My Friend Austin Monk

Austin bought this 25 HP Russell steam engine and sawmill after
high school. An overhead pipe running to the right operated a
single-cylinder engine that powered a cut-off or edger saw. Note
the water tank on skis just visible to the left.

In 1986 while I was back in the Judith Basin on business, Austin
stopped by our home near Whitefish and asked my wife if he could
look at our 15 HP Case. Sometime after I returned, I went to Jimmy
Schmauch’s shop in Kalispell, where I knew Austin was helping
Jimmy restore a 45 HP Case Jimmy purchased from the Judith Basin. I
introduced myself and prepared to leave, as they were busy and
didn’t seem to need an audience for their work. But once Austin
knew I was a steam man and especially after he learned I had a
Sharp’s rifle – he dropped everything to visit.

About a year later, I ran into Jimmy and Austin at a threshing
day held on a farm near the Glacier International Airport
(Kalispell). Jimmy and Austin were there with Jimmy’s fancy
little Case and a four-bottom power lift Case plow designed for a
Case gas tractor. After some threshing, Austin said to Jimmy,
‘We need to hook onto the plow and see what the engine will
do.’ Up until that time, I had never seen a steam traction
engine actually plow. Dad and his brothers had owned a big 32 HP
Reeves cross-compound engine that was used only for plowing, so I
was familiar with the idea. But I had never heard the fantastic
exhaust sounds a steam engine makes under a plow’s load, and
when I did, I was hooked on yet another aspect of steam
engines.

PEERLESS IN BELGRADE

Back in the mid-1960s, Austin built a 40-120 HP
Emerson-Brantingham/Geiser-Peerless engine out of parts (more
details on this later). The folks at the Barnes Steam and Power
Show at Belgrade, Mont., knew Austin, as he had been giving them
the benefit of his steam engineering experience at their annual
show. They visited with Austin about hauling his huge Peerless to
the show to demonstrate plowing, pulling a 20-bottom John Deere
plow Austin had restored to pull with this engine. Even though the
Barnes show is a six-hour trip in a pickup truck for Austin, he
consented and hauled the outfit to Belgrade. And when the show was
over, he hauled it back to his ranch in Pleasant Valley, about 40
miles west of Kalispell. He brought it back the next year, and it
stayed there for many years.

Jimmy Schmauch was always Austin’s helper with the Peerless.
Sadly, Jimmy passed away from cancer not long after he and Austin
plowed near Kalispell with Jimmy’s Case. Sometime after Jimmy
died, I ran into Austin in Kalispell and said, ‘Austin, I know
Jimmy Schmauch can never be replaced in your life, and please
don’t think I am attempting to replace him, but I know you will
need help operating your Peerless at Belgrade and I would like to
go with you and be the best help I can. I would grease, oil, fill
the firebox and do whatever you need done with that engine. I just
want to be around it and would like to operate it.’ I think he
knew what I was trying to say about Jimmy, and Austin, who was
about 75 years old by this time (1988), allowed as how he could use
some help. Austin’s nephew, Doug McDougall, had been at
Belgrade helping before I came along, and the three of us all
Montana steam traction engine license holders made a good team in
the operation of that eye-stopping outfit.

Austin and some of the engines he owned in the late 1980s. The
near engine is a 22 HP Gaar-Scott double side-mounted engine and
the soul survivor of that configuration. Behind the Gaar-Scott is
the 75 HP Case Montana Special plow engine that was sold to Carl
Mehmke. Further down is a 16 HP Aultman & Taylor.

During the years when Austin’s engine and plow were at
Belgrade (approximately 1985-1997), many steam and non-steam people
from across America witnessed the amazing display of Austin’s
engine and plow, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the
late Arlo Jurney pulled a 20-bottom plow with a 32 HP Reeves
cross-compound steam engine at a Canadian museum near North
Battleford, Saskatchewan, in the late 1950s.

After letting me help fire the Peerless that first year, Austin
saw the desire in my eyes to run that engine plowing, and the last
round of the show brought my turn. What a privilege it was,
standing on the elevated engineer’s platform steering, pulling
levers and whistle chains. The sound of the exhaust of that
well-timed double-simple engine is negligible to an observer on the
ground, but as engineer (to quote an old engineer who had operated
the engine), ‘It sounds like a jet taking off at the
airport.’

In the course of my maiden voyage atop the engineer’s
platform, an observation struck me. Below me on the fireman’s
platform stood Austin, a well-used black fedora on his head, the
cotton gloves on his hands holding an old, rusty pair of pliers. I
realized as I stood there that we were using mistaken terminology
in describing what we were doing: I was not the ‘engineer,’
I was just the ‘driver,’ or to use steam-era terminology,
the ‘steersman.’

Austin stood on the lower ‘fireman’s platform’
between the two water tanks, operating each of two injectors,
controlling the draft door and keeping a keen eye on the
fireman’s steam gauge. He held that engine within 3 psi
operating pressure all of the way around the field, and as we were
ascending the incline near the end of the field he looked up at me
with a grin on his face and said, ‘I know a good engineer is
not supposed to let it ‘pop off,’ but let’s let them
see that we aren’t out of steam!’ He merely turned the
injector off, which had been running most of the round, and it
popped. That day, I learned it was the fellow down below, not the
guy above, who made this outfit go. In later years Austin had me
firing that engine what a great feeling making it all happen.

That huge double-simple Peerless used between 300 and 400
gallons of water during a round of plowing. The firebox holds about
a third of a cord of firewood, and it was about gone at the end of
a round. Austin discovered that year that if the Barnes’ wood
crew cut lodge pole pine into logs 4 feet long it worked great. I
stacked these 4-footers into the firebox against the flue sheet
like cigarettes in a pack, and then filled the void in the back
with short chunks of firewood.

I grew up watching my dad, learning from him everything I could
about steam engines and their operation. I grew up thinking he was
the most brilliant person ever to be around a steam engine, and
I’ve often said Dad was a mechanical engineer without letters
after his name. After meeting Austin, however, I realized Dad had
been matched, and possibly surpassed. It is astonishing how Austin
has, and Dad had, formulas and theories in their minds related to
the task at hand and ready for retrieval at any moment.

My dad started operating steam engines in 1910 when he was 11
years old. Austin was born three years later, and by the time he
graduated from high school the steam traction engine era, for all
practical purposes, was over. Even so, Austin bought a 25 HP
Russell steam engine and a sawmill, and with hired help he sawed
for three years with that Russell, finally selling the engine for
the same $200 he had paid for it and replacing it with a
gas-powered plant.

In the years following, Austin owned several steam engines. Most
of his engines were complete when he bought them, and either way
they were soon restored. Two of his engines, however, were far from
complete, the most notable being Austin’s 1913 40-120 HP
Peerless, which he bought about 1965.

Austin had heard about a 40-120 HP Geiser-Peerless being sold by
Joe Battles in Pierce, Idaho, so he drove his two-ton truck to
Battles’ Sawmill to buy the engine. When he got there he found
the asbestos-insulated boiler in a building with a leaky, wood
shingle roof. Rainwater had soaked the asbestos, and the boiler
barrel was so badly pitted the boiler was deemed worthless. But
Austin bought the 120 brake horsepower engine (complete with
mounted exhaust pipes), the water tanks, the smoke box door and
frame, the front axle with wheels, and the upper cannon bearing
with gearing up to the master pinion. The rear wheels were missing,
sold years earlier to the county road department, who built a
roller out of them by welding them together. Not surprisingly,
Austin located the roller, and after examining the roller’s
innards through a water fill hole, he discovered the hubs and
spokes had been cut out of the wheels and scrapped, dashing hopes
of being able to use the original wheels. Austin hauled the parts
home, wondering if he should have bought them to begin with.

Once home he contacted W. E. Dearing in British Columbia, who
had a 32 HP double-simple Reeves Canadian Special boiler for sale.
Austin arranged to purchase the boiler and drove his two-ton truck
up to Canada, but upon arrival he found the boiler had a large
plate cut out of the boiler barrel. Presumably, someone needed a
dozer blade? Austin reluctantly purchased the boiler and hauled it
back to his ranch. He then located a derelict 32 HP Reeves
cross-compound Canadian Special boiler near Lewistown and bought
the boiler for the barrel patch, as both boilers had the same
diameter and thickness steel.

Austin was still lacking driver wheels and bull gearing for the
Peerless, but W. E. Dearing mentioned he knew of a pair of 32 HP
Reeves Canadian Special wheels with double-simple gearing (the
pitch of the 32 HP Canadian Special cross-compound and
double-simple gearing is different). The wheels, with gears, were
buried in the banks of the Frazer River as ‘dead men’ for a
logging cable running across the river at a sawmill in British
Columbia.

With wheels located, Austin turned to finding a pair of
extensions. He remembered seeing a pair of Reeves 24-inch width
extension rims while on a hunting trip near Forest Grove, Mont., in
1943. He found the extension rims, which matched the Reeves
built-up driver wheels he had purchased in Canada, and bought
them.

PEERLESS ASSEMBLY

Finally, Austin went to work on his parts. Austin hired his
boilermaker friend, the late Albert Getz, to weld the patch into
the boiler barrel. They removed the flue sheets (later replacing
them with flue sheets from the cross-compound boiler purchased near
Lewistown) to facilitate internal welding of the large patch. Getz,
suffering from cancer, had a difficult time with this job.

The driver wheels fit the axle and lower cannon bearing bolted
to the boiler just fine. But since the boiler barrel radius is
shorter on the Peerless boiler, the countershaft was too short when
the Peerless upper cannon bearing was mounted to the Reeves boiler.
And consider this problem: A Reeves drives from the left side of
the boiler and the Peerless drives from the right side.

The gearing for the Peerless had a two-speed drive (depending
upon which pin was placed into which pinion) from the flywheel.
That makes this engine a ‘road locomotive.’ Austin had to
get bull pinion gears manufactured so the new Peerless countershaft
would mesh with Reeves bull gears. I have a copy of the
calculations Austin did to determine the number of teeth needed. He
debated between two different sizes, finally settling on the
smaller of the two. I’ve often wondered if the Peerless would
be able to pull the 20-bottom plow if he’d decided on the
larger gear.

He also had to fabricate the king post and saddle for the
Peerless front axle and wheels. The boiler has a Reeves smokestack,
the steering wheel and universal joint are Peerless, while the worm
steering gear assembly is Reeves. He fabricated a new smoke box
door ring that included the exhaust chambers of the Peerless
ring.

This ‘marrying’ of Emerson-Brantingham parts required
ensuring that the engine’s attached exhaust pipes terminated at
the appropriate length at the smoke box door ring. It also meant
making sure the intermediate gear correctly terminated at the
differential drive gear at the rear location. The engine had to be
raised an inch for the formulas Austin devised to work, so he had a
1-inch iron plate rolled to match the curvature of the wagon top of
the Reeves boiler and then bolted the engine to this plate. He then
placed a spelter (a zinc plate) between the plates to compensate
for the bulges of the stay bolts. Considering these parts were all
positioned with a crane, it’s mind-boggling thinking about what
he accomplished.

The timing of the piston valves on the Peerless engine is
impeccable. The engine’s 8-1/2-inch by 10-inch bore and stroke
adds up to less displacement than a 110 HP Case, yet the Case
cannot pull the 20-bottom John Deere plow. Most steam men agree;
they cannot figure out where this engine gets its power it operates
at 150 psi and pops off at 153 psi. I have heard this ‘put
together’ engine called by some abusive epithets, and I have
tried to understand how perhaps a touch of jealousy could enter the
equation. Most steam men never adapt two brands of engines
together, and Austin can be extremely proud of his accomplishments
building this engine. The parts used on this Peerless are all
Emerson-Brantingham except for the pinion gears, countershaft and
smoke box door ring.

When running the Peerless at Belgrade, Austin’s favorite
pastime was letting owners of other steam engines operate, or at
least steer, his Peerless on the plows, and it almost seemed like a
‘conversion’ for those lucky people. I remember Austin
talking about a tractor pull in Kalispell he hauled the Peerless to
in the mid-1970s. He and Jimmy Schmauch pulled the sled -with
everything piled onto it they could find to stop the engine out of
the boundary.

Austin’s other amazing restoration was replacing a lap-seam
boiler with a butt-strap boiler while restoring his 50 HP Case. But
compared to restoring the Peerless, the Case was mostly a ‘bolt
on’ restoration.

SELLING THE PEERLESS

On July 20, 2003, a group of us held a 90th birthday party for
Austin (his birthday actually falls on July 16) at the fire hall in
Marion, Mont. I think it was mainly because of his advancing age
that Austin decided to sell the Peerless to his good friend Willis
Abel at Finleyville, Pa., a few years back. The engine and plows
now reside at the Somerset, Va., ‘Cow Pasture’ show grounds
(perhaps better known by its official title as the Somerset Steam
and Gas Pasture Party), and it’s pictured on the cover, and
inside, the March/April 2003 issue of Steam Traction magazine. The
Peerless and plows will be the crown jewel in the Somerset show
this year, and the national meeting of EDGE&TA, which will be
held there, will feature the engine on their show button.

I made many friends around that Peerless at Belgrade, and I have
a very special friend in Austin. ‘Normal’ people would have
a hard time understanding those of us who are addicted to the
sights, sounds, smells and operations of steam traction engines.
Consequently, our steam camaraderie has become somewhat
misunderstood by ‘normal’ people (my wife reassures me the
only thing that is ‘normal’ is the setting on a clothes
dryer). Austin’s steam friends are endless, and you all know
who you are.

At Austin’s birthday party he told me he wants to bring two
of his engines to our Northwest Antique Power Association’s
10th annual show, as Carl Tuttle wants to fly out from Howell,
Mich., to assist Austin with plowing, which is really the only
reason Austin takes a steam engine to a show. Having my engine at
our local show sort of makes me a small fish in a small fish bowl,
while at any steam show Austin attends he seems to be a big fish in
a big bowl. But at our local show, he is a big fish in a little
bowl!

Contact steam enthusiast Gary Yaeger at: 1120 Leisha
Lane, Kalispell, MT 59901, or e-mail:
yaegerg@intch.com