Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-03-24

epoch making agricultural implement.
Yet his invention, if il can be called
such. came a dozen years after this
Quaker mechanic had put his machine
in use. But his picture has been put
on bank notes over the words. "Inven-
tor of the reaper"
This is set forth in a book called
"Obed Hussey," by Toilette l.. Greene,
who formerly lived in Kansas City. 1t
is a collection of letters and pamphlets
published heretofore by Hussey's
friends and now collected and edited.
Hussey was born in Maine in 1892.
After one or two whaling voyages he
settled in Baltimore, where he became
an expert craftsman and an incessant
worker at different inventions. Among
the devices he made We're steam
pillow, machine for grinding out hooks
md eyes, mill for grinding corncobs,
a husking machine run by horse pow
er, a machine for making artificial ice.
In 1881 he was working in a Baltimore
pillow works on an invention for cutting
grain.
His first reaper was completed at
Cincinnati in 1888, and the principle
CARDS the guards and knives The
scene If its trial was the farm of
Judge Foster, few miles out of the
city. Hussey true to his modest and
shrinking nature, wished to keep it Sc
cret. fearing jeers if it failed. But a
crowd of farmers were on hand to
scott.
The machine was started. but some
part gave way and it failed 10 work.
One burly fellow picked up cradle
and. swinging it with an air of great
exultation, exclaimed: This is the
machine to cut the wheat"
The team was unhitched. and it,
looked like failure. But the merriment
subsidized when the inventor, assisted
by some laborers pulled the machine
to the top of the hill Then, alone,
Hussey drew the queer loGking inple-
ment down the hill and through the
standing grain, cutting every head.
The same machine was exhibited di-
rectly afterward before the Hamilton
County Agricultural Society where it
was pronounced a success BY the side
of a modern reaper Hussey's invention
would look primitive, but it did the
work of harvest faster than the best
farmers could go by hand. Two men
were required. one to drive the team
and one to rake off the wheat as it fell
on platform.
In the years that followed the inven-
tor Travelled from state to state, often
at the invitation of state agricultural
societies. owing to his limited means
the reaper often was drawn from place
10 place by one horse, accompanied by
the inventor footSore and weary from
walking hundreds of miles. This was
in the days before the telegraph or the
railroad, and news, as we'll as men.
travelled slowly. In such humble way
Hussey visited Ohio. Illinois, New
York and Missouri, introducing his de-
vice. But scarcely a farmer could be
found who was willing to adopt it and
it is a matter of history that the final
adoption of the machine led to riots by
farmhands, who feared there would no
longer be work for them to do. He al
so introduced the reaper into England.
In 1885 Hussey brought two of his
machines to Palmyra, Mo-, and they
were bought by William Muldow, of
Marion College for $3.50 each, a great
deal of money in those days. One was
used in a meadow near the settlement
of Philadelphia and the other near
Marion City. According to the Mis-
souri, Courier of that year they were
great success.
A letter from Hussey to his friend,
Edward Stabler, in 1854 gives an IN
sight of the hardships which the gem
.us endured to make his dream come
true. IT, was at the period when he
was involved in defending the extern
sion Of his patents before Congress,
fight which he won. He wrote.
II made no money during the exis-
tence of my patent, or / might say
middle less than / would have made III
I had held an underclerk's position IN
the Patent Office: / would have been
better off at the end of the IA years IL
/ had filled exactly such station as my
foreman holds and got his pay, and
would not have had half the hard
work nor 81 hundredths part of the
heart aching. / never experienced half
the fatigue of rowing after a whale
in the Pacific Ocean (Which l have