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
, 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 a two bottom Plow, likely a McCormick-Deering, a single gang disc and this Cockshutt No. 21 walk behind plow, but it's young and expected to grow considerably in the future.
While the iron parts of the plow are in excellent condition, the wooden handles are showing their age, with the right already somewhat shorter than the left.
It's pretty difficult to date something like this; it could have been manufactured from 1877 on.
A Chronicle by Wm. H. Cockshutt
Cockshutt Farm Equipment Limited manufactured and sold high quality farm machinery across Canada, several American states, and around the world for more than 85 years. It all started because a young man had a dream that he could make better plows. The young man was James G. Cockshutt, son of Ignatius Cockshutt, a wealthy merchant whose high principals and astute financing, contributed to the success of the company. To his initial dream, James added energy, innovation, and pride of workmanship, resulting in the production of superior implements for Canadian farmers.
James Cockshutt opened up his little shop, called The Brantford Plow Works, in 1877, producing stoves, scufflers, and walking plows. He said he would make every item so well that its reputation alone would make the company grow. The next year he purchased a license to make the Wiard Junior Malleable Beam plow which the company sold, unchanged, for 53 years. James began to invent new models with more efficient chilled iron mouldboards and shares. Five years later a sales brochure stated that The Brantford Plow Works was the only plow maker in the Dominion who have yet sold or exhibited Sulky Plows of their own manufacture. One model, the J.G.C. Riding Plow, was so popular that it became known as the plow that opened the west.
Unfortunately James died from tuberculosis a few months before his J.G.C. patent was registered. His father, Ignatius, stepped in as Vice-president, and his brother, W.F., became President of the renamed Cockshutt Plow Company. The reputation of its products quickly propelled the company into a leadership position in Canadian industry in the late 1800's. Every year new products were added, large factory expansion was required, the number of workers increased, and still they could not fill all the orders. In 1888, W.F. went back to manage his general store and the next brother, Frank, took over the Plow Company.
A new factory, completed in 1903, covered 23 acres, and was reported to be the most complete plow factory in North America. One of the company's high volume lines was the Engine Gang Plow designed specifically for the huge steam engines and almost as large new-age gasoline tractors. These were the first successful gang plows ever built and were in great demand both north and south of the border for breaking prairie sod.
Read on at Cockshutt History