{"id":6597,"date":"2020-11-28T19:19:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T00:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6597"},"modified":"2020-11-28T19:23:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T00:23:53","slug":"episode-179-conclusion-of-reaper-stories-grandfathr-skeoch-on-reaper-n-1932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6597","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 179 CONCLUSION OF REAPER STORIES: GRANDFATHR SKEOCH ON REAPER N 1932"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 179         <\/p>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Nov. 2020<\/div>\n

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CONCLUSION  OF REAPER STORIES:  JAMES SKEOCH  ON  REAPER IN 1932.<\/div>\n
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SERENDIPITY:   SURPRISING WHEN SEEMINGLY RANDOM EVENTS  COME TOGETHER IN A MEANINGFUL WAY<\/div>\n

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This final  Episode on the history of  reapers is special to me.  In  1932, the Fergus  News Record published a picture of  my grandfather<\/div>\n
James Skeoch reaping his grain field with an old but still operational reaping machine which owed its existence to the Cyrus MCCormick<\/div>\n
invention a century earlier in 1831.  The copy of the Fergus  News Record is dated  November 10, 1932, and  had  been mailed to his eldest son,<\/div>\n
John Skeoch, who was farming near Keeler, Saskatchewan.  Eventually this  farm covered  3,200 acres.<\/div>\n

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Can you read the stencilled name on this aged IHC W6  tractor.?” McCormick\u201d !   The International Harvester Company made a large  assortment of machines for<\/div>\n
farming.   That began with the McCormick Reaper but did not stop there.  They eventually made tractors\u2026good tractors… short turning featured for small fields.<\/div>\n

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 This International Harvester Tractor , IHC W6, was built in 1953.   Cost $400 at Mr. Smith\u2019s auction<\/div>\n
near Guelph and drove it cross country to our Erin township farm.  I will never forget that trip<\/div>\n
on cold November day.   exhilarating.   Proud owner of one of the great machines of agriculture. A McCormick W6 tractor.<\/div>\n
The road trip was  long  and detour laden.  I thought I was absolutely alone.  Then,  En route, I met our horse,<\/div>\n
Spartacus, running towards me hell ben for election\u2026saddled but no rider.  He was heading to his first home<\/div>\n
and away from ours.   He had a length of rusty barbed wire attached to his tail.  Terrified.  What should I do?  I kept <\/div>\n
driving  and eventually met Marjorie who had been thrown. She corralled  Spartacus eventually.   Why tell you this? Because we<\/div>\n
had continuous rural adventures.  (Spartacus was the son of an estrogen mare whose story will eventually<\/div>\n
become an Episode.)<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s Kevin on my shoulders.  Marjorie made us duplicate clothes.  Behind the tractor is a<\/div>\n
seed drill which is there jus for show.  Like most of my farm machines, it was no longer functional.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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AN APOLOGY TO CYRUS MCCORMICK:<\/div>\n

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Let me start by apologizing to Cryus McCormick and  his corporation.  Remember that lawsuit where Cyrus<\/div>\n
felt he was overcharged  $8.75 for his wife\u2019s baggage on the New York Railroad.   The lawsuit lasted 20<\/div>\n
years.   Made Cyrus look cheap and bull headed.  Perhaps wrongly so.  I did not mention the value<\/div>\n
of $8.75 in today\u2019s cash.  Turns out to be over $300.  Is the collection of that amount worth a  20 year lawsuit?<\/div>\n

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IN my presentation of Cyrus McCormick I may  have miscast him.  For 20 years he fought a court battle<\/div>\n
charging the New York Railroad had overcharged his wife by $8.75.  Today,  November 1920, that amount<\/div>\n
of  money will get you a hamburger, chips and a soft drink.  In short it will get very little.  Hardly worth <\/div>\n
a 20 year court battle.  Right?   Maybe.   But $8.75 in 1850 had over $300 in purchasing power.  ($10 in 1850<\/div>\n
was  worth $333.83 in today\u2019s purchasing power).   I would  still argue the court battle was not worth<\/div>\n
the cost and the energy.<\/div>\n

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So this is  a good time to put all these events together.  The result makes the Skeoch connection seem larger <\/div>\n
than is  warranted.  Way larger.  Keep that in mind.<\/div>\n

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1)  The \u2018goddamn\u2019 rock ruined  Uncle Norman’s Massey Harris combine harvester.  Combine Harvesters remain the<\/div>\n
pinnacle of  grain harvesting technology.  <\/div>\n
2) I researched and wrote a 300 page manuscript on machine designs in agriculture, particularly from 1850 to 1891.  M.A., U. of T., 1975<\/div>\n
3) phone  call from Mellon Bank of New York asking us to restore a (replica)  1832  McCormick Reaper<\/div>\n
4) Many trips to the Ford  Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, where Peter Cousins  was collections curator<\/div>\n
5) Began to research  Patrick Bell, Scottish  inventor of an earlier grain  reaper that was  never patented<\/div>\n
and remained on the Bell farm until purchased by the Science Museum in London, England.  (In storage<\/div>\n
at present but may  be on display in the future)\u2026visit to London, England, to see the Bell Reaper when  it<\/div>\n
was a feature display.<\/div>\n
6) Restoration of the replica  model of the McCormick Reaper with was crated  and  sent air freight<\/div>\n
to the Ulster Folk Museum in Northern Ireland where McCormick was born.<\/div>\n
7) Along the way, I discovered that Patrick  Bell travelled to Fergus, Upper Canada, in 1851 where<\/div>\n
the two Skeoch boys, James and John, (migrated in 1846) were farm boys. I speculated that they may have seen<\/div>\n
each other in Fergus\u2026but never knew each other.  Patrick Bell, by then, was a Christian minister<\/div>\n
and  also a  teacher of children of Adam Ferguson, founder of Fergus.<\/div>\n
8) The Patrick  Bell diaries and notes exist in Scotland but have not been published to my knowledge.<\/div>\n
9) Copy of Fergus  News Record, Nov. 10,1932, features  James Skeoch (my grandfather) using a reaper<\/div>\n
to cut grain.  The machine was considered obsolete by then which made a  news story.<\/div>\n

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 Through the years Marjorie and I have purchased and  stored dozens of machines relevant to<\/div>\n
the history of  agriculture.   We developed a  particular interest in fanning mills because those<\/div>\n
machines could easily fit inside our Ford  Van.   Fascinating history of these machines to come in later episode.<\/div>\n
Fascinating to whom?  Good questio.<\/div>\n
 Around 1990 the North American movie industry became very active in the Toronto<\/div>\n
and region.  Our collection of 19th and 20th century artifacts  began to be demanded which<\/div>\n
led to the incorporation of Skeoch Enterprises Limited.<\/div>\n

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LET US NOT GET SILLY<\/div>\n

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But let us not get silly  The connection  between the great inventors of the 19th <\/div>\n
century like Patrick  Bell and Cyrus McCormick and the Skeoch  farmers is not even<\/div>\n
tenuous.  The connections is as thin as one strand of a spiders web.  <\/div>\n
 We were the users of  machines  like the reaper and the combine harvester.<\/div>\n
We were not the makers.   And  there is one hell  of a difference between inventing and <\/div>\n
making a machine as opposed to buying and using a machine.  Keep that in mind, Alan.<\/div>\n

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 JUST imagine if  your student turned in a 300 page essay for you to mark?   A  copy of my thesis in hand\u2026as bound via Jim Hunter.<\/div>\n

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SOME ILLUSTRATED  COMMENTS <\/div>\n

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THE PATRICK BELL REAPER<\/div>\n

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THE BIG THREE REAPER INVENTORS<\/div>\n

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At a farm sale outside Milton I was able to buy this \u201cSAIL\u201d reaper.  It worked. But is now a pile of scrap iron.<\/div>\n
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It looked better with Kevin sitting on the drivers seat.   Adding a seat to the replica reaper was one improvement.<\/div>\n
This was called a \u2018sail reaper\u2019 because the reel was removed and a sweeping toothed sail of four wooden rakes added.<\/div>\n

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When Cyus McClintick lost his patent monopoly a great man reaper began to appear.  All of them improved as above<\/div>\n

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This will give you some  idea of the variety of reaper manufacturers that appeared in Ontario after the McCormick patent ended.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Nov. 2020<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 179          alan skeoch Nov. 2020 CONCLUSION  OF REAPER STORIES:  JAMES SKEOCH  ON  REAPER IN 1932. SERENDIPITY:   SURPRISING WHEN SEEMINGLY RANDOM EVENTS  COME TOGETHER IN A MEANINGFUL WAY This final  Episode on the history of  reapers is special to me.  In  1932, the Fergus  News Record published a picture of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}