Early 20th Century Self-dumping Hay Rake with Bettendorf Metal Wheels

Developed by the late 1800s, the horse-drawn hay rake, like many of the farm implements here at Stuhr Museum, reveals the transition from human power to horse power that took place during the second half of the nineteenth century.  By using the hay rake alongside the mower – an example of which you can see right next to this rake – farmers could cut and gather their hay in a matter of a few days, depending on the size of their farms.  By using these horse-drawn implements, farmers spent less time working in the heat and less money hiring and feeding extra hands to help with the process.  In the centuries before the widespread use of the mower and the hay rake, farmers (and their hired hands) used scythes, grain cradles, handheld rakes, or similar tools to cut and gather their hay, often taking several days to complete this part of the process.

In order to use a hay rake like this one, a farmer hitched the tongue to a pair of horses who pulled the rake forward.  The rake’s tines gathered the hay, which had been cut by the mower, as the rake was pulled along.  Once a sufficient amount of hay had been gathered in the tines, the farmer stopped the horses and had them back up in order to release the hay into piles.  Then the farmer repeated the process until the hay had been gathered into several piles around the field to be bundled and stacked.

By the turn of the twentieth century, inventors had made improvements to the horse-drawn hay rake.  One of the most important changes was the addition of a dumping mechanism which allowed the farmer, who sat in the seat on top of the rake, to drop the gathered hay without having to back the rake up.  If you look closely at the hay rake here, you will notice a handle at one side of the seat.  When the farmer, riding on the seat, decided it was time to dump the hay from the tines, he stopped the horses and released the gathered hay by pulling on that handle.  The handle was a form of lever which lifted all of the tines up at an angle, allowing the hay to fall into a pile on the ground.  The farmer then pushed the handle back in order to lower the tines for the next section of hay to be gathered.  By using this self-dumping mechanism, a farmer could save even more time during the hay gathering process.

A close-up of the self-dumping mechanism next to the seat.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to identify the maker of this hay rake.  Looking at the quality of construction and the fact that several parts have part numbers, we might claim that either a manufacturing company or a highly skilled individual assembled this hay rake possibly sometime around 1910.  Although we are unsure of the hay rake’s identity, we can clearly identify the maker of the wheels on this implement as the Bettendorf Metal Wheel Company of Davenport, Iowa.

The hub of the Bettendorf Metal Company Wheel, with its
September 1, 1885 patent date.

William Peter Bettendorf, and his younger brother, Joseph William, began their company in 1886, getting financial aide from E. P. Lynch, the president of Eagle Manufacturing Company.  William and Joseph were the two oldest children of German immigrants who eventually settled in Peru, Illinois in 1872.  While in Peru, William worked at the A. L. Shepard & Company hardware store and at the Peru Plow Company as a machinist’s apprentice.  While at the Peru Plow Company, William patented an early “power lift” sulky plow in 1878, a plow which led to $5,000 in royalties from seven manufacturers who wished to use his designs.  He then moved on to work for two other companies in Moline and Canton, Illinois before returning to Peru Plow Company as superintendent in 1882.

By some point in 1883, William invented the Bettendorf Metal Wheel which was made of an iron hub and steel spokes.  He then invented the machinery to make the wheels.  Unable to get the Peru Plow Company to fund his projects, William looked elsewhere for support, eventually finding it in E. P. Lynch of the Eagle Manufacturing Company.  Not long after William and his brother, Joseph, started the Bettendorf Metal Wheel Company in Davenport, Iowa, they found a huge market for their products.  In 1890, they added a second, larger plant in Springfield, Ohio.  William, ever the inventor and risk-taker, sold his interests in Bettendorf Metal Wheel in 1892; and two years later, he and Joseph started a new venture which they incorporated as the Bettendorf Axle Company in 1895.¹

After two disastrous fires in 1902, the brothers moved their new company to the nearby town of Gilbert which was renamed Bettendorf the following year.  Eventually the brothers focused their attention on railroad cars, William patenting several designs, including the “Bettendorf frame.”  William died in 1910 at the age of 53, but Joseph continued the company’s success, renaming it simply the Bettendorf Company.  Joseph died in 1933 at the age of 68; but his two sons, Edwin J. and William, continued the family’s presence in the company.  As far as the original Bettendorf Metal Wheel Company in Davenport was concerned, the owners after William left in 1892 continued the company’s success, making wheels for wagons, trucks, and farm equipment like the hay rake seen here at Stuhr Museum.  Although it is difficult to date this hay rake, the design for the dumping mechanism on this hay rake somewhat resembles those found in patent drawings from the first decade of the twentieth century.  The manufacturer or individual who built the rake might have acquired the Bettendorf wheels from the Davenport factory or from a Bettendorf agent at some point around 1910.

A 1909 advertisement for the Bettendorf Metal Wheel.

Notes

^{1 The patent for the Bettendorf Wheel design is Patent 325585, dated September 1, 1885.  William applied for this patent on August 24, 1883.  You can view and download the patent here.}

² A very good source for the Bettendorf brothers and their ventures is Pam Rees, “Bettendorf, William Peter,” The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2009).  This source can be found online here.

Late 19th or Early 20th Century Pattee Plow Company Jenny Lind Cultivator

In order to keep weeds under control, farmers cultivated their cornfields using various tools which dug up the earth alongside the corn plants, burying neighboring weeds or exposing the weeds’ seeds or roots to the elements.  For many centuries, farmers cultivated their fields by hand with hoes and other similar tools.  Then, within the last couple centuries, some inventive minds began developing double-shovels which could be pulled by horses.  By the mid-1800s, many farmers used one-horse double-shovels which cultivated the earth between two rows of corn.
 Striving to improve the efficiency of cultivating a field by the 1870s, some individuals had developed two-horse cultivators which were essentially two double-shovels connected by an axle with an inverted U-shaped section in the middle.  This inverted “U” allowed the cultivator to pass right over a row of corn stalks as they were growing, thus cultivating both sides of that row with one pass.  One of the inventors of this type of cultivator, James H. Pattee, used the term “New Departure” to describe his design.  By using this type of cultivator, a farmer could potentially cultivate a field in half the time it took to cultivate with a double-shovel.  Depending on the size of the cultivator, a farmer might be able to cultivate his fields until his corn was three feet tall, thus allowing his crop to thrive without having to compete as much with weeds and other plants for nutrients.

By the turn of the twentieth century, several inventors, including Pattee, redesigned the two-horse cultivator to include a beam, or tongue.  Pattee’s Jenny Lind cultivator is one example of this design.  In the case of the Jenny Lind you see here, the rod and spring mechanisms which attach the wood beam to the axle near the wheels were patented on January 3, 1899, allowing us to date this cultivator to the early twentieth century.¹  There are two examples of two-horse walking cultivators without a tongue (that is, without the wood beam) here at Stuhr Museum, near the walkway not far from the Pattee cultivator.

The creator of the Jenny Lind cultivator, James Howard Pattee, moved with his brother and fellow inventor, Henry H. Pattee, to Monmouth, Illinois, from their parents’ farm near Canaan, New Hampshire, in the mid-1860s.  In 1872, James Pattee patented his “New Departure” tongueless cultivator which was, as an 1886 historian stated, “extensively adopted throughout the great West.”²  At some point in the 1870s, James and Henry partnered with their brother-in-law, Ithamar Pillsbury, and started Pattee Brothers & Company.  In 1881, they renamed their venture the Pattee Plow Company.³  By 1891, they had developed a variety of products – along with the Jenny Lind and New Departure cultivators, they had the Pattee Walking Tongue Cultivator, the Pattee Surface Cultivator, the Challenge Corn Planter, the Challenge Cotton Planter, and the Reliable Combined Cultivator.

Why exactly the Pattee company chose to name this cultivator after the famous Swedish opera singer, Jenny Lind is not known.  Perhaps they knew it was a name that would get people’s attentions.  Born in Sweden in 1820, Jenny Lind was brought over to the United States by P. T. Barnum to perform in several cities around the country.  Barnum highly promoted the singer during her 1850-1852 tour, turning her into an early example of a celebrity.  She was dubbed the “Swedish Nightingale,” and her name and likeness were used to sell a wide variety of items during and after her lifetime.  According to Howard Wight Marshal, Lind’s likeness and name were used to sell dolls, stoves, Cuban cigars, soap, songs, gloves, bonnets, porcelain dishes, Steinway pianos with curvaceous “Jenny Lind” legs, opera glasses, tea kettles, hats, engraved portraits, and photographs.⁴  As Marshal tells us, she also had a polka named after her, published in 1846 (before her U.S. tour) by Allen Dodworth, the New York dancer credited with introducing the polka to the United States.⁵  To Marshal’s list, we might add a number of agriculture-related items which were given the name “Jenny Lind,” including Jenny Lind potatoes, strawberries, and musk melons, as well as individual horses and cows.⁶

Notes

¹ James Pattee’s patent discussed here is Patent 616961.  The Jenny Lind here at Stuhr Museum does not have the shovel design described in the patent.  You can view and download this patent here.

² Hamilton Child, Gazetteer of Grafton County, N. H., 1709-1886. Part First (Syracuse, NY: Hamilton Child, 1886), pp. 227-228.

³ Farm Implements, vol. XXIV, no. 1 (Jan. 31, 1910), p. 30E, in an article on Henry Pattee’s death in 1909, stated that they started the Pattee Plow Company in 1877.

⁴ Howard Wight Marshal, Play Me Something Quick and Devilish: Old-Time Fiddlers in Missouri (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2012), p. 149.  The list could go on, and it could include an island and a locomotive.

⁵ Marshal, Play Me Something Quick, pp. 146-151, gives a nice description of Lind and her visit.

⁶ Potatoes: The Cultivator, vol. V, no. XI (November, 1857); and the Fifth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, 1860 (Augusta, ME: Stevens & Sayward, 1860).  Strawberries: The Cultivator, vol. V, no. IX (September, 1857); Ohio Cultivator, vol. XVIII, no. 3 (March 1, 1862); vol. XVIII, no. 4 (April 1, 1862); and Ohio Cultivator, vol. XVIII, no. 11 (November 1, 1862).  Musk melons: Southern Cultivator, Devoted Exclusively to Southern Agriculture, Horticulture, Plantation and Domestic Economy, Manufactures, the Mechanic Arts, &c., &c., &c., vol. XVIII, no. 3 (March, 1860) and vol. XVIII, no. 5 (May, 1860); and John R. Shaffer, Report of the Secretary of the Iowa State Agricultural Society for the Year 1878 (Des Moines, IA: R. P. Clarkson, 1878).  Horse: Nineteenth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies: To the General Assembly of Ohio, for the Year 1864 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1865).  Cows: The Cultivator, vol. IX, no. 7 (July, 1852), published in Albany, New York; and Royce Shingleton, Richard Peters: Champion of the New South (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985), p. 40.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century Dean Ear Corn Slicer

First patented by George B. Dean in 1884, and reissued in 1887, this corn slicer was made to cut corn cobs into pieces small enough for cattle to eat.¹  In order to use this slicer, a farmer (or helper) dumped cobs of corn onto the chute where the cobs would slide down to the openings in the machine.  As the farmer turned a crank on the side of the slicer, the corn cobs shook down into the openings and were stopped by a metal plate inside which kept them from falling into the machine. The plate, which could be adjusted, held the cob in place allowing a blade, which was connected by gears to the crank, to swing around and cut through the cob.  The metal plate could be moved to allow the blade to cut pieces measuring anywhere from a half-inch to two inches in thickness.  The cut pieces fell down to the bottom of the slicer – part of the bottom chute is visible – where the farmer or helper collected them for cattle feed.  The photograph of the inside of this slicer below might give you a better idea of how this device worked.

The corn slicer you see here was made in Sandwich, Illinois, sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s.  Even though we know where it was made, without clear identification of this exact slicer, we cannot determine which name the company had when this slicer was manufactured. Between 1884 – the patent date for the slicer – and 1900, the company that made this device was called the Sandwich Enterprise Company.  Between 1900 and 1913, the company was called the Enterprise Wind Mill Company.  In 1913, the portion of the company which produced this slicer was purchased by and incorporated into the Sandwich Manufacturing Company.  Unfortunately for us, much of the painted decorations and words which may have helped us to better identify this slicer have been worn away.  All that remains, if you look closely enough, are the words “EAR CORN SLICER” still faintly visible along the bottom of the slicer’s side panels.

The first manifestation of the company which made The Dean Ear Corn Slicer, the Sandwich Enterprise Company, was founded by two brothers with the last name of Kennedy during the winter of 1868-69.  In 1872, the company had a new building constructed, and it began manufacturing its famous Enterprise Wind Mill alongside castings and woodwork for the windmill company in nearby Somonauk, Illinois.²  The company, located across the street from the Sandwich Manufacturing Company, also made feed mills, cultivators, pumps, and hedge trimmers at this time.³  After acquiring the rights to Dean’s patent, the company began making corn slicers like the one here probably by the late-1880s.  By 1900, despite showing several items including the Dean Ear Corn Slicer at the 1898 World’s Fair in Chicago, the company was in default.  On April 16, 1900, the company was sold and reorganized as the Enterprise Wind Mill Company, making not only its namesake windmill but also the Sandwich-Perkins, Climax, and Winner Windmills, as well as corn slicers and many other items.⁴ In 1907, the company employed about twenty-five workers and was beginning to expand its windmill market into Brazil.⁵  In 1913, the company was sold again, this time split up between two acquiring businesses.  One of those businesses, the Sandwich Manufacturing Company obtained the Enterprise plant as well as the department which made the windmills, towers, tanks, and corn slicers.⁶  It is possible that the Sandwich Manufacturing Company made this corn slicer and the large corn sheller next to it here in Stuhr Museum’s display at about the same time.

A 1913 ad showing the Adams Corn
Sheller and the Dean Corn Slicer.

Notes

¹ Dean’s initial patent for this slicer was Patent 309773, issued on December 23, 1884.  You can view and download this patent here.

² The Voters and Tax-Payers of De Kalb County, Illinois Containing Also a Biographical Directory of Its Tax-Payers and Voters; A History of the County and State; Map of the County; a Business Directory; an Abstract of Every-day Laws; Offices of Societies, Lodges, Etc., Etc. (Chicago: H. F. Kett & Co., 1876), p. 121.

³ The Voters and Tax-Payers of De Kalb County, p. 213.

⁴ T. Lindsay Baker, A Field Guide to American Windmills (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), p. 294.  Baker has some slightly different dates for some events found in the present narrative.

⁵ Past and Present of De Kalb County, Illinois, vol. I (Chicago: The Pioneer Publishing Company, 1907), pp. 312-313.

⁶ The Iron Age, vol. 92, no. 1 (July 3, 1913), p. 58.

Late 1890s to Early 1900s Johnston & Linihan Improved Gem Grain Grader Fanning Mill

Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, many farmers on the North American prairie used a fanning mill to help separate, grade, and clean seeds for the new planting season.¹  To separate meant to divide seeds into their various plant species.  To grade meant to sort the seeds to better ensure that the best quality seeds ended up in the ground for the next year’s crop.  To clean meant to remove weed seeds, chaff, and other debris so that only the desired crop seeds were left to be planted.  In order to accomplish the task of separating, grading, and cleaning the seeds, the farmer used a series of boards, screens, and sieves which he placed in notches inside the machine, into a hinged box called the shoe.  The boards, screens, and sieves have wire mesh with different sized spaces between the wires.  You can see examples of a screen and sieve on top of the machine on display.  Depending on the seeds being separated, graded, and cleaned, the farmer could follow the directions which came with the fanning mill, or the farmer could experiment to see which combination of boards, screens, and sieves worked best for the specific job.  As you may notice on the side of this machine, the Gem Grain Grader here has some directions for grading and cleaning certain seeds.

A view looking at the shoe holding several
screens and sieves.

In order to use the fanning mill, the farmer dumped the unsorted and uncleaned seeds into the hopper at the top of the machine and turned the crank handle on the side.  As the crank moved, so did the axle connected to the crank.  As the axle moved so did a series of paddles attached to the axle.  These paddles acted like a fan, creating an air current that blew across the boards, screens and sieves.  As the farmer turned the crank, the boards, screens, and sieves shook inside the shoe, causing the seeds which could fit between the spaces of one screen or sieve to fall down to the next.  The air current blew out light debris and moved around the lighter seeds to aide the sorting process.  By combining the air current with the shaking movement, the fanning mill separated seeds of different weights, shapes, and sizes much faster than a person separating them by hand.  This was a significant change from the hand sorting done by people up into the 1800s and, in many places, 1900s, especially when you consider a 1916 estimate that ‘there are from 700,000 to 1,000,000 wheat berries, about 12,500,000 alfalfa seeds, and as many as 120,000,000 timothy seeds in a bushel.”²  To get a feel for the operation of a fanning mill, along with its sounds, you can view a short video of two men cleaning barley seeds by clicking or touching here.  For a shorter video of a fanning mill being operated without seeds, click or touch here.

A sideview of the fanning mill. You can see the fan with one
of the paddles inside the machine. The wire running across
shakes the shoe as a person turns the crank.

here

The maker of this fanning mill, Johnston & Linihan of Kalamazoo, Michigan, appears to have come into business sometime in the mid-to-late-1890s.  In the 1895 Kalamazoo directory, William Hazel Johnston was listed as a “traveling man,” and Michael E. Linihan was listed as a laborer.³  In the 1899 directory, however, they were listed together as Johnston & Linihan, makers of the Gem Grain Grader.⁴  The 1904 Bradstreet’s Book of Commercial Ratings, Michigan listed them as makers of fanning mills, as did the 1906 Kalamazoo directory and the 1907 Michigan business directory.⁵  Further research is needed to uncover a more detailed identity for this company.  The Gem Grain Grader here at Stuhr Museum was used in the early 1900s on a farm near Gresham, Nebraska.

The worn instructions for setting up this fanning mill to
grade or clean a variety of seeds.

Notes

¹ A good early twentieth century source describing the use of a fanning mill is J. Brownlee Davidson, Agricultural Engineering: A Text Book for Students of Secondary Schools of Agriculture Colleges Offering a General Course in the Subject and the General Reader (St. Paul, MN: Webb Publishing Company, 1916), pp. 282-286.

² Davidson, Agricultural Engineering, p. 282.

³ The 1895 Kalamazoo City Directory pages for William H. Johnston and Michael E. Linihan can be accessed at www.kalamazoogenealogy.org/Directories/1895 Ci/100.htm and www.kalamazoogenealogy.org/Directories/1895 Ci/117.htm, respectively.

⁴ F.A. Corey’s Annual Directory of Kalamazoo City, Comprising a Street and Avenue Guide Together with Corporation, Co-partnership, Residence and Business Directory, vol. XVI (Kalamazoo, MI: Kalamazoo Directory Co., 1899), p. 289.

⁵ Bradstreet’s Book of Commercial Ratings, Michigan, Selected under Specific Agreement, from the General Volume, Which Is Copyrighted (New York: The Bradstreet Company, 1904); Ihling Bros. & Everard’s Kalamazoo City and County Directory, 1906, Comprising Miscellaneous Information Regarding City and County Officials, Churches, Societies, Etc., an Accurate Guide to the Streets of the City, an Alphabetical Record of Names, Occupations and Residences, a Classified List of Business and Professions, Concluding with a Complete Directory of the Villages of the County and the Farmers Owning Property Therein {Detroit: R. L. Polk & Co., 1906), pp. 337, 621; and the Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory also Containing a Business Directory of Windsor and Walkerville, Ontario, 1907-1908 (Detroit: R. L. Polk & Co., 1907), p. 1275.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century Auburn Square Box Buggy

  From the early 1800s to the early 1900s, people on the North American prairie who could afford them used horse-drawn buggies and wagons to venture around their towns or to travel over longer distances, to haul goods around or to enjoy an afternoon ride.  Somewhere on the North American prairie, for example, a farmer and his wife might have ridden in a buggy just like this one into town to attend church or to do some shopping.
 If you look closely at this buggy, you might notice that, in contrast to the Staver single seat buggy next to it, this buggy’s suspension consists of elliptical springs at the front and back instead of springs on the side bars.  You might also note that this buggy has a box shaped body and is painted all black, in contrast to the Staver buggy which has the popular Concord body shape and is black with red side bars, axles, and wheels. Thanks to a metal nameplate on the rear of this buggy, we can identify it as one made by the Auburn Buggy Company in Auburn, Indiana.

During the 1910s, about a decade-and-a-half after automobiles became more widely available to the public, the number of cars and trucks may have passed the number of horse-drawn vehicles on North American roads.  Although the popularity of the horse-drawn buggies and carriages was declining, many people on the North American prairie continued to use them to travel and transport goods into the 1920s and beyond.  Just as many farmers put off purchasing tractors, choosing to continue using their horses to pull and power their farm machinery, many farmers and townspeople on the prairie put off buying an automobile, preferring to ride in their traditional horse-drawn vehicle.  Even after the car replaced the carriage for many families, during the depression of the 1930s, some automobile companies converted gasoline cars into horse-drawn vehicles because the car owners had access to horses but could not afford the fuel and maintenance costs on their cars.

Note the top of the weight on the buggy floor next to the
near side of the buggy body, and the muffler-shaped heater
on the buggy floor near the front of the body.

You probably cannot see it from the walkway, but this buggy has a rather heavy weight on the floor in front of the seat.   This weight was referred to as a hitching or tether weight, although it has also been given a variety of other related names.  The driver of the buggy would use this weight to hitch or tether the horse when he or she was going to be away from the horse and buggy and when there was no hitching post around.  Even though a horse might be able to drag the weight around, the horse’s training along with the feeling of being securely tied to the ground usually kept horses from wandering off.  Weights varied in material - often iron, lead, or wood - as well as in weight and form.  During the late 1800s and early 1900s, a variety of inventive people came up with several weight designs which made tethering the horse easier and made it more difficult for the horse to walk with the weight.

The Horse Review, vol. XXXII, no. 24 (December 12, 1905).

This buggy also has a heater shaped somewhat like a car muffler sitting on the floor near the front.  The riders of this buggy would have used it to keep their feet warm during cold days.  This particular heater is called the Clark Heater, and it was made by the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company of Chicago, Illinois probably sometime in the early 1900s.  In order to create heat, the riders of the buggy would place a fire-heated fuel cake, called a Clark Carbon, into a drawer that would slide into the heater.  The cake was specially made so that it would not emit any flame, smoke, dust, or odor – only heat.  According to a 1903 Automobile Trade Journal article, the heater, which was fourteen inches long and weighed ten pounds, cost $3.50.¹  A dozen cakes cost 75 cents, or one hundred cakes cost $6.00.  According to the article, one cake, which measured 7 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches, would give off continuous heat for fifteen hours, and one-third of a cake would be enough for ordinary purposes.²

From the December, 1917 Hardware Review.

 Founded by John K. Stewart and Thomas J. Clark in 1893 and incorporated in 1897, the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company began by making horse clipping machines.  By the beginning of the 1900s, the company was also making sheep shearing machines, and wagon and buggy heaters.  By 1917, they had also added furnaces, gasoline engines, electric irons, and the Stewart Handy Worker 6-in-1 tool to their products.³

Ad for heaters from the January 3, 1913 Hardware Reporter.

Notes

¹ The Automobile Trade Journal, vol. VII, no. 8 (February 1, 1903). p. 206.

² By 1921, the company had several models of the Clark ranging from $3.00 to $12.00 in price.  By this time, a dozen Clark Carbons cost $1.20, and 100 cost $9.50.  See Hardware Dealers’ Magazine, vol. 56, no. 325 (November, 1921), p. 817.

³ See Hardware Review, vol. 21, no. 4 (December, 1917), for product lists and descriptions.

c. 1903-1915 Henney Buggy Company Two Seated Covered Surrey

(If you have read the nearby Henney buggy's web page, much of the information below is repeated from that entry.)
 John W. Henney, Sr., the founder of the Illinois company that made this surrey, was born in Centre County, Pennsylvania, in 1842, the son of Jacob Henney who was also a buggy maker.  In 1854, John moved west with his family, settling in Cedarville, Illinois where his father set up a new buggy shop.  John grew up around buggies, learning about the business not only from his father in Cedarville but also from other businessmen throughout the region.  In 1864, as the railroads opened up the West to new settlers, John ventured out to Kansas City where he worked in the buggy trade for three years. By 1867, he found himself back in Cedarville taking over his father’s business, a local and not very successful enterprise according to an 1888 biography.¹

 John, however, had the energy and the desire to turn the business into something bigger.  By 1876, he had succeeded in growing his company to the point where he needed to build a larger shop.  At this time he also brought in his brother-in-law, Oliver P. Wright, as a partner.  J. W. Henney & Company, as the business was called at this time, employed about fifteen to twenty men, and Henney became a locally known name.  Wanting to expand business further, in 1879, Henney traveled around the region, visiting cities such as Dubuque, Iowa, and establishing relationships with Mississippi River trading companies.

 As his business continued to grow, Henney decided to move his shop from Cedarville to Freeport, a move which cut out about six miles of road travel each way and gave the company more immediate access to the nearest railroad.  By 1880, the Freeport plant was making about 500 buggies and wagons a year.  It was around this time that J. W. Henney & Company became the Henney Buggy Company, and Henney and Wright were joined by Daniel C. Stover, an inventor and founder of a local bicycle company, as stockholders.  In 1883, as the company expanded production even more, five more men became stockholders.  By 1887, the company was producing over 4,000 buggies and wagons in a year.  Its growth was remarkable.

 Before the turn of the century, however, the company ran into problems.  On June 12, 1898, because of disputes within the ranks of the company, John Henney, Sr. quit.  He stepped down from running the operation of the business; and, in 1900, he left Freeport to manage a Henney sales agency in Kansas City.  In Henney's absence, Daniel Stover, one of the company's other stockholders, leased the company for five years beginning on November 3, 1898.  During those five years, the Henney Buggy Company became the Henney Buggy Company, D. C. Stover & Company, and Proprietors.  At first, the company continued to be strong, producing several thousand vehicles each year; however, by 1902, the Freeport company went into receivership.

 Fortunately for the Freeport plant and its employees, the leaders of a nearby Moline, Illinois, company came to the rescue.  On October 2, 1902, the Moline Plow Company, known for its farm implements, entered into a contract with Stover to purchase all of Henney’s output from November 1, 1902 to July 1, 1903, and to market those vehicles through its head office, branches, and agencies.  Going a step further, on June 3, 1903, the Moline company exercised an option to purchase the Henney company, its factory, patents, and machinery outright.  Moline’s stockholders reorganized the company, taking over on July 20, 1903.  In addition to reorganizing the company, Moline rehired John Henney, Sr., who had recently moved back to Freeport, as superintendent of the plant. Over the next few years, John returned the company to its successful past.

 Around 1906, John W. Henney, Jr. entered the company; and by 1910, he had succeeded his father as superintendent of the Henney plant in Freeport.  Under John, Jr.'s leadership, the Henney plant produced thousands of horse-drawn vehicles for markets throughout the United States.  In 1911, despite the company’s continued success, John, Jr. resigned.  Even without a Henney at the helm, the company continued to be successful, manufacturing thousands of vehicles over the next four years.

 Although buggies continued to sell over those four years, it became apparent to the Moline company’s leaders that the automobile was quickly surpassing the buggy in popularity.  Wanting to keep up with the changing times, in 1915, the Moline Plow Company ceased production of its many models of vehicles at the Freeport plant.  By April, 1916, the company had shifted production from horse-drawn vehicles to the Stephens automobile; and, for the next eight years, the Freeport plant would make the Stephens.

 The year 1915 marked the end of an era for the Henney factory. Over nearly five decades of buggy production, the Henney companies in Cedarville and Freeport manufactured over 200,000 vehicles.  Henney's lines of vehicles grew just as the company's overall output grew.  In 1893, John Henney, Sr.'s company advertised 26 different styles of horse-drawn vehicles.  By 1896, the company had expanded to 49 different styles.  In 1904, under the ownership of the Moline Plow Company, Henney advertised 53 different vehicle styles.  And by 1914, even as the automobile was replacing the horse-drawn buggy on American roads, Moline advertised 98 different styles of vehicle made at the Henney Buggy Company plant.

Even though the Henney factory in Freeport stopped making horse-drawn vehicles in 1915, many Henney vehicle owners continued to travel on their buggies, carriages, and wagons throughout the 1910s and beyond.  Fortunately for those of us living nearly a century after the Freeport plant made this surrey, the Moline Plow Company placed a label on the rear suspension of this buggy.  Pictured below, that label enables us to date this surrey to between 1903, when Moline acquired the Henney factory outright, and 1915, when Moline ended production of the Henney buggies.

Notes

¹ The early part of Henney’s history, especially as it revolved around John W. Henney, Sr. is from Portrait and Biographical Album of Stephenson County, Ill., Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Illinois, and of the Presidents of the United States (Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1888), pp. 468-470.  The remainder of the history here comes from Thomas A. McPherson, The Henney Motor Company: A Complete History (Hudson, WI: Iconografix, 2009), pp. 10-26.  After leaving the buggy factory in 1911, John Henney, Jr. moved to Chicago.  With the help of his father and other partners, John, Jr. started another company in Freeport in 1915, making bodies for funeral coaches, buses, and ambulances.  By the mid-1920s, Henney began making bodies for cars; and, when Moline stopped producing the Stephens and closed the old Henney plant in Freeport in 1924, John, Jr. purchased the plant and moved his newer business into the former Henney Buggy Company facilities.  In 1927, Henney reorganized and renamed his company the Henney Motor Company.  It would become a very successful enterprise, remaining in business until the 1950s.