Canada's American-Owned American-Abell Engine & Thresher Company

Image Gallery American-Abell Engine & Thresher Company's "Toronto Advance" separator with the Maplebay wind stacker folded.

In 1902 the Advance Thresher Company and the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company jointly purchased the John Abell plant in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and renamed it the American-Abell Engine & Thresher Company Limited.

Although American owned, the new company immediately adopted the policy of “Canadian-made goods for Canadian users” and continued without interruption to build the threshing machinery formerly manufactured by the John Abell Engine & Machine Works Company.

John Abell’s “Toronto Advance” separator had been well received in Western Canada and was improved by the addition of the Maplebay wind stacker with wooden chute followed by the Cyclone rear-driven blower with metal pipe and the Parsons self-feeder. In the East, where all kinds of grain are grown, it was not so popular, so, in the late 1890s John Abell designed a new separator for Ontario. This machine featured a revolving grain carrier instead of the oscillating grain deck, and had the straw decks made in four sections which were hung on pivots at the outer ends and given a nicely balanced motion by a center crank shaft connected to the inner ends.

About this time the press was featuring the exploit of Lance Corporal Findlater of the Gordon Highlanders who won the Victoria Cross at the assault on the Dargai Hill in Northern India, on October 20th, 1897, where, shot through both legs, he sat through the hail to bullets and continued to cheer his hard-pressed comrades with the stirring tune “Cock O’ the North” on his bagpipes. John Abell was impressed and named his new separator the “Cock O’ the North” and incorporated the story and illustrations of the epic feat in his catalog. The American-Abell firm went further by adopting a game rooster on a stump as its trade mark and calling their output the “Cock o’ the North” line. The American-Abell engines had the figure of a rooster cast in the smoke box door.

For a few years the new owners continued to build the “Toronto Advance” and the “Cock o’ the North” separators and a full line of American-Abell “Advance” and “Compound” portable and traction engines. The simplest engines had a spring mounting similar to the U.S. built Advance of the same period and were equipped with the Marsh reverse gear and double-ported balanced valve. For the Western trade the simple engines were built in the 14, 16, 18, 22 and 26 hp sizes and the cross-compounds 22 and 28 hp, and were mounted on John Abell Patent End-Fed Straw Burning Boilers. The flues extended back two feet and a half into the firebox of the boiler giving the engines, especially the compounds, a short stubby appearance. Those in the smaller sizes built for the East had regular wood-burning fireboxes and diamond top smoke stacks and looked better proportioned.