‘I have been reading my Iron Men Album magazines
diligently in the meantime. It is always an exciting day at my
house when the Album arrives in the mailbox! I was excited to see
my son’s photography of Austin Monk’s 40 HP Peerless on the
cover. Kevin Small stated, ‘I believe there are many readers
who have old plowing photos, so why not send them to IMA?1
I think I can share a few of my project photographs without
detracting from my book. This is just a random sampling of the
plowing photographs.
‘I sure appreciated the Reeves and Gaar-Scott pictures from
Larry Creed. (Larry, I get just as excited as Lyle Hoff master,
looking at Reeves pictures!) The first picture showed two 32 HP
Reeves engines pulling six binders each, cutting 250 acres per day.
Larry asked, ‘I wonder how much wheat was cut with steam
providing the pulling power?’ Friend, I have no idea, but I
went through some of my photographs of steam engines pulling
binders, as well as combined harvesters, and came up with nearly
thirty pictures, so it must have been quite widely practiced. The
photograph of the tandem compound Gaar Scott was an interesting
picture of a rare engine.
‘Larry Creed echoed my sentiments about the ‘Something
Different’ article of a few months ago. Keeping IMA
‘steam ‘ is the most important job you ladies have, and I
know that most of us do appreciate you keeping it that way! (I have
to confess that I examined a ‘magneto tweaking’
friend’s [contributor, John Edgerton] Gas Engine
Magazine. It is a great magazine for them!)
‘With that said, here I go sending you a picture of
‘non-steam,’ but I thought it was quite a nice picture of
the workings of a push binder taken years ago in a grain field near
Hecla, South Dakota. I would bet that within a few weeks of this
photograph, a steam engine and separator entered the same
field?
‘I would encourage the rest of you to sit down and send
something to IMA. Even if you don’t care to write
anything, send photographs with a description. Thanks for all you
do for us, Linda and Gail! I, for one, deeply appreciate you and
our magazine.
A 30 HP Nichols & Shepard side mounted double plowing in
North Dakota. Notice the reunion mounted plowing drawbar and
extension rims.
Former neighbors of mine, the Gilskey Brothers, north of Hilger,
Montana, are plowing with a 22 HP under mounted Avery and a 10
bottom Avery steam lift plow. Photos on this page all from Gary
Yaeger.
A 30 HP under mounted Avery Alberta Special and a hump back
‘keyhole’ shaped firebox (with 200 p.s.i. pop valve
installed, you could have called it a 40 HP) plowing in Meagher
(pronounced ‘Mar’) County of Montana. Don Bradley thinks
this engine was once owned by the Ringling Farm (of circus fame)
near Ringling, Montana, as they owned around eight under mounted
Avery engines. The Justin Hingtgen ’40 HP’ (Justin stamped
it ’40 HP’) Avery was another of the Ringling engines.
Notice the Avery spark arrestor.
For my book project, I never had a photograph of the Yaeger
Brothers’ 32 HP Reeves Canadian Special cross compound engine
in its original element. My 82 year old Aunt Lillian (sole survivor
of Dad’s generation) had this picture of her husband Adelrich
Yaeger riding the Emerson disk plows. Joe Yaeger, my dad, whose
head is barely visible in the original photo above the coal bunker,
is firing Number 6269, and Uncle Bill is the steer man.
The Yaeger Brothers had just coaled up #6269 and are apparently
getting ready to go to work. A cousin of mine found this picture in
her grandmother’s photo album. Dad is on the steps with his
back to the camera. Uncle Charley is in the steer man’s seat.
Notice how they laid the rear water tank on its side, lowered the
support beams, and built a lower-wider coal bunker. This gave more
visibility to the plows, plus the height to shovel coal into the
bunker was 15 inches lower. Today, Marvin Brod beck owns number
6269, the oldest surviving 32 HP Reeves Canadian special at Ottowa
Lake, MI.
The same cousin found this picture of her step-grandfather’s
35 HP Advance rear mounted tandem compound engine threshing near
Flat Willow, Montana. Photos on this page all from Gary Yaeger.
I personally believe this is a Big Forty Gaar-Scott. The engine
is plowing near Highwood, Montana. It was owned by the Williams
Farm. Albert Stordahl, grandfather of my daughter-in-law, Pam
Yaeger, was on the crew. I am calling the engine a Big Forty
because of the extension rim lugs, the pin clutch type crank
pulley, and the counterweight used to assist in lifting the link
motion reverse gear. The homemade bunkers throw me
This is William Stroud’s 30 HP under mounted Avery pulling
an eight bottom Cock shutt plow near Cross field, Alberta, in 1909.
Notice the contractor’s type bunkers in lieu of the usual tall
tanks. My friend Ed Hurd of Byron, Michigan, has a 30 HP Avery with
this type of bunker
A rare engine in Montana was a Port Huron like this one of our
neighbor’s, Adolph Odenwald. Notice the tender and cab.
Pictures this page from Gary Yaeger.
A ‘thank you’ from DR. ROBERT T. RHODE, 4745 Glen way
Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45238-4537, to John Steel. He says,
‘I’m writing to thank John Steel for contributing to the
July/August 1998 issue of IMA for the historic photograph
and the article by Ed De Graw entitled ‘Archives: Threshing
Season in Gnadenhutten’ (pages 30-31). I’d like to try to
identify the make of engine. I believe that the steamer in the
picture resembles the enclosed cut of a Gaar, Scott & Company
Horse-steered traction engine.
‘The details which strike me as most persuasive include: the
fender over the driver wheel, the arrangement of the piping beneath
the crank disk, the position and shape of the steam dome, the
contours of the hubs, and the V pattern of the grouters on the face
of the driver wheel. Other factors less conclusive but worth
mentioning are the position of the cylinder relative to the boiler,
the angle of the steering wheel, the flywheel’s location on the
engine’s left side (although I recognize that old photographs
can be reversed in the printing process), the placement of the
whistle and safety valve atop the dome, the conformation of the
driver wheels, and the method of bracketing the footboard.’
Frank (left) and Joe Yaeger on Chris Odenwald’s 20 HP
Aultman Taylor, pulling Yaeger’s Aultman-Taylor separator, bulk
holding tank and grain wagons. Dad (Joe) started running this
engine at age 11 and was its Montana traction engine licensed legal
engineer at age 12, in 1911.
Just around press time, we heard from J. N. Walton of Light
Steam Power, Kirk Michael, Isle of Man, Britain IM6 1HB, letting us
know about a new, enlarged edition (fourth) of the book, Doble
Steam Cars, Buses, Lorries (Trucks) and Rail Cars An Antidote
for Air Pollution. Here is some information from his letter,
for those of you who might be interested in this book:
‘The Doble provides quiet, smooth power, great acceleration
from rest with reasonably, but not excessively high speed. The
quality of design and construction is such that at least one Doble
has completed considerably more than 600,000 miles, with many more
thousands expected.
‘The development of these outstanding vehicles is traced in
detail from the first in 1912 to the last 40 years later, for which
Abner Doble was Consulting Engineer. This last had better mpg and
fuel and better road performance than similar sized conventional
cars built ten years later.’
The book is available by mail from Light Steam Power at the
above address for $55.00 (U.S. funds). They accept dollar bills,
not coin. If paying by check, add $8.00 for bank charges.
(Editor’s note: We remind you it’s never a good idea to
send cash currency through the mail!)
Well, that’s about all we have for this issue, but we look
forward to more letters next time.
We’re working now on a new edition of our popular Farm
Museum Directory. Please let us know of any farm museum that
wasn’t listed in our fourth edition . These are guides for
people interested in old time farming, whether with engines or not.
And remember, let us know about those SHOWS you’re going
to!
Steamcerely, Linda and Gail
