One of the oldest buildings in the oldest planned community in the South Okanagan, Bassett House has housed a museum for close to 40 years. At the south end of the parking lot for the Okanagan Falls Museum, also known as the
Bassett House Museum, is a small and growing collection of farm implements, donated about a week ago by a farmer from Oliver, about 15 or so kliks south of Okanagan Falls. The present collection consists of only of a single gang disc, a Cockshutt No. 21 walk behind plow and this two bottom Plow, likely a McCormick-Deering, but it's young and expected to grow considerably in the future.
While this plow has none of the expected stampings which might reveal its parentage, there is this small logo of an "M" inside a "D", which may well indicate the plow to have been a product of
McCormick-Deering.
With the operating levers angled backward instead of forward, as they would have been for tractor drawn operation, its likely that this plow was designed to be horse drawn. Though it would have required at least a four horse team, in later years this two bottom plow could easily have been pulled by a tractor such as the
McCormick-Deering 15-30 which rests just outside the museum grounds. Earlier "sulky" plows designed to be horse drawn were equipped with a seat for the driver/operator; this example appears to have had one originally as there is an unused mounting location at the rear, likely for an operator's seat.
Essentially complete, including the hitch clevis, this unit could easily be put back to work turning sod, two furrows at a time, should one feel the inclination to do so. As for its age, that's anyone's guess, but turn of the twentieth century would not be far wrong. However, given that
McCormick Harvesting Machine Company merged with the
Deering Harvester Company in 1902, that's as old as this unit could be.
McCormick: 180 years of history and technology
McCormick Farm is the name of the farm in Raphine, Virginia, where Cyrus Hall McCormick founded the McCormick Deering Company back in 1831, revolutionising the world of agriculture with the first mechanical reaper.
The brand created by Cyrus became famous in a short time all over the world, so much so that he himself is mentioned in some history books as “the father of modern agriculture”.
After obtaining a patent for a special plough and a famous reaper in 1834, the young entrepreneur started to focus on providing his implements to the ever-expanding American market. Along with his brothers William and Leander, in 1847 Cyrus from rural Virginia moved to Chicago where he created the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company.
Despite the serious financial loss following the fire that destroyed Chicago and the company’s factory, in 1873 Cyrus inaugurated a new factory, which was immediately brought into full production. The following year it was already able to fulfil over 10 thousand orders.
When in 1902, financier J.P. Morgan facilitated the merger between McCormick Harvesting Machine Company (founded in Chicago in 1847) and Deering Harvester Company, the first major world group in the agricultural machinery sector was born: it was the International Harvester Company (IH), Cyrus H. McCormick Junior was its founder and became its president.
In the early decades of the 1900s, the International Harvester Company inaugurated several production sites for agricultural machinery and implements in Canada and Europe, but it was not until 1906 that its first tractor with powers between 10 and 20 HP saw the light of day.
With the end of World War II, the growing demand for agricultural tractors contributes to the strong production impulse of the European plants in St. Dizier in France, Neuss in Germany and Doncaster in Great Britain.
From McCormick-Deering History