St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-05-14
CYRUS H. MCCORMICK.
Death of the Inventor of the American
ReaDer.

CHICAGO, May 13,-Cyrus H. Mccormick, head
of the great harvester manufacturing company
and supposed to be one of the richest men in
Chicago, died in this city this morning, agen rs
years. He has been an invalid for number of
years.
MIR. Mccormick was born in 1909, at Rock
bridge county, Virginia. He was a son of
Robert r. Mccormick, the farmer who invented
the original reaper in 1916, but afterward aban-
doned it, owing to its imperfections The de-
ceased brought the invention to d successful
completion in 1881, when twenty-one years old
For this invention he was elected by the French
institute as u member of the academy of sciences
and received the decoration of the cross of the
legion of honor. In politics he was Democrat,
and has been prominent i'll his party member
of the national committee. He founded and lib
orally endowed the theological seminary of the
northwest conducted under the auspices OF the
Presbyterian church, and also endowed profess
sorship in Washington and Union theological col
leges of Virginia.
Especial Telegram to the Globe.
CHICAGO, May 13.-Mr. Mccormick was born
February IS, 1909, in Rockbridge county, Va.
His father waf farmer, and both his brother
and mother were natives of Virginia and of
Scotch-1rish descent. In the year 1916, the
elder Mccormick built reaping machine, but so
great are the improvements made by Cyrus that
he was considered justly entitled to be called the
''father of the reaping machine Young Nc
Cormick commenced his career as an inventor at
the age of twenty three years. Witnessing at the
that age the failure of his fathers machine to
cut any but straight and untangled grain
he set to work, and making use of several en-
tirely original principles, among which were the
reciprocatng cutting knife, the gathering reel to
lean the grain against the cutting box and an
improved divider to divide the standing grain
from the swath, achieved very fiattering sue
cess. The earlier reaping machine was pushed
in front of the propellngp over Cyrus II. Nc
Cormick the first to devise means of at
taching this power in front, thus overcoming one
of the most serious obstacles his predecessors
had met with. In all the public
trials of the machines of competing
inventors Mccormick gained the certificate of
superiority. Mr.. Mccormick moved to Chicago
in 1S47, and has since resided herey$ He con-
tinued foremost in the field of inventions of har-
vesting machinery, and in 1851 he received the
council medal for the most valuable article con-
tributed to the London Worlds fair He re-
ceived the grand gold medal of the Paris exposi-
>tion, and the same prize at Syracuse, N Y, in
1857, after nine days trial of his machine In
1862 he was awarded the prize medal at the Lon
uoH literhallonal eXpos1tlon, and IN 1868 received
the decoration of chevaler of the
order of the Legion of Honor.
Mr.. Mccormick became..a member of the Presby-
terian chnrch in 1886. and was, up to the time of
his death, an active member, being connected in
Chicago with the Fourth Presbyterian church
He founded and endowed the Presbyterian Theo-
logical summary of the northwest, and to that he
made his last public bequest of 100000. He
also made large donations to the Union Theolog-
ical seminary, of Virginia, and was the proprie-
tor of the Presbyterian journal called The Inter-
or Mr.. Mccormick leaves fortune estimated
at $40, ,O0O,O0