McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY MUSEUM
By Euleen Rickard
Interest in the article on wheat threshing continues to bring phone calls and e-mails with information that will be added to the files of the museum. On steam engine owner Ewell Rex we have learned that he had a helper named Roy Bishop who worked as “water boy” keeping water in the engine. Also that census records show that he at the age of fifteen, was living in the home of a man by the name of George Bridge.
Another story was that when the James Gresham Memorial Bridge was finished in 1928 the builders tested it by running a steam engine over it before cars or people were allowed on it.
Recently on e-bay an old photo of a Peerless steam engine tractor pulling a six-gang plow sold for $135.00. The seller stated that the “Geiser Manufacturing Company in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania introduced the “Peerless” steam engine in 1881 to compete with the Frick Manufacturing steam engine, the “Eclipse.” In 1889 Deere and Company (later John Deere) manufactured a six-gang plow pulled by a steam engine tractor. The plow was able to do the work in one hour that a horse could do in a day.”
The Antique Week newspaper of October 20, 2003 had an article on the 38th Tri-state Engine and Tractor Show that was held at the Jay County Fair Grounds on August 20-24 at Portland, Indiana. In that show they had over 60 large engines of 15 horsepower that dated from the early 1900s. There were 449 vintage farm tractors, ten steam engines, 340 garden tractors, 240 model tractors built from other engines, 101 model engines and 36 antique trucks and cars. They claim it is the largest show of its kind in the world.
The article reminded me of three McLean County men Stewart Lee, Vaden Troutman and Elza “Dodge” Taylor who were named “Old Steam Men of the Year” by the Tennessee-Kentucky Threshermen’s Association in Adams, Tennessee back in 1982.
Stewart Lee had worked with steam engines most of his life. In his early life he worked in the oil fields on steam drilling rigs. He operated several different makes of traction engines but liked the J.I. Case engine best. Later his son Tommy worked with him. Tommy recalled for author Arthur P. Brigham who wrote for The Iron-Men Album Magazine, “My first job was cleaning the ash pan on Daddy’s engine; it was a dirty job but I was tickled pink to do it for my dad.”…”any time he let me hold the throttle I was thrilled to death.” Stewart Lee owned a 65 HP Case and steamed tobacco beds for more than forty years. Their last year of steaming plant beds was 1975; chemicals had taken over as a way to sterilize tobacco plant beds.
Elza “Dodge” Taylor was a sawmill man. He steamed tobacco beds but was best known for his steam powered saw mill. He used two steam engines to operate the business.
Vaden Troutman never owned a steam engine but was always fascinated with them. He worked with gasoline powered engines and attended steam engine shows for years.
All three men were from the Buel community and were life-long workers with and admirers of that long-ago power of its day, the fascinating steam engine.
The museum has some articles, pictures and slides of wheat threshers and wheat threshing days on farms of McLean County but there must be many other pictures and stories, perhaps in trunks or scrapbooks that could be added to the collection. Let us know if you have pictures or articles; we will be glad to copy them and return your originals.