
circles’ which was ‘of the highest order’ (A
History and Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio
358). His opulent mansion stands today in Hamilton’s
historic district.

The third chapter of Hamilton’s agricultural steam heritage
began with William Dyer, an original partner in Owens, Lane &
Dyer. Not content to remain for long outside the production of
steam engines and related machines, Dyer, by 1881, had entered into
a new manufacturing agreement. With William Ritchie as Senior
Partner, the firm of Ritchie and Dyer had begun operation
(Kessling).

Ritchie was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 26, 1839
(Kessling, A History and Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler
County, Ohio 396, and Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio
746). Educated in the public schools, Ritchie at age fourteen
apprenticed as a machinist in Hamilton. By the mid-1850s, he was
with Owens, Lane, Dyer & Company and became the superintendent
of the works a position he occupied until Owens, Lane & Dyer
ceased operations in 1879. Ritchie’s tenure with the firm
sustained a significant interruption, however.

In 1861, Ritchie, ‘responded to the President’s call for
three-year troops’ (Centennial History of Butler County,
Ohio 746). He enlisted in the 50th Ohio Volunteer Infantry but
was transferred to the 69th ‘and served over three years at the
front’ (747). Shortly after the battle of Murfreesboro, ‘he
was transferred to the engineers’ corps of the Cumberland Army,
and was there enabled to turn his mechanical knowledge to good
account…’ Such engineers were known as ‘sappers and
miners’ and were not only exposed to the most ‘dangerous
positions’ in advance of the troops but often ‘under fire
while the main army was sleeping.’ Their work demanded
endurance, ‘hence only strong, able-bodied men, with fearless
hearts, were selected.’ They felled trees to protect crossings
or bridges, hefted heavy planks to strengthen bridges, and strung
pontoon boats across unaffordable streams. More than once, Ritchie
faced harrowing circumstances:

‘He was in Atlanta at the time the city was burned, and was
ordered by General Sherman to return to Chattanooga to conduct a
pontoon train to Atlanta. Returning with the train as far as Big
Shanty, he was stopped by pickets, who reported that Rebel General
French was between his train and Big Shanty. They retired to Moon
Station, where they lay until about one o’clock at night, when
scouts reported French’s advance within half an hour’s
march of the station. The train was then backed to Altoona Pass,
where there was a fort garrisoned by twelve hundred soldiers, while
there was a million and a half of rations there awaiting shipment
to Sherman’s army at Atlanta. About twenty minutes after his
arrival at Altoona he received a dispatch from General Corse, at
Rome, Georgia, to unload the train and hasten to Rome for troops.
This was done and the train returned with General Corse and about
twelve hundred soldiers to reinforce the garrison at the fort. They
arrived about five o’clock the next morning and immediately
after unloading, the pickets were driven in by the advance of
French’s army. Here was fought one of the bloodiest little
battles of the Civil War. Out of twenty-six hundred men engaged,
twelve hundred fifty were killed and wounded in the fort; but they
held possession, thus saving to the government a million and a half
of rations, and enabling Sherman to make his memorable march to the
sea.’ (747-48.)

After he was mustered out at Savannah, Georgia, in 1865, Ritchie
returned to his former post with Owens, Lane, Dyer & Company,
only to see the firm dwindle by 1879 and be purchased by Hooven,
Owens, Rentschler & Company in 1880. Ritchie served as chief of
the fire department from his election in 1879 through 1880, then,
in 1881, he joined Dyer. They established their factory on the
south side of Vine Street between Fourth and Lowell Streets
(Kessling).

The partners began business with ‘only about two thousand
dollars. . .and the new concern had a hard time in getting
along’ (Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton,
Ohio 265). The shops made new patterns for sawmills, steam
traction engines, ice-cutting implements, and small machinery
(Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton, Ohio 265,
Kessling, and Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio 746).
Despite lack of capital, the young firm succeeded, largely through
the drive and business acumen of the partners. In 1882, Dyer
retired, leaving Ritchie in full command (History of
Hamilton):

‘Mr. Ritchie pushed the business and everything turned out
splendidly. Selling agencies were established in all prominent
cities north and south and west and the line of products was
increased to include traction engines from ten to forty horsepower,
and various sizes of saw mills, varying in capacity from three
thousand to seventy thousand feet of lumber per day.’
(Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton, Ohio
265.)

Approximately fifty traction engines and three-hundred sawmills
were sold annually. The manufacturer employed between forty and
fifty mechanics (Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio
746).

The Butler County Historical Society & Museum has Ritchie
& Dyer Company stationery, dated 1884, bearing the subtitle
‘Owens, Lane and Dyer Machine Co.’ By that year, the
Hooven, Owens & Rentschler Company had begun to concentrate
exclusively on the building of Corliss engines and had relinquished
rights to the Owens, Lane & Dyer business. Ritchie & Dyer
then traded on the reputation of the old firm’s name and kept
Owens, Lane & Dyer equipment in repair.

Ritchie possessed ‘the sterling qualities of energy,
intelligence, economy and personal push’ (748). An excellent
mechanic, Ritchie was ‘never better satisfied than when
examining and studying the constituent elements of some complicated
piece of machinery’ (746). He ‘accumulated a handsome
competence through industry and wise management, and…reached the
point on life’s journey where he need not be further annoyed by
the perplexities of business life.’

In 1887, Ritchie, with a capital stock of $50,000, created a new
firm, the Advance Manufacturing Company, not to be mistaken for the
Advance Thresher Company of Battle Creek, Michigan (Kessling). The
Advance Manufacturing Company built gas and gasoline
internal-combustion engines which Ritchie designed. The works were
located at North B Street and Wayne Streets on the northwest
corner. In the process of establishing his new shops in 1887,
Ritchie sold his road-engine manufactory and relevant patents to
the Reeves Company of Columbus, Indiana (History of Hamilton).
Reeves had built threshing machines for over a dozen years and
needed steam engines to accompany the threshers. By acquiring
Ritchie & Dyer’s patterns, Reeves secured rear-mounted,
double-cylinder enginesa foundation on which Reeves would build a
prosperous business.

In 1892about the year when, according to city directories,
Ritchie entirely closed out the Ritchie & Dyer Company to
concentrate his efforts in the Advance Manufacturing Company
Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third President of the United States,
appointed Ritchie a federal commissioner to the World’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago (Centennial History of Butler
County, Ohio 748). Ritchie chaired the committee on machinery
and planned ‘the marvelous exhibit in Machinery Hall.’ In
Hamilton, Ritchie served on the Board of Education, where he
championed ‘Manual Training and Domestic Science Courses,’
and on the Board of the Lane Free Library (History of
Hamilton). He passed away in 1905. The Ritchie name is
perpetuated in the Ritchie Auditorium, part of the Butler County
Historical Society & Museum facilities.

To the history of agricultural steam power Hamilton, Ohio,
contributed as many as three significant chapters. The city’s
industrial story spans the pioneer era, through the age when Civil
War veterans walked the factory floors, to the zenith of
steam-engine production, and beyond. When The
Republican-News surveyed Hamilton’s industrial might, the
paper accurately reported, ‘If a city is to be judged by its
products, and there seems to be no more certain method of judging a
city, then Greater Hamilton may well boast of its unexcelled
reputation as a manufacturing city.’ (48.) For steam
enthusiasts and history buffs, Hamilton occupies a prominent place
on the map of America’s agricultural and industrial legacy.

Works Cited

Bogue, Allen G. From Prairie to Corn Belt. Ames: Iowa
State UP, 1994.

The Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton,
Ohio. Ed. D. W. McClung. Hamilton: n.p., 1892.

Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio. Ed. Bert S.
Bartlow. Hamilton: B. F. Bowen, 1905.

General Machinery Corporation. Hamilton: GMC, 1945.

A History and Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler County,
Ohio. Cincinnati: Western Biographical Publishing, 1882.

History of Hamilton. Ed. Stephen Cone. N.d. Typescript
copy in collection of Butler Co. Historical Society &
Museum.

Kelly, Maurice. The American Steam Traction Engine: A
History of Trans-Atlantic Variety. Stamford, England: CMS,
1995.

Kessling, Helen. ‘Faces Out of the Past.’ Hamilton:
Butler Co. Historical Society, n.d.

Norbeck, Jack. Encyclopedia of American Steam Traction
Engines. Sarasota: Crestline, 1976.

Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company’s Traction or
Road Engine. Hamilton: n.p., 1874.

The Republican-News. Greater Hamilton Ed. n.d.