Hamilton, Ohio's Contributions to Agricultural Steam Power
March/April 1997
Dr. Robert T. Rhode
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Front of Owens, Lane, Dyer & Company advertising card.
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3982 Bollard Avenue Cincinnati, Ohio 45209-1716
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Reflecting on conditions in the late teens, The
Republican-Newsof Hamilton, Ohio, reported, 'The smoke
from hundreds of factories, mills and machine shops indicates
clearly that a considerable business is being transacted here; the
thousands of men who daily find employment in the hundreds of
industries attest to the city's power as an industrial
center... [The products of its shops...will be in demand as long as
the industrial world revolves on its axis' (48). In actuality,
Hamilton had been a hub of technological activity since the 1850s.
When The Republican News commented on Hamilton's
importance, steam engines, threshing machines, and other
agricultural implements had been steadily issuing from
Hamilton's foundries for over two generations.
Job E. Owens provided the opening chapter of Hamilton's
agricultural steam history. Owens was born in Morgan shire, Wales,
in 1819 (General Machinery Corporation 10). He arrived in
newly settled Columbus, Ohio, in 1824, moved to Hamilton in 1845,
and founded the firm of Owens, Ebert & Dyer in that year. He
established his works on the southeast corner of Fourth and Heaton
Streets immediately west of the canal fed by the Miami Rivera
fortunate choice of locations because, later, the Cincinnati,
Hamilton & Dayton Railroad was built near the canal, passing
along the west side of his shops, and, later still, the
Pennsylvania Railroad erected a trestle along the canal. Owens'
new foundry 'made nearly everything in metal,' with iron
and coal shipped down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh and up the
Miami and Erie Canal to Hamilton.
In the mid-1840s, a depression had concluded, announcing a
decade of prosperity. In February of 1846, Owens won the contract
to create the iron portions of a new jail. Business took off
running, and, in 1847, the growing firm was reorganized and renamed
Owens, Lane, Dyer & Company (Kessling). The factory built
'iron castings, moldings and iron stoves...By 1853, they were
producing steam engines and papermaking machinery. In the 1860s and
'70s, they became known for their steam threshers and other
farm machinery.' At the time of the Civil War, the firm's
agricultural products and mill gearing were being marketed under
the trade name 'Eclipse,' not to be confused with the Frick
Company of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, which, according to a Frick
catalogue, was using the Eclipse trademark for portable engines by
1874.
On early models of portable and skid engines designed by the
Eclipse Machine Works of Hamilton, Ohio, the steam dome resembled a
teakettle on a constricted pedestal. The cylinder clung to the side
of the boiler beside the firebox, and the crankshaft ran across the
smoke box end. Although the Eclipse engines were as popular as they
were, Owens, Lane, Dyer & Co. anticipated the development of a
traction engine. In 1873, the firm experimented with a chain drive
(Norbeck 196); however, in 1874at about the time the name
changed to Owens, Lane & Dyer Machine Company the manufacturer
brought out a radically redesigned traction engine with gear drive,
a tilted cylinder near the smoke box end, piston and connecting
rods on an incline toward a massive flywheel with a diameter larger
than the driver wheels, and a pair of belt pulleys on a shaft
across the smoke box door. Billed as a 'traction or road
engine,' this new machine and its chain-driven predecessor gave
Hamilton a mark of distinction: '...Job E. Owens was presented
with a Gold Medal for the first traction engine built west of
Pittsburgh.' [General Machinery Corporation 10.) Owens
accomplished this honorable feat by the slimmest of margins, as
companies like C. & G. Cooper of Mount Vernon, Ohio, were
experimenting with traction at almost the same time.
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