Cyrus Hall McCormick

Cyrus Hall McCormick was born on February 15, 1809, in Walnut Grove, Virginia. Walnut Grove was a small community of farms, twenty miles from the nearest town. Like most homes, Cyrus McCormick's house was made of logs, but larger than the house of Abraham Lincoln (who was born three days earlier in Kentucky).

Cyrus McCormick's father Robert was a farmer and inventor. Robert McCormick thought of the idea of a reaper first. In 1816, he created a design different than his son Cyrus McCormick would eventually make in 1831. The grain mostly always tangled. Robert McCormick tried for fifteen years to invent a harvesting machine before he gave up.

Before the 1830s, there were only three harvesting tools available: the sickle, the scythe, and the cradle. The sickle was a curved knife which required the person stoop to cut each handful of grain. The scythe was a longer less curved blade that allowed the person to stand. The cradle had fingers attached to the scythe that made the wheat fall in one direction.

Cyrus McCormick made the first of his own inventions when he was a teenager. He made a smaller, lightweight cradle. He also invented a hillside plow, and a self-sharpening plow.

In the summer of 1831, 22-year-old Cyrus McCormick prepared his grain harvesting machine for a field test. His family and local farmers came to watch his demonstration. In 1832, Cyrus demonstrated his reaper to one hundred people. The field was uneven, and his reaper did not work right. The owner of the field told Cyrus to remove his contraption. He was saved when a neighboring farmer let him try his invention on even ground. That summer Cyrus exhibited his reaper at the courthouse square.

In 1843, Obed Hussey challenged McCormick to a contest. McCormick agreed. It rained during their first trial, and Hussey's reaper would not cut the wet grain, while McCormick's did. In their second contest, McCormick cut seventeen acres of grain, while Hussey cut two.

McCormick traveled all around the United States, and when he came to Illinois he saw large farms growing more grain than could be harvested. In 1847, McCormick set up his reaper-making factory in Chicago, which was near the large wheat farms of the Midwest. He called for his brothers William and Leander McCormick to come help him with his business in Chicago.

In 1851, he showed his invention at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London and won the Gold Medal. The McCormick Harvesting Machine Company inspired farmers to try new ideas, and they became more efficient. Instead of 90 percent of the United States population farming, now less than 2 percent are farming. Thanks to McCormick's reaper and other inventions, fewer people can feed more people.

The reaper helped a lot during the Civil War, because more men could go to war, and fewer men had to harvest. McCormick's reaper could do the work of six men.

From the 1850s to the 1880s, McCormick made many different improvements to his original reaper. Each improved reaper did more with fewer people.

Cyrus McCormick died on May 13, 1884, at his home in Chicago. McCormick's company later became the International Harvester Company.

Samuel Stowell
USA