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Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884)

t the age of 22, Cyrus McCormick created the first grain grain. The reaper embodied the principles essential to all subsequent
harvesting machine in the United States: the horse-drawn grain-cutting machines.
Amechanical reaper, which made it possible to harvest large fields For farmers in the early 19th century, harvesting required a large
faster and therefore increase crop yields. He had done what his father, labor pool, especially during planting and harvesting seasons. If a farm
an inventor, could not after almost two decades of trying and failing. In had insufficient hired or enslaved workers for a harvest, the farmer
the process, he revolutionized agriculture production, here in the U.S. faced crop losses or the high cost of new laborers during peak demand.
and around the world. When tested on a neighbor’s farm in 1832, McCormick’s reaper
demonstrated it could cut six acres of oats in one afternoon, the
equivalent work of 12 men with scythes.
McCormick’s reaper demonstrated that the yield of a farmer’s fields
did not have to be limited to the amount of labor available. He offered
it to farmers for $50 (or $1,360 today) but had no takers. “It’s a
contraption that is seemingly a cross between a wheelbarrow, a chariot,
and a flying machine,” observed one.
Hand cutting had worked well enough for 4,000 years, skeptics
reasoned, and who knew what the unintended consequences of this
newfangled machine might be?
The machine had defects, not the least of which was a clatter so loud
that enslaved people were required to walk alongside it to calm the
frightened horses, but it showed promise and possibility. McCormick
was granted a patent for his reaper on June 21, 1834.

An early illustration of the McCormick Reaper, 1847

A Farming Life
Cyrus McCormick was born on February 15, 1809, in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the eldest of eight children born to
Robert McCormick Jr. (1780–1846) and Mary Ann “Polly” Hall
(1780–1853). Robert McCormick owned huge farms as well as two
grist mills, two sawmills, a smelting furnace, a blacksmith shop, and a
distillery. And, he was an inventor and tinkerer of tools. With a
first-hand understanding of the problems facing farmers, he used his
skills and resources to invent several practical farm implements, yet
building a successful reaping machine was out of his reach. Robert saw
the potential of the design for a mechanical reaper and even applied for
a patent to claim it as his own invention, but after 28 years he was McCormick catalog covers from 1882 and 1887
unable to reproduce a reliable and commercially viable version.
Growing up, Cyrus’ formal education was limited. Reserved, McCormick was not the first to apply for a patent for a commercially
determined, and serious-minded, he spent most of his time in his viable reaper, but his mechanical approach to thrashing wheat was a
father’s workshop. Like his father, Cyrus understood the concept and new take on the idea. A few machines based on a design of Patrick Bell
benefits of a mechanical reaper, and in 1831 at the age of 22 decided to of Scotland (which had not been patented) were available in the United
try his hand at building his own version, aided by Jo Anderson, an States at this time but the Bell machine was pushed by horses. The
enslaved African-American on the McCormick plantation. McCormick design was pulled by horses and cut the grain to one side
Cyrus’ first successful reaper resembled a two-wheeled, horse-drawn of the team.
chariot. The machine consisted of a vibrating cutting blade, a reel to Off to a promising start but with no commercial take-up,
bring the grain within its reach, and a platform to receive the falling McCormick put the reaper aside and focused on his chief interest at

18 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles