SOOT IN THE FLUES

A short notice comes from EDMAR TANGEN, 305 Sinclair Street, Box
225, Bottineau, North Dakota 58318 as he tells us: ‘In regard
to unclassified photo #3 in the March-April issue, if you will look
at the front cover of the Jan.-Feb. 1960 issue of the Album I think
you may find some connection between the two. They may have been
taken at about the same time. Mr. Blakerand Mr. Newkirk are also
pictured in the group issue of 1982. I believe the man at the far
left is the Rev. Elmer Ritzman. (You are right Ed, that’s our
Elmer. I know we have had similar pictures in the magazine. I
believe the place was at Mr. Blaker’s home.)

‘Picture #1 is of a Minneapolis steamer and separator and #2
is also a Minneapolis.’

JOHN A BURKHART, Route 2, Box 3259 Twp. Road 629, Loudonville,
Ohio 44842 says: ‘I am restoring an Aultman & Taylor steam
engine. It was made sometime between 1917-1924. What are the colors
on the pin stripes? It is a 25 HP. When I get it finished, I will
send you a picture.’ (We’ll be looking for it John.)

Anyone having any information about the colors of a 1913 Case 65
HP steam engine, please write to the magazine.

G. E. HOFFMAN, 9312 173 A Street, Surrey, B.C. Canada V3S 5X7.
Phone 604-576-2556 has just recently purchased a 25-75 Gaar-Scott
engine. This is a 1913 model single with high pressure boiler. It
is in excellent original condition and only needs cleaning and
painting. He would like to contact other Gaar-Scott owners in
pursuit of paint striping and decal information.

Here’s a fellow needs some help! TOM LIVINGSTON, Box 423,
Fortuna, California 95540, phone 707-725-3177 writes: ‘The
Steam Automobile Club of America referred me to you and said you
might be able to supply some information on early steam engines,
brass frames, the kind that was used in small steam buggies. I have
two of this type engine, the serial numbers on them are 957 and
968. Any help in finding out what year and who made them would be
greatly appreciated.’ (Help him out guys, maybe he’ll join
our family.)

Here comes some help from CHUCK LYONS, N. 1322 Bessie Road,
Spokane, Washington 99206 as he writes: ‘I am writing to say I
think your serial number vs. year listings will be some of the most
useful information you could give your readers. I hope you’ll
continue with those of other tractor manufacturers (such as
Hart-Parr, Case, Cat, Ford-son, AC, etc.) and gas engine
manufacturers.

For the Iron-Men Album, here is a summary of serial numbers for
Case steam engines based upon the list published (not copyrighted)
by H.S. Wood of Wallace, Nebraska:

J.I. CASE Threshing Company Steam Engine Serial
Numbers

1876

1-75

1877

76-184

1878

185-421

1879

422-665

1880

666-975

1881

976-1386

1882

1387-1892

1883

1893-2484

1884

2485-2786

1885

2787-2981

1886

2982-3163

1887

3164-3399

1888

3400-3679

1889

3680-3976

1890

3977-4432

1891

4433-4894

1892

4895-5466

1893

5467-5948

1894

5949-6147

1895

6148-6274

1896

6275-6620

1897

6621-6749

1898

6752-7094

1899

7145-8013

1900

8014-9045

1901

9046-10007

1902

10008-11838

1903

11839-13487

1904

13488-14749

1905

14750-16120

1906

16121-18141

1907

18142-19562

1908

19563-21213

1909

21214-22870

1910

22871-24277

1911

24278-26600

1912

26601-28851

1913

28852-30768

1914

30769-32146

1915

32147-33098

1916

33099-33872

1917

33873-34470

1918

34471-34474

1919

34475-35254

1920

NONE

1921

35255-35354

1922

35355-35508

1923

35509-35706

1924

35707-35838

I think your newer readers, those who began too late to get a
copy of Wood’s booklet, will find the above list very
helpful.’

We’re happy to hear from one of our contributors as MELVIN
R. GRENVIK, 115-lst Avenue, N.E., Kenmare, North Dakota 58746
writes: ‘I haven’t written for some time, but I note that
the unclassified photos for the Jan.-Feb. 1982 issue has a couple
of very interesting engines and I’d like to put in my two cents
worth by discussing them in order.

#1. This engine is a Gaar-Scott. Some might say Nichols &
Shepard and indeed the smokestack and fuel bunker are typically N.
& S. But two other features contradict it. The top-mounted
water tank is behind the smokestack, as opposed to the
front-mounted tank found on N.&S. But the real giveaway is the
double height fire door, which as far as I know was not used on
N.&S. I have to say it’s a Gaar-Scott.

#2. This could also be sticky. I believe this Case engine is a
75 HP. Here again, for example, the left hand fuel bunker is either
a production run that I’ve never seen, or has been modified on
top to facilitate filling. From the size of this machine, I would
have said 80 HP model, except for one thing the independent steam
pump for boiler feeding visible to the left of the crank disc. This
style pump was used until the end of production on the 60 HP and 75
HP only to the best of my knowledge.

One obvious feature on this engine will no doubt cause some
readers with sharp eyes to disagree with me. That is the
smokestack. These readers will be right about that. The steel stack
seen on this engine was either used in very late 75 HP production,
or the original cast stack has been replaced. We may hear from A.
L. Rennewanz on this one. He has always had a sharp eye for these
things and we are agreed completely on identification in the past.
If A.L. tells me I’m wrong, I’ll listen to him.

I don’t consider myself an expert on the Case engines, but
I’ve studied this line more than any other. And once in a
while, a strange one comes up. For instance, I’ve seen a
picture of a 110 HP built in 1906 with flat spokes in the drive
wheels only. And the 75 HP built in 1910 only was a much different
looking engine hardly looks like a Case. Steam dome set far forward
on the boiler, for instance. I think this version of the 75 HP was
built only in 1910.

#3. This engine is a Birds all about 12 HP built about 1900 or
so. This engine had the automobile type front wheel steering
arrangement.

#6. The engineer on this Frick engine looks very bored with the
whole thing. (He probably prefers Case or Advance.) Apparently
Frick switched from the left hand steering wheel in 1916. I’ve
seen Frick engines made both ways in 1916 and the later ones
I’ve seen all have the wheel on the right.

I had my first taste of running a steam engine last summer.
During our antique auto show, I ran a 1/2 scale Gaar-Scott double
that is owned by Willard Olson here in Kenmare. I was gratified to
see that the engine attracted probably more attention than the
carseven the young people expressed much interest. I answered
questions about the engine all day until I was hoarse but I had a
ball.

I will welcome hearing from anyone, even if they want to
question my identifications. I’m certainly not infallible, and
I can learn from anyone. Thank you for the continuing high quality
of our magazine.’

Some comments on unclassified photos from Nov.-Dec. 1981 issue
comes from WALT THAYER, Box 85, Wenatchee, Washington 98801: He
says, #1 could be a big Peerless-Geiser or Nichols & Shepard,
but not sure. Probably threshing, sawing wood or small sawmill. #2
rear view of either Aultman Taylor or Minneapolis. I’m not an
authority on tractors. #3 looks very much like a 90 or 110 HP Case,
but more likely an Aultman Taylor. Never saw a Case with that
cylinder arrangement. #4 Thanks for the buggy ride, I had a
wonderful time!a nice looking buggy and couple and a fine looking
‘hoss’looks like a Percheronlor a Morgan. #5 looks like an
old one horse tread mill, very scarce. #6 looks like an old
stationary Russell had to be moved by tractor or horses. #7 an old
feed chopper or hammer mill with sandwich type wooden flywheel, a
rare machine.’ (I think a lot of our fellows like to send in
their opinion of the unclassified photos. Some are very sure and
some are not so sure, but it has proved to be an interesting
subject and we will have some, so whenever possible we’ll be
printing them.)

Bidwell Bean Thresher

CARLTON JOHNSON, Clio, Michigan 48420 sends a letter that
I’m sure many of you will find interesting and also a copy of a
Bidwell Beaner thresher: ‘Different people have asked in the
Iron-Men Magazine about bean threshers. I have copied a print of a
Bidwell Beaner out of one of their early catalogs. The Bidwell
Company was located in Batavia, New York. They specialized in
beaners but built grain threshers also. Their beaners were common
in Michigan.

The Westinghouse Co. shows a bean thresher in their 1897 catalog
and the following companies also built popular bean threshers:
Buffalo Pitts, Greyhound, Keck-Gonnerman, Huber, and
Baker.’

A letter comes from EDWIN H. BREDEMEIER, Route 1, Box 13,
Steinauer, Nebraska 68441: ‘I thought I would write a few
memories and comments on the contents of some of the later IMA
magazines. First, Herb Reese, about early 30 Cats. The first 30 Cat
that I ever owned and operated had the operator’s seat on the
rear above draw bar, the steering on the rear. It was a good work
horse, but you had to be careful crossing a bump as it would buck
you off. One needed double seat belts.

Then about Charles Huston’s article on 40 x 72 Case tractor.
I remember as a small boy, I went along with my father to the Case
Company branch office in Lincoln, Nebraska and they had just
unloaded a 40 x 72 off of a railroad car. It appeared as a monster.
It was to go to the Nebraska State Tractor test lab. When I saw it,
the skid rims and lugs were on but the exhaust was still covered.
They were filling it with oil and were going to reload on a
railroad car to ship it across town to the test lab. It was too
heavy to drive on the streets. It was tested as test No. 90. They
had to get an extra heavy drive belt for the belt test.

Mr. Huston mentions the enclosed gears. That was the reason my
father chose a 15 x 27 Case for his first tractor because he had
experience with steam engine gearing.

I have a constructive gripe about the advertisers in the
magazine. I think they could at least give their town and state if
not their name and that way a person would know the distance before
he makes a call.

Cliff Magnuson mentions clean air, water and soil in Jan.-Feb.
82 IMA. Well, did you readers know that air, water and soil. are
the world’s basic resources? Take any one of the three away or
destroy it and no life can exist. So much for the sermon!

The unclassified photos always fascinate me. On page 17
Jan.-Feb. 82 top of page, I wonder if the engineer knows his smoke
box door is open. If he were running my dad’s engine, he would
be instructed on what do do about that. Also the rear wheels are
different. Did Samson and GMC have a wheel called sieve grip? Well,
a steam engine had that type of wheel before tractors were using
them. Keep up the good work and best wishes for 82.’

GEORGE W. EVES of 30 Blaydon View, Milborne, St. Andrew, NR.
Bland ford Forum, Dorset, England sends this most interesting
letter: ‘Here’s a letter from lil’ ole
England….strike bound, snow bound, petrol 1.79 a gallon, but
thank Heaven we still get your Iron Men Album to cheer we old steam
men from one pension day till the next and arising from your center
page (20, 21) in the last issue, Jan.-Feb. 82 here is a little
daylight from me which I hope will interest at least a few of your
readers, in return for the pleasures they afford me. What follows
is fact, not the imaginations which clutter up most of today’s
steam books.

Now both my old Grandfer and my old Dad were steam men from
almost birth and were avid collectors and had it not been for one
of Hitler’s minions depressing the bomb dropping switch at an
ill-timed moment, I would still have possessed a priceless
collection of steam lore instead of a well-remembered pile of ashes
and so many of my boyhood recollections are still rattling around
in my top story, and it is this which enables me to set down the
following for your delight. The fact your line drawing came from a
German catalogue just shows we were exporters back in the last
century of steam jackles.

No. 1 picture is a Foster steam tractor developed in 1910 for
the British Army maneuvers on Salisbury Plain to move a hundred
soldiers or a seige gun over road less terrain rapidly; which it
did with consummate ease. It was armour plated, but this was only
proven when un-manned on gun ranges. A year later a petrol engine
version was also proven, but the Flanders mud in the Kaiser’s
war was its undoing, both versions, (1914).

No. 10 has nothing to do with fueling railway engines. It’s
a tender designed to pick up water and thus replenish tender tanks
at speed, from water troughs laid in between rails. Used
extensively in this country on long distance trains, it could
replenish a tender tank in 300 yards. Engines whistled furiously on
approaching these water troughs, for if passengers forgot to close
windows in the front coaches, they got an unscheduled bath and no
towels provided.

No. 3. Is a steam horse by McGowans of Scotland. This pulled a
30-seater lesser stage coach, but the bad roads defeated it. On a
good level stretch 30 MPH was easily maintained. It plied for hire
between London and Edinborgh for a year, before uneven roads took
toll of its boiler and chassis.

No. 5. The evolution of the simple horsedrawn portable steam
engine to a self-mover by Avelings. In order to fascilitate
steering by the single wheel on the road, a rack and pinion device
was fitted whereby the front pair of wheels could be raised clear
off the ground, but lowered in the farm yard when threshing,
sawing, pumping, etc. for added stability. My Grandfer drove one
such engine for many years, although the steersman back to the
smoke box door always

had a bag of straw behind him, not supplied by the engine
builders; even so bath chair type of steering could not have been
easy on the rotted roads of that era.

No. 2. A further improvement of the self-moving engine developed
by Tuxfords, Savages and Marshalls and called Farmers Engines. Used
extensively on road haulage, Dad recalls seeing them pass our
cottage en route for the Thames docks with 100 ton anchors and 80
ton anchor chains. The most economical threshing engine ever; would
thresh a 12 hour day on 4 cwt of good coal. The steerman unable to
sit back to the smokebox on the road had to stand, and was paid an
extra three pence ‘standing money.’

No. 4 was the forerunner of the Caterpillar tractor. Built by
Boydells for the War Office from moving siege guns over the marshy
terrain during the Boer War, it laid down its tracks and picked
them up again; would have been an instant success had the right
materials been on hand to make the track plates. As it was
breakages were all too frequent, not too bad on a country lane, but
in battle zones with bullets flying, it was no go. On its trial it
towed an 87 ton naval gun from Woolwich where it was made in 1895
to Depford Docks faster than any man could walk and then hoisted it
into its gun turret with its own winding drom amid ‘cheers from
the populance.’ The ship’s steering was dead easy, while
the clear view ahead was of great advantage in country lanes.

No. 6 was obviously intended for your northern snowbound
forests, and would have imagined made steering a nightmare and
whether intended for tracks or rails, is left to one’s
imagination.

No. 7 This type of railway engine first appeared at the White
City Exhibition, London, in 1912. Intended for circular tracks,
only its rear wheel on the near side was driven, the others ran
free on their axles. This idea was to prove popular on fairgrounds,
where tracks ran between winding painted scenery, but the
Kaiser’s War killed that kind of genteel amusement stone
dead.

Pictures 11,12, and 8 I am sure can be answered more accurately
from your side of the pond.

All engines numbered were built in England. Yours with a wave of
a hand!’

Some more comments on unclassified photos come from ALFRED
NEUSCHAFER, Enterprise, Kansas 67441 as he says: ‘Received the
March-April 1982 IMA and on page 18, Photo #1 was taken in August
1920 in Ellsworth Co., Kansas. The machine in this scene is a
Minneapolis engine and separator bought new that year. The owner of
the machine is Fred Nike, now deceased, standing on the separator.
My brother, John, and I are sitting on the grain wagon in right of
picture. I was 9 years old and my brother was 7. My father, Henry
Neuschafer, took the picture. I suppose my brother and I are the
only persons living today from this picture. Old steam engineers
would say that engineer in the picture was wasting coal. I still
remember that engineer saying that he threw in 3 or 4 shovels of
coal to make this picture to make lots of smoke.’

Some pictures come from DORR HAMPTON, 3508 Molski Hwy., Hawks,
Michigan 49743 and with them this writing: ‘The only
information I have is it was a tragedy that happened in the late
teens or early 20’s in the vicinity of Clarksville, Michigan,
east of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I would like to hear from someone
that remembers that tragic day.’ (Anyone out there know
anything about these.)

If you can help GERALD SCAN-LAN, Box 625, Venedy, Illinois 62296
with his problems, he’ll be mighty glad to hear from you. He
writes: ‘I am trying to find some information on two old steam
engines I own. These are stationary engines.

One is an Ideal tandem compound which is hooked directly to a
General Electric D.C. generator. The engine was built by A. L. Ide
& Son, Springfield, Illinois. The other is an Aetna steam
hoist, double motion, built by Aetna Iron Works. All I can find out
about the hoislt on the Aetna Co. is that it was located at the
corner of Second & Adams Street, Springfield, Illinois. The
company was later known as Lowry, Lamb & Co. In 1855 Mr. John
C. Lamb became sole owner of the company. The above information is
from ‘The History of Sangamon County, Springfield,
Illinois.’

Mr. William Worthington, Jr., of the Smithsonian suggested I
contact you about the Iron-Men Album Magazine. Any information you
can give will be greatly appreciated. I am trying to find someone
that would be interested in preserving this type of machinery.’
(Help this man, friends and maybe we’ll have another new member
in the IMA Family things are looking up, aren’t they?)

HOWARD SHARRAR, 92 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S
1K2 would like information on the old steam hoisting or donkey
engines such as was used on building construction. He will be happy
for any history on steam hoisting engineering. He is hoping someone
out there knows something on this subject. So are we!

Here comes some help on getting engines out of the mud as ELSNER
MACHACEK, 714 Union Street, Northfield, Minnesota 55057 tells us:
‘I read the article Mr. Downing had, page 12, in the Mar.-Apr.
1982 issue of the ALBUM. It seems to me like they did a lot of
unnecessary work to get the engine out of a mud hole. My father
sold and repaired the Minneapolis steam engines for many years. We
pulled many engines out of mud holes with ease. Just wind a heavy
rope around the flywheel, run the end to 20 or more feet in front
of the engine. Put the clutch in. Tie the rope to a pick-up or any
truck for that matter and start to pull. The engine will move right
out with ease.

If the engine is steamed, do not run it. The engine must remain
dead when you start to pull it out with a truck or tractor. We used
a Model T Ford one ton truck for power.’ (Does that help any of
you fellows? We hope so.)

In closing I’d like to leave you with a few thoughts You
will never have a friend if you seek one without faults.——If
you growl all day, it’s natural to feel dog-tired at night.
-Our words may hide our thoughts, but our actions will reveal them.
-Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow
but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not to
manipulate. – If you were another person, would you like to be a
friend of yourself?? that’s a good one to ponder, and with
that, I bid thee farewell for this time and do have a great summer
and keep the hobby a happy one.