This farmer is using a cradle to cut wheat. Until the advent of the
reaper, harvesting wheat was done by hand with implements like
the one shown here.

Cyrus Hall McCormick: Reaper Man

Julie Volkman
Belleville Township High School West, Belleville

The invention of the reaper by Cyrus Hall McCormick sparked a mechanical revolution in agriculture. Farmers needed a practical way to harvest large crops of wheat.

McCormick was born on February 15, 1809, at Walnut Grove, a small farm near Steele Tavern, Virginia. He was the first-born child of Robert and Mary Ann McCormick. At an early age, Cyrus was deeply influenced by his mother, who inspired him to make a place for himself in the world.

Cyrus started out as an inventor in Rockbridge County, Virginia. At the age of fifteen, he invented a light cradle to help him compete with the adults in the harvest fields.

In 1831 he demonstrated the first successful grain reaper during a public trial on a field near his hometown. For the invention, Cyrus utilized the six elements essential to all reapers: a straight knife to cut the grain; fingers or guards to prevent the grain from slipping sideways; a revolving reel to hold the grain against the knife; a platform behind the knife to receive the cut grain; shafts to provide a forward draft; and a divider on the left side to separate the cut and uncut grain. McCormick did not originate those six principles. His contribution was a master wheel that would carry weight and provide the necessary power. Thus, he added the seventh component of the reaper. By combining the seven principles, Cyrus assembled the first successful reaper.

News of Cyrus's reaper trials was delayed. When Mechanic Magazine published an article in April 1834 claiming that Obed Hussey had made a reaper and had acquired a patent on it, McCormick was encouraged to seek his own patent. That was possible because Hussey's reaper varied distinctly from McCormick's. In place of the revolving reel, Hussey's reaper required a man to ride the reaper and to pull the stalks toward the knife with a rake. McCormick's patent was issued on June 21, 1834.

In 1835 Cyrus's father gave him a small farm located nine miles from Walnut Grove. Cyrus ventured into a business partnership with his father for the sale of iron furnaces. Cyrus hoped to raise money

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for the materials and expenses needed for improvements of his grain reaper. McCormick built an iron furnace, but the economic depression of 1837 forced him to sell the furnace. Due to his salesmanship and demonstrations, his reaper began to sell. In 1843 Cyrus set a price of $100 per reaper and sold seven. In 1844 twenty-nine reapers were sold. The next year fifty-eight reapers were sold and shipped to other states. However, a transportation problem developed, and reapers often arrived too late for harvest. Cyrus realized that he needed to select agents to build the reapers by his pattern and sell them to nearby farms. Cyrus established the necessary connections in 1845 with Backrus Fitch and Co., of Brockport, New York, and A. C. Brown of Cincinnati, Ohio, to sell reapers in upper New York state and Ohio. At thirty-eight years of age, McCormick moved to Chicago, Illinois, where farmers wanted reapers, men wanted jobs, and the lakes and rivers were suitable for shipping. In Chicago he entered into a partnership with C. M. Gray for the manufacturing of reapers, and a factory was erected on the north bank of the Chicago River. The brick building stood three stories high. Inside, a steam engine operated saws, lathes, planing machines, and grinding stones. During the next eight years, forty machines were produced daily. McCormick's Virginia Reaper held a prominent place at the Great American Prairie exhibit at the World's Fair in London. McCormick was awarded a gold medal for "the excellence and originality of the reaper." As a result of that fame, Cyrus traveled to European countries to survey farming conditions and to study the adaptation of the reaper to European fields. After several years of court action and by purchasing other's patent rights, he began to dominate world trade in the grain reaper.

McCormick's demonstration of his reaper convinced the doubtful onlookers that his invention worked. He took orders immediately after the first exhibition.

McCormick's factory was completely destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire on October 9, 1871. Cyrus, at age sixty-six, moved the reaper business to a new plant. McCormick bought or licensed new patents from inventors to update the machinery. McCormick's business continued to grow. Although his factory was destroyed, McCormick bought or licensed new patents to update his product. When he died in 1884, he numbered among Chicago's foremost businessmen, and his legacy, the reaper, was found on farms around the world.—[From John Tebble, An American Dynasty and Clara Ingrain Judson, Reaper Man. ]

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