The Belleville Thresher: Our Annual Catalogue 1891; Harrison Machine Works, Manufacturers of “Jumbo” Engines, “Belleville” Threshers, Swinging Straw-Stackers, and Dingee-Woodbury Horse-Powers. Originally published by Harrison Machine Works, Belleville, Illinois, 1891.   Reprinted in 1990s by Engineers & Engines magazine, Joliet, Ill. 9½ x 6½ (landscape) paperback, 20 pages.

 

Please note that this is a printed reproduction of the original, NOT a photocopy. The accompanying images were scanned from a reprint, not the original.

 

The origins of Harrison Machine Works have been traced to 1848, when John Cox and Cyrus Roberts combined their resources and talents to build vibrating threshing machines in the central Illinois town of Belleville, Illinois, about ten miles southeast of St. Louis. The venture enjoyed rapid success, as Cox and Roberts had designed developed a thresher that was able to keep the grain and the waste straw clear of the working machinery. Other threshers had to be regularly stopped and cleaned to keep functioning. A patent for the Belleville thresher was granted in October, 1851. Additional improvements were patented in April 1861.

 

In 1855, Cox and Roberts sold their enterprise to Theophilus Harrison, William C. Buchanan, and Frank Middlecoff, who organized the business as Harrison and Company. In 1874, Hugh Harrison and Cyrus Thompson both joined the business, and the name was changed to the Harrison Machine Works. Hugh Harrison and Cyrus Thompson remained leaders of the company until its end in 1927.

 

At the time Hugh Harrison and Cyrus Thompson joined the business, the country was emerging from the economic depression of 1873. With business prospects improving, Harrison and Thompson designed a new steam traction engine, the first of which was built by March 1874, when it was showed off to the town in a parade, followed by all 200 Harrison Machine Works employees. 

 

The company did well until 1926, when the declining national farm economy severely depressed sales of farm machinery. The stock market, of course, would follow and collapse three years later. Completely misreading the future, the officers of Harrison Machine Works ignored the development of gas engine tractors, and in September, 1927, purchased four acres of property on East Main Street to construct a new factory for building its steam traction engines. The onset of the Great Depression sealed the company’s fate, though the company struggled on until 1937.