410 Bird Ave. Buffalo, New York 14213
For the second year in a row, we were blessed with the most
beautiful weather possible, sunny and warm just ideal show weather.
The evenings were a little cool but not too bad.
Immediately before show time, I believe that we were the most
fouled up group of people that anyone ever saw. Everything seemed
to smooth out once people began to come in the gate.
We had a good variety of equipment: five steam traction engines,
A Frick Con tractors Special, two A. D. Bakers, one Advance Rumley,
one home-made steamer (sorry I cannot recall the name), 45 gas and
oil tractors. These included a 40-80 Minneapolis (brought down from
Canada by the owner, Sherwood Hume), and a 30 – 60 Aultman Taylor
(owned by George Knab of Spencerport, N.Y.). I mentioned these two
tractors because we had a belting up contest between them. You
people that are familiar with the size of tractors know that they
are big. Sherwood hooked onto a little New Racine Separator while
George took a conventional sized Case Separator in tow. As these
two outfits approached the arena where the contest was to be held,
it didn’t look as if there was anything behind Sherwood’s
Minneapolis. The Judges gave the signal and the race was on.
Sherwood and his Separator man had rigged a wire to pull the
drawbar pin. As this pin was pulled, the Separator man stepped down
onto the top of the little New Racine Thresher and had his stacker
raised and turned before the Minneapolis had even started to turn
around. It was something to watch, these two big rigs move around.
The operators did a beautiful job of handling them. The Minnea
polis team was the winner. But it makes one wonder who the winners
would have been if the separators were switched.
We had several odd and rare tractors on display, but one tractor
that wasn’t odd or rare drew as much attention as any other
item on the grounds. This tractor was a 10 – 20 McCormick Deering
owned by the Clancy family of South Buffalo. They didn’t have
time to restore this tractor before show time, so they moved it
onto the grounds and proceeded to restore it during the show;
complete, even to a paint job. I could write a lot more about our
tractor display but we had a lot of other things we want to tell
you about.
10-20 Titan owned by Rich Wise of R. D. 2, South Dayton, New
York. Photo by Joe Graves.
22 – 44 Minneapolis, owned by Erdle Brothers of Canadaigua, New
York. Photo by Joe Graves.
We had 219 gas engines from ? Horse power to 25 Horsepower, with
very few duplicated. Most of these engines were restored to
original condition, but some were as they were found which makes
looking them over more interesting. We had a large quarry
compressor powered by a 25 H. P. Foos throttle governed engine
furnishing air for our model tent. (This gets me out of the gas
engines and into the model tent.) Our model tent was as complete as
any that I have ever seen. Everything from a model of a Case
Steamer to a model of a Mississippi River Stern Wheeler. Just
outside the model tent was a 30 H. P. Leffel Port able Boiler
furnishing steam for several small steam engines and pumps.
We had quite a few antique autos and several pieces of old farm
equipment. A three head block saw mill was in operation quite
steadily, and a shingle mill that drew a lot of attention.
Our supply of oats was short, but George and Herman Waldmiller
of Lancaster Township put on a real threshing demonstration using
the 20 – 40 Rumely Oil Pull and the Case Separator that they bought
new many, many years ago. These boys are 79 and 81 years young; but
it does your heart good to see how efficiently these boys get the
grain out of straw. They have sold their outfit to Charlie Summers
of Springville, but the good Lord willing, they will be running
this rig at our ’69 show.
12 – 20 Oil Pull owned by Karl Wiley of West Seneca of New York.
Photo by Joe Graves.
3 Hp. New Way, owned by Robert Brown of Waterport, New York.
Photo by Joe Graves.
I know that I have missed a lot of things that would be of
interest to you people that are reading this report. Come and see
our show and see what you have missed.
Our show dates for 1969 are: September 12-13-14, at the
Alexander Fire men’s Park, Route N. Y. 98, ? mile south of U.
S. 20, at Alexander, New York.
All the pictures with this report were taken by our Official
Photographer, Joe Graves.
