Hussey's American Reaper
Obed Hussey
WHO, OF ALL INVENTORS,
MADE BREAD CHEAP
Being a true record of his life and struggles to introduce his greatestinvention, the reaper, and its success, as gathered from pamphletspublished heretofore by some of his friends and associates, andreprinted in this volume, together with some additional facts andtestimonials from other sources.
EDITED BY
FOLLETT L. GREENO
1912
COPYRIGHTED 1912
BY FOLLETT L. GREENO
PREFACE
Every step in the progress of modern achievement has been met withstrong resistance and hostile contest. There is in business an actualfiring line where continuous conflict wages, and so fierce does thestruggle become that it requires a certain class of men possessingqualities, not only of energy and perseverance, but of tenacity andcombativeness, aggressive and determined to fight to the last ditch forcommercial supremacy. Such men do not always rely upon the merits oftheir cause, nor do they stop to question the justice or injustice oftheir methods. They have but one goal, commercial supremacy, and everyeffort is bent and every man and method utilized to attain that end.
Men of inventive genius are rarely of that type. They are more oftenunassuming and averse to anything like a personal combat. Such a man wasObed Hussey, inventor of the reaper. Honest and conscientious, enured tohard and unremitting toil, with the inspiration of a new idea for thebenefit of mankind burning in his brain, he applied himself in the faceof immense difficulties to the production and perfection of the greatgift which he gave to the world. He was a man at once so humble and sobroad in his kindness, so loyal to his Quaker ideals of righteousnessand justice, that he offered no protests, or arguments against hisrivals and opponents other than the superiority of his own machine. Onlyhis great genius which produced the superior machine (a fact which noone could possibly contradict) could have saved him from the fierceopposition of his more powerful rivals. One has only to read from someof his own letters reproduced in this narrative, to witness the fairnessof his attitude, or to gain a knowledge of his scruples.
Yet it was just this which has operated to deprive Obed Hussey ofhis well deserved fame as inventor of the reaper. Moreover, a greatindustry, fostered by his opponents in the patent controversy, has grownup, the basis and life of which is Obed Hussey's invention of thereaper. It would seem that the vast fortunes made from this industryshould be ample reward for those who are receiving the benefits of aman's life work without whose genius it would never have been.
In 1897 there was published in Chicago a booklet entitled "A BriefNarrative of the Invention of Reaping Machines," a large part of whichis reproduced in this book. The pamphlets of which the narrative was arepublication were from the pen of Edward Stabler, an able man and amechanic of great skill and ability, a close friend of Mr. Hussey andone familiar with his reaper and with all the facts which he set forthin these articles. Such other facts and information as are publishedherein were furnished by Martha Hussey, daughter of Mr. Hussey, nowliving and by my uncle, Hon. Alexander B. Lamberton, who married Mr.Hussey's widow. Mr. Lamberton is a man of high standing, having for manyyears taken an active part in the affairs of Rochester. He was Presidentof the Rochest