THE LANCASTER

rural, for the occasion was the annual fair sponsored by the
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. People elbowed closer as they
listened, interested, yet little dreaming that the man before them
would be elected President of the United States in slightly more
than a year.

As befitted the event, Abraham Lincoln devoted much of his
address to the farmer’s peculiar problems, emphasizing
especially the need for technological improvements. Animal power
was becoming obsolete, he pointed out. ‘The successful
application of steam power to farm-work is a
desideratum–especially a Steam Plow.’ He had not actually seen
steam yoked to turn the soil, he admitted, but he had read of such
inventions and believed that effective machines for this purpose
were highly important and not too far in the future. ‘Our
thanks, and something more substantial than thanks,’ said
Lincoln, ‘are due to every man engaged in the effort to produce
a successful steam plow.’¹

By this time–September, 1859– American agriculture was already
well on the road to mechanization. Horse-drawn mowers and rakes
were revolutionizing hay-making; grain drills were in wide use; the
two-horse straddle-row cultivator was gaining general popularity;
and the reaper was making a fortune for the man shrewd enough to
establish his manufacturing plant in the bustling town of Chicago.
These were all machines that had undergone a period of transition
and experimentation and had proved themselves reliable and
serviceable. The reaper, for example, had been in existence for a
good twenty years when Lincoln made his Milwaukee address. It had
won international awards; its presence at agricultural fairs was
taken for granted. In 1855, McCormick’s plant on the shores of
Lake Michigan employed two hundred men and boys and turned out
2,500 machines that year.²

As Lincoln’s comments indicated, cultivation by steam was
yet in its infancy, if indeed it existed at all in the United
States. Americans had experimented with steam plows of various
types, but lagged far behind English inventors who had been working
to harness the steam giant since the eighteenth
century.³

American problems stemming from prairie turf, tough and stubborn
as frontier life itself, were much more difficult to solve than
those encountered in Britain where virgin soil was rare and farming
was on a smaller scale. British steam plows did not adapt
well;⁴ consequently many an American wrestled on his own
with the knotty task of attempting to substitute steam for horse
power in the furrow.

Imaginative machines were produced in the 1830’s by Edmund
Bellinger of South Carolina, Major Amos Tyrell of Genesee County,
New York, and the distinguished naturalist, Professor Constantine
Rafinesque of Philadelphia, but none proved successful.⁵
In the decade of the forties the ponderous contraptions of Larkin
and Cowling caught the public eye but rumbled into obscurity as
rapidly as they had appeared.⁶ Visitors at the Maryland
State Fair of 1855 were captivated by the steam plow of Obed
Hussey, better known for his pioneering work with the reaper. But
even Hussey’s mechanical genius failed to bring forth a
workable and efficient machine.⁷

These men and numerous others of Lincoln’s day had worked
diligently trying to meet an obvious agricultural need. Not many
succeeded, but few tackled the problem with more ability or vigor
than did Joseph Walker Fawkes of Pennsylvania during the years
immediately preceding the Civil War. The son of a Lancaster County
farmer, Fawkes had received a limited education and had been
apprenticed to learn the carpenter’s trade. Within a few years
he had become the proprietor of a small machine shop at Christiana,
the town of his birth. A mechanic of considerable innate talent, he
gradually became more and more aware of farm problems and
requirements in a world on which the impact of the Industrial
Revolution was becoming ever greater. His travels through the
prairie-land of the Mid-West ultimately set him to work on the
application of steam to tilling the soil.⁸

By the Autumn of 1855 he had fashioned a model of a steam-driven
plowing apparatus which provided traction through a large driving
drum, rather than through conventional wheels. To a friend, J. G.
Dickinson, Fawkes took his model, carefully tied up in a
handkerchief, and asked for financial aid. Dickinson and several
associates contributed and the inventor turned to the construction
of a full-scale working model.9 But obstacles were many: the first
engine was an utter failure and never left the shop; the second
lacked the power necessary for traction and could not be used;
finally, in 1858, on the third attempt, the steam plow was ready
for testing and a patent was granted to Fawkes for an
‘Improvement in machines for Ploughing.’¹⁰

As described by contemporaries, the engine and plowing gear
attached to its rear were eighteen feet long and weighed nearly ten
tons. Two horizontal pistons of nine-inch diameter and fifteen-inch
stroke generated a maximum horsepower variously estimated by
observers at from eleven to thirty.¹¹ Power was imparted
to a bulky driving drum, six feet long and five feet in diameter,
while two forward guide-wheels were used for steering. Plows
secured to the frame at the rear of the machine could be raised or
lowered by a chain or cable arrangement.¹²

The first public trials of the Fawkes rig seem to have been at
the Lancaster County Fair in 1858, where it attracted considerable
attention.¹³ Meanwhile, the Illinois State Agricultural
Society, in conjunction with the Illinois Central Railroad, had
offered premiums totaling $5,000 for the best steam engine adapted
for plowing and other farm work.¹⁴ In hopes of winning
development capital, Fawkes brought his machine to the Illinois
State Fair at Centralia in mid-September where trials were to be
held before a select committee of the Society. There the ten-ton
behemoth was the darling of the show, as exhibits of horse-drawn
equipment were forgotten or ignored.¹⁵ The inventor
became the man of the hour and the Chicago Press and Tribune slyly
suspected that he was a descendant of Guy Fawkes, ‘as he is
determined to blow up and out of existence the whole system of
horse, mule and ox-plowing, and substitute therefore his pet nag
made of iron, whose breath is fire, and whose food is the product
of diluvian and post diluvian forests.’¹⁶

At the actual trials, the farmer upon whose field the running
tests were to be made refused to allow the snorting iron monster on
his land, and hard, baked, unbroken prairie was substituted.
Fair-goers gathered at the site and only the noise of the engine
drowned out the buzz of enthusiasm from onlookers as the
appropriately-named ‘Lancaster’ moved forward, leaving
behind it a row of six neatly-turned furrows. ‘The excitement
of the crowd was beyond control, and their shouts and wild huzzas
echoed far over the prairie,’ said a Chicago editor, ‘as
there, beneath the smiling Autumn sun, lay the first furrow turned
by steam on the broad prairies of the mighty
West.’¹⁷

Others may have been less eloquent in their praise but hardly
less optimistic, believing that ‘in less than three years…
the steam-horse will be driven at will over the broad Western
Prairies, doing the work of a dozen or twenty
horses.’¹⁸ Within twenty years, steam plows would be
common.¹⁹ But members of the Illinois State Agricultural
Society were not so easily convinced and called for additional
trials to be held at Decatur a month or so after the Centralia
test. Fawkes’ machine was again the only entry and damp weather
left the soil so soggy that it was unable to operate to the
satisfaction of the judges.²⁰

The ‘Lancaster’ performed again in the summer of 1859 at
Oxford Park, near Philadelphia, before delegations representing
Franklin Institute, the American Institute, the Pennsylvania State
Agricultural Society, and the Philadelphia Society for Promoting
Agriculture. After the trials, Fawkes hooked his engine to a hay
wagon, draped the whole with Stars and Stripes, filled it with
farmers and a four-piece band, then thundered three miles down the
turnpike to the Chatham Street Station where the
‘Lancaster’ was shipped home by rail.²¹

At the field tests, Alfred L. Kennedy, President of Polytechnic
College, was present and called the traction ‘perfect.’
‘I left the grounds,’ he said, ‘with emotions of
thankfulness to that great and good Being, who in our own day had
enabled a fellow-countryman to make the giant steam tributary to
the act of cultivation, and the means of untold blessings to
millions.’²² Kennedy heralded the machine as
‘the only economical and practical application of steam to
tillage,’ and had nothing but praise for its inventor, whom he
compared with Robert Fulton, also born in Lancaster County.

As he stood in the garb of a workman trying his gauges, or, in a
sharp quick tone, which told of mingled confidence and anxiety,
giving orders to the foreman, his rough attire, soiled in such a
cause, appeared more honorable than imperial
purple.²³

Other observers were enthusiastic but more subdued. The
committee of the Franklin Institute recommended that Fawkes be
awarded the Scott Legacy Medal for his pioneering invention. If the
committee acknowledged that ‘the work was not as smooth as to
satisfy a Pennsylvania ploughman,’ it blamed that on the
plowshares, which were designed primarily for breaking up prairie
sod.²⁴ The report of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural
Society noted that the machine had successfully passed all tests,
it had taken grades of seven percent without difficulty, and with
its eight plow bottoms had turned six-inch deep furrows at a speed
of four miles an hour ‘in the most graceful manner, performing
its work with ease, and to the admiration and perfect satisfaction
of the most skeptical.’²⁵

The premium offered by the Illinois State Agricultural Society
was the magnet that drew Fawkes and his equipment to the State Fair
in Freeport, later the same year. Steam plows held the center of
the stage. Several were scheduled for display, but the new,
improved engine brought by Fawkes was the only one actually
demonstrated.²⁶ That of James Waters of Detroit did not
appear;²⁷ Field’s rotary spader suffered an accident
and could not be repaired in time;²⁸ the ‘Rotary
Plow, Reaper and Mower’ of Van Doren and Glover–the so-called
‘Steam Farm Hand’–was exhibited and drew sighs of
admiration from many of the fair’s 20,000 daily visitors, but
it did not compete in field trials.²⁹

Fawkes’ engine was very much in evidence, however. It
performed first in the show ring, where, without implements
attached, it ‘ran about the track with celerity,’ before
turning up ‘a little patch of plowing.’³⁰ The
preliminaries were colorful but had no bearing on the utility of
the machine. According to newspaper reports, the engine was . . .
beautifully decorated with flowers by the ladies, not forgetting
the blue ribbon in abundance, showing that in the judgment of the
ladies it was entitled to the highest premium. A company of ladies,
the scientific committee, editors and others occupied seats upon
the carriage; a large wagon occupied by the band was attached to
the rear, and away sped the steam carriage around the ring amid the
huzzas of the multitude and the waving of handkerchiefs by the
ladies. It must have been an exciting and most gratifying occasion
to the worthy inventor . . ,³¹

Unfortunately, the field tests were not so exciting and
gratifying to the inventor. So great were the crowds on the first
day of the scheduled trials that tests had to be postponed until
September 10, when the steam colossus actually performed. It had
plowed only’ about forty feet when the linkage between the
engine and the gang of eight plows gave way, necessitating a halt
of half an hour to repair the damage. In the meantime, rain fell
and when the experiment was begun again, the engine bogged down in
the wet terrain. Strips of wooden paling were than fastened to the
face of the driving drum in an effort to improve traction, but all
attempts failed, and Fawkes was forced to admit that he could do no
more. Members of the Agricultural Society committee were
sympathetic: they ‘regretted his failure,’ were willing to
grant a loan of $1,000, but were reluctant to award a
premium.³²

It was soon thereafter that the Seventh Annual Exhibition of the
United States Agricultural Society opened on the outskirts of
Chicago. The steam plows of Fawkes, Waters, and Van Doren and
Glover were again displayed before a record number of
visitors.³³ But Van Doren and Glover’s ‘Steam
Farm Hand’ proved mechanically defective ³⁴ and
Waters’ machine plowed only an eighth of an acre before being
‘utterly disabled’ by an accident attributed to the
inexperience of the operator. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Fawkes
politely, ‘I pity the steam plow man who meets with an
accident; his fortune is hard enough at best. I do sincerely pity
Mr. Waters.’³⁵

Field trials were held without prior notice to prevent the
collection of a crowd, which gathered anyway. On the first day
(September 15), Fawkes plowed 78 ? rods in 31 minutes, only 9 of
which were considered actual plowing time.³⁶ On the
following day, the new ‘Lancaster’ rumbled out again in the
morning but soon exhausted its fuel supply, causing trials to be
adjourned until afternoon, when, after additional delay due to
minor breakage, the machine completed four rounds, plowing 164 rods
in an actual plowing time of 16% minutes.³⁷

Although the soil was light at the Chicago tests, local newsmen
believed the results were significant. Under certain conditions,
with large, improved fields, and with experienced
operators,³⁸ steam was practicable in replacing animal
power on the prairies, they insisted, Fawkes’ estimates for
operating the ‘Lancaster’ seemed to indicate–on paper, at
least–that steam could be more economical than brute force in
plowing. Daily costs of running the machine totaled $16.12,
according to the inventor, and included: one ton of coal $5; one
cord of wood, $3; the labor of three men, $4; oil and miscellaneous
supplies, $1; wear and tear on machinery, $2; interest of 10 per
cent on the initial cost of $4,000, $1.12. Twenty-five acres could
be turned in a working day. At the current rate of $2.50 a day for
breaking grassland by horse-drawn plow, the cost of doing the same
amount of work by animal power would be $62.50.³⁹

Officers of the Illinois State Agricultural Society were less
impressed than Chicago’s newsmen, although still sympathetic.
Called upon to determine whether or not the ‘Lancaster’ had
earned either the $3,000 first award or the $2,000 second prize for
workable steam plows, the Society’s executive committee very
carefully evaluated all phases of the machine’s performance. It
was admitted that the apparatus was capable of plowing an acre in
twenty-four minutes, including stops, or from twenty-five to forty
acres per day, but the committee believed the machine was too heavy
and that it could not produce power sufficient for the weight and
work required. Its traction was poor on damp terrain and its tank
could not hold water for more than three hours of sustained running
time.⁴⁰ Believing that the machine was somewhat
disappointing, but perfectible, the committee recommended that
Fawkes be awarded the $2,000 second prize, less the $1,000 loaned
him previously.⁴¹ But in the end this recommendation was
not accepted; after considerable wrangling, the Society voted
Fawkes a premium of $500 in cash, plus cancellation of the loan–in
effect, an award of $l,500.⁴²

From Chicago, Fawkes moved east to the Thirty-first Annual Fair
of the American Institute of the City of New York, where his
machine was tested in a small, rocky plot at Hamilton Park and was
forced to stop every few seconds because of stones.⁴³
But the inventor appeared before the Polytechnic Association of the
Institute, discussed the general problem of cultivation by steam,
and was rewarded with a prize of $l,000.⁴⁴

Other honors were soon forthcoming also. In January, 1860, the
United States Agricultural Society bestowed upon Fawkes a large
gold medal, President Buchanan doing the presentation by mail.
Buchanan wrote his Lancaster County compatriot:

Whilst those who have made improvements on deadly weapons for
the destruction of the human race are receiving honors and rewards
from governments, yours has been the far more important and useful
task of improving the plow for the benefit of agriculture, and your
recompense will consist in the approbation of your countrymen, and
the consciousness that you have conferred an important benefit upon
mankind.⁴⁵

Meanwhile, aware that his machine was too heavy and too
complex,⁴⁶ Fawkes acquired a third engine and plow
apparatus, this one built for him by Miles Greenwood of Cincinnati,
one of the top steam engine experts in the country,⁴⁷
and showed up at the Illinois State Fair in the autumn of 1860 to
compete for a new premium of $1,000 being offered by the
Agriculture Society.⁴⁸ On a forty-acre farm a mile from
the Jacksonville fairgrounds, his new machine ran fourteen minutes
before stopping, then encountered various difficulties which
prompted observers to view the test as a complete
failure.⁴⁹ The committee of the Society decided that the
rig could not be ‘practically substituted for animal power in
plowing and other farm work,’ and refused to recommend a
reward, monetary or otherwise.⁵⁰ The press was even less
charitable. ‘Mr. F. may have an idea,’ said the Chicago
Tribune, ‘but he has shown no ability toward the development
and perfection of it.’⁵¹

One of Fawkes’ engines–possibly the third one–was several
years later moved from the farm where it had been standing since
the fall of 1860 into Decatur to be used as a stationary source of
power in a machine shop, a tacit admission of its failure in the
field.⁵² This, or perhaps another of the engines,
eventually exploded: so did the $1,200 that Horace Greeley had
invested in support of Fawkes.⁵³ Yet, as late as
September, 1864, Fawkes had still not given up. At that time he
demonstrated a locomotive-type steam plow at the Illinois State
Fair at Decatur, but was again forced to admit
defeat.⁵⁴

Several years earlier, Fawkes had experimented with another
approach to power plowing. A patent granted to him in December,
1861, covered improvements on a method of plowing using an tengine
with windlass attachment. The engine would move along at intervals
of about 1,000 feet, stopping to draw up a gang of plows by means
of its cable drum, then pulling ahead to repeat the
process.⁵⁵ This was but a variation of a cable-drawn
system successfully introduced by the Englishman, John Fowler. But
on the large farms and unimproved prairie lands of America, Fawkes
found it no more workable than the direct traction approach. After
a decade of fruitless and expensive experimentation by trial and
error, he discontinued his work with the steam plow and left to
others its successful development.⁵⁶

Joseph Fawkes was neither a great man nor a great inventor. He
was one of many ordinary Americans with mechanical ability who saw
the need for greater mechanization on the farm and tried to fill
that need. If he failed, it was for a variety of reasons–the same
reasons that retarded numerous other amateur attempts in the same
period. Some writers of the day believed that traditional rural
reluctance to accept change was an inhibiting factor.⁵⁷
The agricultural press, in attempting to combat this basic
conservatism, often inadvertently contributed to it. Fawkes had to
work under the definite disadvantage of laudatory and
over-optimistic newspaper and periodical publicity, which predicted
fabulous performances that the steam engine in his time was not
competent to meet.⁵⁸

More important was the expense factor. As editors were careful
to point out, the initial price of a Fawkes machine was estimated
to be $4,000–literally as much as the cost of an improved farm in
this pre-Appomattox era.⁵⁹ If  Fawkes himself
lacked capital, had helped expand the wheat-growing frontier out
onto the grasslands of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. But
the disastrous Panic of ’57, followed by economic prostration,
seriously depressed the price of wheat. It was Fawkes’
misfortune to bring forth his steam plow in this period of low farm
prices, when agricultural capital was difficult enough to
accumulate for machinery which had been tested and accepted, let
alone for expensive equipment still largely unproven. Morover,
despite the inventor’s claim to the contrary, reputable farm
experts thoroughly acquainted with the ‘Lancaster’s’
performance, insisted that power plowing cost at least twice as
much per acre as tillage by horse.⁶⁰

One of the primary reasons for expense–both of purchase and of
operation–was the size and complexity of Fawkes’ machines.
Like many other mechanics, he was unable to devise a satisfactory
power-weight ratio. In order to produce sufficient power, his
engines were of ‘elephantine proportions and weight,’
designed to perform miracles, according to the Commissioner of
Agriculture a few years later.⁶¹

Fawkes was admittedly an amateur. At least two of his engines he
built with his own hands. Of necessity he served as his own
blacksmith, his own machinist, and his own engineer. His machines
were crude and subject to easy breakage as a consequence. Yet even
the best steam engines available in the late fifties were little
better for plowing. Most were designed for stationary belt work,
not for traction. Only when the steam engine itself was
immeasurably improved would steam plowing become practicable.
Increased structural strength, replacement of cast iron gearing by
steel, addition of more effective driving wheels and clutch
arrangements, enlargement of fuel and water capacities–these were
but a few of the changes which ultimately came in the power plant.
But they did not come overnight. Although the use of the steam
engine for thrashing spread rapidly, not until the end of the
century did steam plowing rigs become common on the flat, broad
wheat lands of western America.⁶² The dream of Joseph
Fawkes was finally realized nearly forty years after his
experiments. Even then, the ‘Age of Steam’ was brief;
quickly it gave way to the age of the lighter, cheaper, and more
efficient internal combustion engine.