USA > Illinois > Knox County > History of Knox county, Illinois > Part 49
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There can be no doubt whatever that H. H. May was the original inventor of the steel plow. This question was well ventilated during the famous .trade-mark suit between Deere & Co. and the Moline Plow Company during the years from 1867 to 1871 inclusive, when the case was decided by the Supreme Court of the State. Justice Sidney Breese, in summing up the evidence, refers especially to that given by Robert N. Tate, a former partner of Deere, and of whom the Judge says: "We should judge from his testimony that he was a man of some mechanical skill, and well informed generally, and par- ticularly upon the subject of plows. He says the history of this plow goes back to 1841." In rehearsing some of the historical evidence submitted by Mr. Tate the Judge says: "A person by the name of Hitchcock commenced what he called the diamond plow, in Prince- ton, Bureau county ; afterwards May, of Galesburg, manufactured a plow, in shape nearly the form that is manufactured now. This is the earliest he recollects of seeing a steel moldboard. The share and moldboard were combined at that time, and May was the first mnan that laid any claim to the improved steel plow." In speaking of the improvements of the steel plow the Judge deduces from the evidence still further facts that go to show the perfectness of the plow invented by H. H. May. He refers to this point in the following language: "There is no improvement on the May steel plow as made in 1843, or later, perhaps, up to this time. In the plow afterward made at Pal- estine, in Lee county, by a person named Doan; afterward at Grand De Tour by W. Denney and Deere and Andrus; afterward in Moline by Deere, Tate and Gould, in the fall of 1848; afterwards by Buford & Tate in 1856, the working models are all copied strictly after the
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May plow. I essentially consider May the sole constructor in form of the western steel plow." Thus it will be seen that beyond a shadow of doubt to H. H. May, of Galesburg, the honor, the credit belongs for giving to the world this most useful of all agricultural imple- ments.
THE NOVELTY MACHINE WORKS.
During the year 1857 Mr. G. D. Colton purchased the lot on the corner of Cherry and Depot streets and proceeded to erect thereon a large frame building for a planing mill and sash factory. In 1864 an additional building was erected for the purpose of manufacturing hay presses, to which Mr. C. for a time devoted some attention. He had just finished paying for his property, and started upon what augured a successful career, when the fire fiend made its unwelconie advent, Nov. 17, 1864, and leveled the buildings to the ground. There being no insurance on the property, the loss, which was about $10,000, was total. Not to be discouraged by this dire calamity, Mr. Colton started to rebuild on the same site with no capital except his trade and a good name; and by March 1, 1865, he had completed a new building more ample and better adapted to his business. In September, 1865, lie formed a partnership with S. S. Cheeney and Wm. P. Frailey, and added a foundry and machine shop. The new firm took the name of G. D. Colton & Co., and denominated their manufactory "The Novelty Machine Works." In the spring of 1867 Mr. C. S. Colton became a partner, succeeding Mr. Cheeney and Mr. Frailey.
The manufactory was started in 1865 with a capital of $7,500. Fourteen lands were employed the first year, and the current busi- ness amounted to $21,400. The amount of capital now employed is over $35,000; from forty to fifty men are worked, and the average an- nnal product exceeds $60,000. The establishment makes all kinds of machinery and does an extensive foundry and repairing business; and the work is uniformly considered first-class.
BROWN'S CORN-PLANTER WORKS.
These works have attained a inagnitude that claims for them inore than local importance. The most extensive and important business interest of Knox county, and even in the west, is that connected with the manufacture and sale of Brown's corn-planter. This is also the largest establishment engaged in the manufacture of corn-planters ex. isting in any quarter of the globe, and, like almost all worthy and ex- tensive enterprises, has grown to its present vast proportions from a little beginning.
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George W. Brown," the inventor of the corn-planter, is a practical mechanic; and when the invention was conceived in his mind, lie was working at his trade,-that of carpenter,-going home to his farm, between jobs, to cultivate his crops; and while there he was called upon by his neighbors to make and repair the rude farm implements used prior to 1850. Being both a mechanic and a farmer, his mind was directed to improvements in farming machinery. He studied a great deal and made many plans and models. Jolın S. Winter, Esq., remem- bers being at his house in 1846, near Tylerville, a small log building. He found Mr. Brown barefoot, liis only clothing a straw hat, shirt and jeans pants, literally in a " brown" study upon farm implements. Among the implements used were cultivators, and in 1848 Mr. Brown conceived the plan of turning a cultivator into a corn-planter. His first idea was to drop three rows at once, placing the shovels of the cultivator as wide apart as lie wished to have the corn rows, and boxes of corn on the beams back of the shovels, so fixed that the centre of each box would be over the middle of the furrows made by the shovels." A slide was so adjusted that by moving it there would be an aperture at the centre of the bottom of each' box large enough for three to five kernels of corn to slip through, ' which would of course fall into the middle of each furrow behind the shovel. This slide was to be operated by a man walking behind the machine. He attached heavy wheels to' the cultivator back of the boxes, which were inade of sections sawed off from logs, and which would roll the ground after the corn was dropped in, filling and leveling the furrow.
Out of these simple experiments upon a cultivator came the per- fected corn-planter, with which two men and a team can plant from 16 to 20 acres of corn in a day. Mr. Brown had a strong brain, a strong arm and a strong purpose to aid him; the latter was to invent and construct the best corn-planter that the ingenuity and muscle of man could make out of wood and iron. He had little or no capital in money, but he had a better capital than that of gold, silver or cur- rency, in the qualities we have just mentioned. He had a wonderful degree of faith in the ultimate embodiment, in a machine of his idea, of a perfect planter. Whether or not he thought he should achieve this idea in two or three years, we cannot say; but lie had the patience possessed always by all great inventors, to labor and to wait.
In the spring of 1851 Mr. Brown made the first complete corn- planter of the present style, and planted corn with it the following May. Prior to that lie was experimenting, but it was liis corn- planter drop attached to a cultivator, already described. In 1852, he * See Biographical Sketch.
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planted with his improved machine 16 acres for himself and 8 acres for Alfred Brown. That same spring he commenced the manufacture of ten machines, but on account of poverty and embarrassments, com- pleted only one. About this time he determined to stake all he pos- sessed upon the success of his invention. He had already sold every- thing about the place, including liis last horse, to furnish means to secure his patents. He then sold his little farm for what he could' get, went deeply into debt for more money, and took the chances of success. Times were liard, and the facilities for manufacturing poor. He had no such machinery as he now has; but everything had to be done by hand. . Very soon he was so much involved that, had he been called upon to pay, he would not have been worth a dollar. But he was an upright man, had a good name, was full of enthusiasm for liis new invention, and his largest creditors were willing to give him a fair trial. But he frequently was obliged to pay exorbitant rates of interest, sometimes from one to two per cent. a month, and once three per cent. for one month, and a short month at that .. He commenced manufacturing at Shanghai, and in 1853 completed twelve machines, one of which that season planted three hundred acres of corn. In 1854 he made a hundred machines, and in 1855 he made three hun- dred machines, after, which he removed to Galesburg. In 1856 he made six hundred machines, and in 1857 lie made a thousand machines. It is not necessary to give the number of machines, in detail, manufactured since that time. It is enough to say that lat- terly Mr. Brown manufactures eight thousand machines per annum, which find a ready sale.
These machines are now operated in all of the United States where corn is raised,-on the Atlantic and Pacific slopes, as well as in the Mississippi Valley. Applications have come for them from Europe; they have been sent to Brazil and the Argentine Republic; and a short time ago an order was made from Japan, by the government authority, which was filled.
Like all great discoveries and inventions, Mr. Brown experienced great trouble in having the new mode of planting corn, accepted. So great was the expense of introducing his machines, that after ten years of manufacturing in Galesburg he was not worth a dollar; and at the same time his business was so extensive that he paid nearly $6,000 a year to the government, as income tax; and at present, his city, county and State taxes are about $5,000 per annum. The war closed; the boys had come from tented fields to work upon the farm; the corn- planter had become generally appreciated; orders came in from all
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directions, and the road to prosperity and wealth seemed open and smooth.
But new obstacles now appeared. It had become known that the corn-planter was a success, and so valuable that men in different parts of the country commenced its manufacture. After considerable delay and a desire to compromise with those infringing upon his patents, and meeting with refusals, he commenced proceedings in the federal courts against them. In May, 1874, after hearing all the evidence and arguments, the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest tribunal on this continent, declared that George W. Brown was the inventor of the corn-planter. This entitled him to a royalty upon all such machines made by others. During July of the present year the U. S. Circuit Court rendered a decision in his favor, against the Keystone Manufacturing Company of Rock Falls, to an amount involv- ing about $200,000.
During the last twelve years Mr. Brown has employed from 130 to 230 men, paying out in wages alone per annum from $50,000 to $100,000. The shops consume nearly 2,000 tons of coal annually, 500 tons of castings, 250 tons of wrought iron and steel, 15 tons of paints and oils, and 500,000 feet of Iumber.
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For his remarkable success Mr. Brown is largely indebted to the efficient corps of assistants he has called around him. . His fine judg- ment led him to select men eminently qualified for the important positions assigned them. Among these are Isaac S. Perkins, the gen- eral manager of the outside business; Loren Stevens, one of the chiefs in the office, and M. D. Hebbard and Adam Dick, under whose imme- diate supervision are the shops.
: The various buildings, as shown in the accompanying engraving, are all of modern and substantial style of architecture. In their con- struction no means are spared to make them both durable and elegant, and within the limits of the United States are to be found no factories superior in these respects to those of G. W. Brown. The buildings comprise wood-working department, machine shops, blacksmith shops, pattern rooms, construction department, painting and finishing rooms, storage departments or ware-rooms, and at present there is just finished another building containing more commodious ware- rooms. . This building, which is 60 by 120 feet, is of the same archi- tectural style and lieight as the main structure. All buildings together contain about 100,000 square feet of flooring. These build- ings involved an expenditure of abont $150,000, and in addition to this vast amount there is about $50,000 invested in tools and
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Brown's Corn Planter Works, Galesburg, Il.
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inachinery. In addition, about $200,000 cash capital is required to carry on the business.
Mr. Brown has constructed a railroad, for his own private use, from the main line of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road to his shops, a distance of 2,000 feet, by which he is enabled to have the cars run down to his storage rooms, and there load them in that manner, avoid- ing handling the planters many times, and also saving most of the time that it would consume to take teams and draw the machines to the cars; and although the construction of the railroad has now in- volved considerable expense, it will in time prove itself a very saving expenditure.
BROOM FACTORY.
Aaron Boyer, who has for 28 years been blind, after having been some years engaged in the manufacture of brooms, started business in Galesburg, in the year 1867, with $5 worth of stock. He purchased two lots on the corner of Prairie and Berrien streets, on which he erected a two-story frame building, 60 by 90 feet. This building is supplied with the most approved modern machinery, including steam motive power, and every appliance for expeditious and perfect work. One of the most important pieces of machinery in the manufactory is the Adjustable Lever Broom Press, an invention of Mr. Boyer's own fertile brain, and a very ingenious and nicely constructed piece of mechanism, perfectly adapted to the purpose for which it is designed, which he has had patented, and has sold a large number of them to manufacturers in various parts of the country. When his solicitor sent his application to the Commissioner of Patents he incidentally remarked that it was the invention of a blind man, to which a reply was sent from the Patent Office that it was the first instance on record of a man devoid of sight inventing a piece of machinery.
Under the careful management of Mr. B., his business has gradually grown from the small beginning until he now employs some twenty- five men, who with the aid of the superior facilities at hand manu- facture 9,000 dozen brooms per year. He makes every style and grade of brooms and corn brushes; and so carefully is every part of the work performed that his goods are equal in quality to any made in this country, and find a market in several States. Until very recently Mr. B. has been his own traveling man, and done all of his own selling. Although the proprietor is deprived of the inestimable blessing of vision, his place is a model of order and system, and is a speaking monument of the possibilities of human energy and enterprise, in the absence of man's chief source of knowledge and pleasure, heaven's sunlight.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
HEMSTREET CARRIAGE MANUFACTORY.
We believe we are right in saying that the carriage manufactory of the above named gentleman is the oldest of its kind in the city of Galesburg. It was first started in 1862 by P. P. Hemstreet, who, being a workman of large experience, soon began to turn out of his then small shops work of a first-class character. Thus lie continued, gradu- ally increasing his business, until orders accumulated so fast that sin- gle-handed he was unable to fill them, mostly for want of capital. But his resources have grown, and he now manufactures very extensively.
MARBLE WORKS.
Mr. James A. Judson established his marble works in Galesburg in 1859, which he conducted successfully to 1869, the time of his death. He was one of the few successful marble dealers of his day. He was succeeded in the business by John Greenwood, who continued in a small way for two years. He then gave way to A. W. Anderson, who at one time was engaged in the business in Galesburg, but not meet- ing with the desired success, moved his works to Monmouth. He re- turned to Galesburg in 1872, and established his works in the old Jud- son stand, where he continued to carry on the business up to June of the present year, when he gave up the business entirely, which now leaves G. A. Stevens' works the only one of the kind in the county. Mr. Stevens, for three years, was Mr. Anderson's salesman. . He es- tablished his works in May, 1877, but has lately moved to the old Jud- son stand on Prairie street. Although Mr. Stevens has not been en- gaged in the business for himself quite eighteen months, yet his suc- cess is apparent. Notwithstanding the present hard times, he has sold this year to the amount of over $30,000. His sales of fine monuments is unsurpassed in the history of the marble trade in this section of the country. Among the number of fine monuments from his works is one for Mrs. Sarah Laferty, of Monmouth,-a beautiful monument of Scotch granite; when completed will be unsurpassed by any work of the kind west of Chicago; standing over 18 feet high, and costing over $4,000.
MAY BROS., WIND-MILLS.
S. W. May, the patentee of May Bros., celebrated wind-mills, is well known, by reputation at least, by a majority of the citizens of the county. Not to have heard of S. W. May, or the farming or manu- facturing operations of himself and brother, is to confess ignorance on a point few desire to acknowledge. S. W. May is a native of New York, having been born in the county of Genesee, in the year 1838.
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His parents were H. H. and D. D. May, likewise natives of New York, who were possessed of an ordinary amount of this world's goods. His parents settled in Galesburg, in the year 1839, and the subject of our sketch enjoyed the advantages offered in the Academy and Knox College, where he received a liberal education. He passed his early life with his parents, until of age. At a very early age he manifested a business-like disposition, " teaming it " from Galesburg to Peoria, occasionally making trips to Oquawka, as that was then the only mode of carrying on an inland commercial trade, in connection with the steamboat transportation of the day. While yet a small boy lie was engaged in peddling his father's plows, in various parts of the State, which were the first steel scouring plows made in this country. A few years later he purchased a large tract of land near the center of Rio township, began farming and raising broom corn quite extensively, having annually from two to four hundred acres, in which he was emi- nently successful. During the summer of 1871 he invented what is now universally known as the "May wind-mill," for pumping purposes; and during the summer and fall of 1871 made at his farm-shop over 2,000 of these mills and put them into successful operation. During the winter of the same year a partnership was made withlı Candee & Co., of Oneida, Ill., to manufacture his mills. Soon after, another part- nership was effected with Nelson & Co., of Buslinell, Ill., for the same purpose. These partnerships existed near two years. The business was then permanently located in Galesburg, the inventor and patentee taken in as partner,-his brother, H. L. May,-and to-day May Bros.' celebrated mills are running in nearly every state in the Union, also in Canada and Russia ; the business being now exclusively carried on by H. L. May, the present capacity for manufacturing being one of the largest in the State.
CHEESE FACTORIES.
A. J. Miller began cheese-making in Ontario township, about 1871, with about 100 cows. The business being new to that locality, but little interest was taken in it. Each year it has grown gradually, until several new factories have started. There are at present 30 men furnishing milk for this factory. A daily average of 16 cheeses, of 45 pounds each, are made, and 100 pounds of butter. To the present year full cream cheese were made.
The " Ontario Cheese Company " was organized in the spring of 1877. The following persons compose the company: Ezra Shedd, F. M. Doolittle, C. C. Moore, L. G. Wetmore, Joseph Fisher and W. G. Mosher ; with E. Shedd President, C. C. Moore Vice
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President, and W. J. Mosher Secretary and Treasurer; E. Shedd, C. C. Moore and F. M. Doolittle, Executive Committee. They entered into an agreement to run not less than three years, and rented the building formerly used by Samuel Chapman for the same pur- pose; bought the tools and fixtures. They use the milk from about 125 cows, most of the time. The total amount of milk used for the season was about 380,000 gallons; cheese made for the season, 38,000 lbs. The venture was considered quite successful, and began its second year with an increased patronage. Owing to the depressions in prices, it is not as profitable as in former years. The present indi- cations are that it will become an important branch of industry, and cheese factories spring up all over the country.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PRESS.
The printing-press is unquestionably one of the most potent agencies in molding the destinies of any community, and perhaps among those least appreciated by the people called upon to sustain them. The advance guards of civilization who first setttled this county had no daily papers ; and even weeklies were like "angels' visits, few and far between," for mails were irregular and unfrequent, being carried on horse-back, and sometimes not carried at all. Although the first settler came in 1828, there was no attempt to establish a local paper in the county, until 1849,-nearly 20 years after the county was organized. Until that time there were no papers taken by the people, save perhaps a few copies of some religious papers and an occasional copy of some Eastern journal. Mr. William Sanburn, brother of John G. Sanburn, who for long years was post- master at Knoxville, then the principal point in the county, tells us he has opened the mail bag many a time when five or six letters and a paper were the full amount of mail it contained; this, too, when almost the entire county received their mail at that office, and which only came once a week, and often at longer intervals. At present there are fourteen regular publications in the county. During the years from the time the first paper was struck off, until 1878, the newspaper enterprises are numbered by the score. At regular periods newspaper publications have been introduced to the public in various parts of the county, and almost as regularly have their demise been announced by some of the fraternity. Among the many editors who drove the quill for these publications, were some talented, graphic and cultured writers, some of whom wielded a salutary influence in the community, while others won reputations not enviable. Perhaps no time in the history of the press of the county did the editorial staff of the various papers represent men so young in years as now. Among these editors, some of whom have not even attained that age which gives them the right of suffrage at the polls, are some shrewd busi- ness managers, pleasing writers and high moral characters. May the present press receive the support, moral and financial, to which it is justly entitled. While our hearts are enveloped with " best wishes " for the Knox county press, yet we shrink from a wish as boundless as
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the sanguine expectation expressed in the introductory of one of the earlier papers. The editor says, and apparently with unshaken confidence in the verity of his prophetic statement, "Our circle at present is small, like that of a pebble dropped in the ocean; but it will gradually and silently expand in every direction, until it reaches the far-off boundaries of civilization.".
NEWSPAPERS OF GALESBURG.
For sketches of the early papers we quote from Sellon's history of Galesburg, pablished in 1857. The first newspaper published in Galesburg or in Knox county was called the " Knox Intelligencer," and was edited and printed by Rev. C. R. Fisk. It was first issued on or about the first of January, 1849. The Intelligencer was neutral in politics, and lived about two years. The office was first located over L. Sanderson's store, but was subsequently removed to a building erected by Mr. Fisk, on the southwest corner of the Public Square.
Near the latter part of the same year, 1849, if we recollect rightly, the " North- Western Gazetteer" was started, under the editorial and typographical management of Southwick Davis. For a considerable time after its establishment the Gazetter and the Knox Intelligencer were eagerly sought after by the citizens of Galesburg and vicinity, on account of the College controversy carried on through their col- umns. The Gazetteer was also neutral in politics, but in religious matters it favored Congregationalism, while the Intelligencer favored Presbyterianisın. The Gazetteer was published about two years, we believe, though it may have existed for a longer period.
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