Any collector interested in machines made for farm use in Canada
should obtain a copy of a history titled ‘Ontario’s
Threshing Machine Industry.’
The paperback publication has 30 pages and many pictures, along
with a very authoritative account of machines made in Ontario. It
was written by Harold S. Turner, of Golderich, and Ross W. Irwin,
of the School of Engineering, Ontario Agricultural College,
University of Guelph.
We found a copy when we visited the Ontario Agricultural Museum
at Milton. It sells at $1.50 each; add 75 cents to cover handling
and mailing.
At least 27 makers are listed, with information on each. The
manufacturers include many colorful figures, inventive and
energetic, who started or organized companies to ease the job of
farmers.
One of the most outstanding was John Abell, born in England in
1822 and living in Woodbridge, Ont., by 1845. Abell built for his
own use the first steam engine in the district. He developed a
threshing machine, the Paragon; did very well, and proceeded
undaunted when fire burned his factory totally in 1874.
He built portable steam engines, of the locomotive boiler type,
with an extra long smokestack with a screen on top. The book
relates:
‘About this time manufacturers of upright boiler portable
engines equipped with water spark arresters were openly advertising
the number and names of barns burned by old fashioned, fire
throwing, boiler exploding, horizontal type threshing machines with
screen spark arresters. In the face of this barrage it is not
surprising to find John Abell mounting his engine horizontally in
front of an upright boiler for several years in the
1870’s.’
He won an official test and renamed his horizontal engine the
Triumph. A superb showman, he exhibited in the U.S., Australia and
elsewhere and won a lot of prizes, which he told about in his
ads.
Here’s more about him:
‘John Abell stole the show at Toronto in 1881 with his
exhibit of the first cross compound threshing engine ever built in
Canada. This engine had one side crank and one center crank set at
right angles and Abell claimed a three horsepower increase over the
corresponding 12 HP single cylinder engine together with a 30%
saving in fuel and predicted the compound would soon be the leading
engine in the field.’
He patented his first straw burning boiler two years later. In
1886, he built his first traction engine by adding steel rear drive
wheels and steering controls to the Triumph, his standard
portable.
Another interesting person was Robert Bell, a native of Ontario
who as a boy built a miniature sawmill on his father’s farm. He
built his first portable steam engine for the 1899 threshing
season.
He came up with ‘The Imperial Line of Threshing
Machinery’ in the early 1900s. The last new ‘Bell’
steam traction engine was built in 1928 for William Short reed, of
Walton, Ont.
The first threshing machine ever constructed in Canada was the
product of John Fisher, who came to Hamilton from New York State in
1835.
Relatives joined Fisher in his enterprise and expanded it after
his death under the name of L. D. Sawyer & Co. Later, with
Massey family members buying 40 per cent interest, the name became
Sawyer-Massey Co., Ltd. and this company developed into one of
Canada’s largest threshing machine industries.
Many other names figure in the company sketches, such as John
Good is on, New Hamburg, John Watson and Lobsinger Bros., to name a
few.
Technical information on engines abounds, along with details on
growth and changes in the companies. The book is illustrated.
If you write to the museum to order a copy, use this address:
Ontario Agricultural Museum, Box Box 38, Milton, Ontario, Canada
L9T 2Y3.
