Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania 17022
Here is a story about the early days of the New Holland Engine,
made by the firm that is now Sperry New Holland in
Pennsylvania.
In 1895, Abe Zimmerman of New Holland, Pennsylvania, started a
machinery construction and repair business. At this time the Otto
engine was already being manufactured in Philadelphia. Farmers
couldn’t use this vapor-gas engine because the farms were not
connected to city gas mains.
Abe Zimmerman came to the rescue, designing a vaporizer which
enabled the Otto engine to run on gasoline. Farmers in the New
Holland area began to buy Otto engines.
Zimmerman also got permission to sell a newly-designed engine,
the Columbus, which ran on gasoline and kerosene.
Zimmerman began thinking about designing an engine of his own
which would be more reliable and easier to start. Most small
engines were water-cooled and Zimmerman wanted to develop one that
was freeze-proof.
He observed that cast-iron watering troughs in barnyards were
‘tapered, to let the ice lift up harmlessly, in freezing
weather.’ Zimmerman designed an engine water jacket with such a
taper, and secured a patent for his ‘freeze-proof engine.
He also tapered his cylinder bores at the crankshaft end to get
more wear from a set of piston rings. This reduced the pressure,
and the wear on the rings in the low pressure end of the
stroke.
In 1903 businessmen and farmers joined to begin a corporation to
produce the new engine.
Thousands of New Holland engines were built. Output almost
stopped during the depression and production was halted in 1938.
The New Holland Machine Company was re-organized two years later to
build the new automatic balers which had been tested in the fields
of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
