2112 Portis Avenue, St. Louis 10, Missouri
I would like to add a little history of the steam engine and
some other farm implements.
The first engine with piston and also safety valve was invented
by Denis Pop in of France in 1690.
The first steam road wagon by Oliver Evans of the U. S. in
The first mechanical grain threshing machine (separator to us)
was made by Andrew Meikle of England in 1788.
The tubular locomotive boiler was made by Sequin of France in
1828.
The steam pressure gauge was invented by Louis Bourdon of France
in 1849.
The injector was invented by Henri Gifford of France in 1858 and
introduced into the U. S. by Joseph Sellers in 1860.
An automatic grain binding device was invented by Jacob Behel of
the United States in 1864.
The Sulky plow came into being in 1868 at the hand of B. Slusser
of the United States, prompted by sore feet I suppose, as that
would be my reason.
The combined Harvester and Thresher was first built by Matteson
in 1868 of the U. S. This is the guy who put the skids under
us.
The snap piston ring was invented by Rams baton, an associate of
James Watts. He also invented the leathers used in pumps. Like the
tank pumps used in the good old days. I suppose there are many
still around who have operated one of these pumps, which got old
after a very short time, like rocking in a rocking chair with the
rocker missing.
I operated a Robison like the one shown in the Nov.-Dec. ’52
issue of the ALBUM. It was an easy steamer, with a link reverse
which wasn’t balanced and depended on the reverse lever pawl to
hold it in forward motion (the link raised). The first time I
coupled her up it came unhooked and I was astonished to find the
separator backing away. I was sure glad that that engine ran
forward on the road when that happened, as I wouldn’t be
writing this now, I suppose, if the opposite had been true. The
feeder on the separator would have smeared me all over that
engine.
