Memories of 1876

We’re reminiscing again, through the aid of a book titled
‘The Centennial Exposition’, by J. S. Ingram.

Talking about agricultural machinery, Ingram wrote that there
was a profusion of superior products on view. He wrote on:
‘Most prominent amid all this array of practical beauty were
the reapers and mowers, which, more than anything else perhaps,
signalize agricultural progress. It is only a few years since the
sickle was seen in every grain field, and with its slow and
toilsome results each farmer had to be content. When the cradle
came it seemed as if the climax had been attained, and the man who
could cut three or four acres of wheat in a day, laying it in fair
shape for the binder who followed, was doing good work. But the
cradle and hand-rake gave way to the reaper and self-raker, and
these, year by year, improved and perfected, make of harvest time
little more than a holiday. There remains for further
accomplishment in this direction only the automatic binder, already
a success, and sure to reach perfection in the near future.

The reaper is peculiarly an American machine. As manufactured
here it is confessedly superior to the same implement made in
Europe, proof of which statement is found in the fact that American
reapers are sold in all countries of the world, and are favorites
in England and on the continent -when operated in direct
competition with machines there produced.’

A 100 per cent American booster, Ingram continued: ‘American
genius first invented the perfect reaper, and only in America, with
American material, by American skill, can it be most perfectly
manufactured. As here made, in the light yet durable manner which
characterizes all American machinery as contrasted with that
construction abroad, it is the acme of utility, and everywhere
bears off the palm.’

An illustration showed the improved reaper and mower combined,
exhibited by the Johnston Harvester Co. of Brockport, New York.

Another picture showed the Buckeye Table Rake Reaper and Mower
combined made by Aultman Miller & Co. of Akron, Ohio. At the
official field exhibition, ‘this new table rake was pronounced
by the binders to be the easiest machine to bind after, as it left
the grain in such even condition, and so compressed, that the work
of binding was comparatively easy.’

Carriages were also featured in numerous displays at the
Centennial. The Dexter Spring Co. of Hulton, Pa., near Pittsburgh,
was very proud of its products. One of its carriage springs met a
test of 2,050 pounds. The firm recalled the famous ‘One Hoss
Shay’ which had been immortalized by the Oliver Wendell Holmes
poem, and showed its own handiwork as the 1876 successor.

The Daniel Webster plow, made by the famous statesman in 1837,
was shown in contrast to plows of 1876.

Webster’s plow was 13 feet overall length; beam, 9 feet 1
inch; handle, 6 feet 4 inches. Webster was quoted as having said:
‘When I have hold of the handle of my big plow, with four yoke
of oxen to pull it through, and hear the roots crack and see the
stumps all go under the furrow out of sight, and observe the clean
mellowed surface of the plowed land, I feel more enthusiasm over my
achievement than comes from my encounters in public life in
Washington.’

The plow was part of the New Hampshire exhibit.

Collins & Co. of Hartford, Connecticut showed the latest in
their plows.

One was their ‘Eclipse’ prairie and plantation gang
plow, illustrated, made of cast steel. The book said: ‘The
lightness of draft of this plow was shown by a recent trial, as
follows: In heavy, matted grass turf the draft of the prairie gang,
with coulters turning a furrow 22 by 6 inches (and carrying a heavy
plowman) was 800 to 825 pounds. In a stubble field, heavy, sandy
loam, the draft was 450 pounds.

Machinery Hall at the 1876 Exposition had a pump annex, which
author Ingram dubbed a miniature Niagara Falls.

In the center of the annex was a tank or basin 146 x 60 feet and
8 feet deep, holding 500,000 gallons of water. Around this were
arranged pumps of every kind – from the smallest hand pumps, up to
those run by steam and raising nearly 300,000 gallons a minute;
blowers, for forcing great volumes of air; hydraulic rams; water
meters and mining machinery.

All of those pumps which were driven by steam drew the water up
from the tank and then discharged it back again over the edges,
either allowing it to quietly fall from a considerable height, or
forcing it through nozzles, which sent the water high in the air,
as from a fire engine.’

The water, constantly falling, made a continuous roar. The annex
was a pleasant cool place to visit in the heat of a Philadelphia
summer.

One of the hydraulic rams, made by A. Gawthrop & Son, of
Wilmington, Delaware is illustrated.