The Stumptown Steam Threshers Club Report of their annual
threshing which was held at the Laizure farm located on Route 519,
four miles west of New Athens, Ohio, on Saturday, September 8,
1962. It being a beautiful day for the occasion gave a large
attendance.
The morning was mostly taken up meeting old and new
registering. We then got ready for the threshing which took place
after lunch using Ray Laizure’s Champion Separator hand fed and
slat stacker belted to his Frick Engine. Oats were threshed and at
the same time bailed the straw using J. H. Holmes’s John Dere
bailer belted to his Huber engine. Then Ray’s Case Separator
with feeder and wind stacker belted to W. C. Dunlap’s Case
engine did the next load. Then Ray’s Russell engine showed up
for the next load. Then Ray’s advance Rumley came along, got in
the belt to finish. All created great interest to the spectators,
especially the older ones as did the young to see the steam engines
as they puffed along with their smooth rhythm sound.
There were five large steam traction engines and one miniature
engine. There were several miniature stationary steam engines of
which Howard Glenn and Mr. Ablosum from Martins Ferry, Ohio, along
with Allen Baker from Dunee, Ohio, all showed some nice work.
Russell Gay from Waynesburg, Pa. had his one fifth scale Frick
traction steamed up and it created a lot of interest. George Richey
and Don Davis of New Concord, Ohio, had a nice display of gasoline
engines all painted and running. Ralph Bowden from Zanesville,
Ohio, had his Universal Moline Tractor going also. Harry Moo-maw of
Dover, Ohio, had his fan there and the engines one time or other
were belted to it, of which is always of great interest to
spectators.
The Club wishes to express appreciation to the ladies at the
registration stand, the gentlemen who parked the cars, the band
mothers of New Athens at the concession stand, and the fire
department of New Athens for their part in furnishing water for the
engines, that helped to make it a success.
The club takes this day to greet their old friends and make new
ones and turn back the pages of time, get the old engines out and
other equipment of their time, fire up to smell the the smoke and
the aroma of hot steam cylinder oil, thresh some grain as they did
when they served their purpose so well to make our nation strong
and free. But progress has caused them to step aside and make way
for more modern, more compact, time and labor saving machines.
One of the boys, J. H. Holmes