James P. McPherson husking for Mr. Lester, Springdale,Wisconsin, 1851

Husking for Mr. Lester – in the afternoon fell across the tumbling rod – got caught by the coupling pin and was carried around the roll 2 or 3 times. Escaped with bruises on my legs and side and the tops of my pants & drawers.



The above was the entry of October 7, 1851, in the diary of James P. McPherson. According the diary, McPherson had worked for Daniel Lester since November, 1850. There was also a number of visits between the two men and one time Mr. and Mrs. Lester came to visit at the McPherson house. On this October day, he was again working for Mr. Lester when the accident occurred. Although he did not mention the incident involved with husking corn in future entries, the notation "escaped with bruises" made me wonder about the type of machines that he and his friends and neighbors used. 

When James P. first wrote of assisting neighbors with husking, I thought the scene might be similar to the one below, in which the farmers were husking the corn by hand.  That might, indeed, have been the situation on some of the farms, or they might have hauled a wagon-load of corn to the corn cribs, where they the would do the husking  before throwing the ears in the crib to dry.

Hand-Husking in the Field
THE IOWA AGRICULTURIST For the Farm, Garden, and Household
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It is more likely that the corn husker that my great great great grandfather McPherson was working on when he sustained the "bruises" was similar to the hand-powered corn husker shown below.  As you can see, the wheel and gears are unguarded and a man could easily be caught by turning wheels, gears, rods, and such. While being “carried around the roll 2 or 3 times” must have been scary, it seems as though the wheel on a hand-turned husker could have been stopped more quickly, but perhaps centrifugal force was enough to keep the fly wheel turning for a couple of rounds – or perhaps it just felt like “2 or 3 rounds.”

1850 Hand-Cranked Corn Husker
THE IOWA AGRICULTURIST For the Farm, Garden, and Household
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McPherson made no mention of the husker being powered by horses and in those days he was usually quite specific when someone's horse or oxen was being used. Therefore it seems unlikely that they would have been using the next generation of huskers or threshers, which were powered by horses turning the wheels, such as the horse driven treadmill as shown below:

Horse-Powered Thresher
THE IOWA AGRICULTURIST For the Farm, Garden, and Household
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In the days when corn and grains were planted, cultivated and harvested by hand, it has been estimated to have required 250 to 300 labor-hours to produce 100 bushels. The labor hours were reduced in the mid 1800s by more than half, only 75 to 100 labor hours per 100 bushels of grain.  By 1890, the increasing mechanization of farm equipment, and fertilization techniques, that same amount of wheat or corn needed only 50 to 35 labor-hours. A significant portion of the more efficient farming techniques came from the mechanization of the harvest machinery.

For thousands of years, grain was separated by farmers beating the grain stalks with flails. Hard and time consuming work. Beating the stalks with flails was replaced in the late 1700s and early 1800s by the early hand-powered threshing machines, such as the one shown below:

Early Threshing Machine, circa 1830
The Emigrant Ship
www.foxearth.org.uk

The men in the picture are turning the crank by hand and appear to be using a lever device to feed the stalks into the machine. In this picture, a woman is seated on the machine itself to feeding straw into the cutting blades. Although this was rather dangerous work, women and children did this sort of task, leaving the men to do the more strenuous tasks.

The next picture shows the improvement made in threshing machines. Although this type of thresher could be hand-powered, it was increasingly powered by horses on a treadmill to turn the gears and wheels, or a larger set-up by which the horses walked around in a circle, turning gears, fly-wheels and belts to drive the machinery.

 1851 Threshing Machine.
Illustrated London News. 1851.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

The following diagram of an early thresher shows the general working parts of the machine. The grain stalks are fed in through the front, moved along on a conveyor to the turning “flail” which separates the grain from the stalks. The grain either drops through to the floor or stationary threshers, or held in a drum for off-loading in field threshers; the refuse stalks are fed on out the back of the machine and used for animal feed, bedding, or plowed back into the ground for fertilizer. There are many moving parts – gears, fly-wheels, belts, conveyors, fast turning and sharp flails – which could easily cause serious injury or death.

A HURD CORN HUSKER AND SHREDDER

Courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture

http://saltofamerica.com/contents/displayArticle.aspx?19_291

 

By the turn of the twentieth century, the increasing number and seriousness of injuries caused by these types of threshers and huskers heralded a concern for making the machinery more safe. Even in the last half of the 19^th century, when we read of the harvesting done by James P. McPherson and his friends and neighbors in Springdale, harvesting was a dangerous job – gears, belts, fly-wheels have no safety coverings, ever open to drawing a person into the machinery and potentially causing serious injuries.   Nonetheless, there was a certain camaraderie when neighbors and friends came together to harvest one another's fields.

1896 Threshing Machine and the Crew
The Mitchel County Press and The Osage News Consolidated Osage, Iowa
June, 21, 1956, Vol. 91, No. 25

Although the following newspaper descriptions of threshing machine accidents are from England, there was very little difference in the machines used in the U.S.  The Drum Roll, Interpreting Threshing Machines in Rural Life Museums (http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/assets/drums_roll.pdf) has a number of nineteenth century newspaper articles about threshing accidents which give all of the gory details, as well as reflecting how injuries were viewed by the general population, reporters, and judges. As the injuries became more prevalent and serious, one can see a subtle change. The injured party or family filed suit against the employer and in an 1853 account, the jury gave a subtle nod to the employer's responsibility for safety issues.

1811 November 27^th from The Bury & Norwich Post reflects the beginning awareness of the dangers associated with the “recent inventions:”

(The Bury & Norwich Post - 1811 November 27^th ) “There has not been any recent inventions by which human calamity has been produced as by the new implement called the thrashing machine and this in greater measure arises from unskilfulness of those employed to work it and are often ignorant of the powers of mechanism.We notice that Mr Arthur Brooks of Horringer had a very narrow escape within the last few days as the whole of his clothes, even his shirt was torn from his back and had not his men stopped the machine with such promptitude there would have been loss of limbs and probably his life. It would therefore be prudent to prohibit the use of the implement under penalty unless attended by a skillful mechanic.” 

 
In the 1850s, the threshing machines were more often powered by horses and the injuries could be more severe as there was more “horse power” and it took more time to stop the horses. The two following examples are from the 1850s:


(The Bury & Norwich Post, April 19^th, 1854)“On Saturday last as a poor woman named Ashman was attempting to step over the spindle of a threshing machine at Aldersfield Hall, Wickhambrook, her garments became entangled and in attempting to save herself, her right thumb was drawn in by the wheels in front of the machine and so much injured as to render amputation necessary.”


(The Bury & Norwich Post -February 16th 1853)“Inquest at Suffolk Hospital at Bury on David Scates, labourer, aged 25, in the employ of Mr Samuel Payne of Hawstead, who on the previous Monday was engaged in moving straw from the threshing machine when the spindle caught his frock and wound him round and before the horses could be stopped, he dashed his head on the floor of the barn, he was removed to Bury Hospital but died in three hours. The jury expressed a hope that Mr Payne would erect a cover over the spindle.”



As the technology increased, so the potential for a greater number and more severe injuries also increased, as noted by the following newspaper accounts:



(Stamford Mercury – 6^th September 1867) “Girl named Eliza Stocks, aged 16 … had been cutting bands upon the stage, and when they had just finished a smart shower of rain drove the men to take shelter, and some loose straw was thrown over the drum hole and the steam partly shut off. The girl had forgotten her knife, and on returning for it appears that she put her foot through the straw … her foot was caught by the drum, which dragged in her leg, smashing it to atoms, and the machine was not stopped until it reached her thigh, then it brought the works to a stand … it was more than 10 minutes before the poor suffering creature could be extricated … Every attention was shown to her by neighbors and the messengers posted off for medical assistance, and the limb was amputated … the poor sufferer died at 3 o'clock the following morning.”


(Suffolk Free Press – September 24^th 1868) “there was a fatal accident on the premises of Mr. Tomas Green at Acton Hal on Friday afternoon. A man named Neave aged about 68 years from some cause slipped and his foot became entangled in the steam threshing machine. Medical aid was summoned and was quickly on hand, Mr. Jones the surgeon thought it necessary to amputate the foot but the shock was too much for the poor fellow and he died. Accidental death.”


(Suffolk Free Press – June 17^th 1908) “A shocking accident occurred at Hole Farm, Finchingfield. Harry Coote, 26, a Toppesfield man was feeding the threshing with beans, he left the feeder to get a fork from E. Cook who was on the fore part of the machine, upon returning Coote slipped and stepped on to the revolving drum, he was immediately drawn in by the left leg and his lower body was torn away and smashed to pulp, he died without speaking.”


After looking at  the types of threshing and husking machines that were used, as well as the injuries that resulted from using these machines, my ancestor James P. McPherson was very fortunate that he was not more seriously injured. When I read the descriptions of injuries resulting from threshing and harvesting accidents, I was also surprised that McPherson and his friends and neighbors did not sustain a greater number of incidents.   Now a simple phase, "threshed or husked for ..."  will certainly have greater impact when I read future entries in J.P. McPherson's diary.

RESOURCES:

www.foxearth.org.uk/
 www.The Mitchel County Press and The Osage News Consolidated Osage, Iowa,June, 21, 1956, Vol. 91, No. 25
www.victorianweb.org

http://saltofamerica.com/

THE IOWA AGRICULTURIST For the Farm, Garden, and Household, www.uni.edu/iowahist

 Drum Roll, Interpreting Threshing Machines in Rural Life Museums, http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/assets/drums_roll.pdf  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshing_machine 

 

 

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 © Joan G. Hill, Roots'n'Leaves Publications