Was There Ever A Canadian Made Tractor?

Ontario Agricultural Museum, P.O. Box 38, Milton, Ontario,
Canada L9T 2Y3

One of the challenging but frustrating aspects of the study of
the history of tractor design and manufacture is that of the role
of Canadian factories and Canadian companies in this field. A
number of companies located in Canada, in Ontario mainly, who did
take part in the great ‘tractor sweepstakes’ of 1910-1920
period when literally hundreds of designers and small factory
owners tried to enter the tractor business. Some of the designs
were simply not practicable, some were downright unworkable in the
field and most managements lacked the finances to keep going in the
face of trials and errors. In the end, they, like their
counterparts in the United States, just folded up and left the
tractor field to the big boys. Today, the situation has changed
again as large implement companies find themselves in financial
straits and the industry has become international. Now it is
difficult to determine just where and by whom any tractor or
tractor parts were actually manufactured. Most models are a mix of
parts from many factories and often more than one country.

Yet this was the way it was in Canada right from the beginning;
it is extremely doubtful that any tractor ‘Made in Canada’
was actually a totally Canadian product. Some parts, even such
major items as the engine itself, were brought in from outside the
country and just bolted to a Canadian frame.

In some cases that have been studied, the ‘Canadian’
content was little more than the name painted on the sides; even
that is doubtful in some cases where the tractor was the spitting
image of the recognized American make.

Another problem facing the Canadian tractor industry was the
problem of the small and badly fragmented market. On the Prairie
grain fields, the need was for huge ploughing machines and thresher
power plants. In Ontario, where the greater proportion of Canadian
farming is done, the need was for small, nimble machines that could
work effectively on the rolling landscape of small, mixed and dairy
farms.

One of the paradoxes of this situation is that the most
successful manufacturer of truly Canadian big tractors, the
Sawyer-Massey Company of Hamilton, Ontario, was located about 1,500
miles from its major markets on the western wheat fields. And at
least one of these companies that struggled to survive in Western
Canada, the Medicine Hat Machinery Co., turned out a tractor that
was suitable for threshermen in Ontario and nowhere near big enough
to be a prairie sod buster.

At the Ontario Agricultural Museum near Milton, Ontario, there
will be a special reunion of tractors ‘Made in Canada’ this
June. With machines from their own collection, some restored in
their shops, and with other tractors displayed by private
collectors, it is hoped that the event will be the first
significant attempt to demonstrate just what these companies did
attempt and produce. Some of the machines on display will include
the Sawyer-Massey monsters which were based on that company’s
very successful line of steam traction engines. Using heavy channel
iron framing, big cast iron gears and a slow speed kerosene engine,
these machines form an interesting aspect of the development of
motive power on the farm.

Other companies, like Gilson of Guelph and Goold, Shapley &
Muir of Brantford, started out as engine builders, gradually
working their way to putting their engines on geared frames and
creating tractors of a sort.

Another pioneer company was that of Sylvester Bros, of Lindsay
who were far sighted indeed. They not only worked on the idea of
putting their engine on a frame and fitting gears, but they went
one step further; they added a threshing machine a very early try
at making harvesting a simpler operation. Just take the power and
the thresher out to the field on one frame the combine in
embryo.

Just determining what a ‘Canadian’ tractor was is one of
the problems facing the organizers at the Museum. Two examples
already in the Museum collection are the Chase and the Stinson
Beaver. In both cases the original U.S. based companies got into
difficulties and their products turned up later in Canada, under a
Canadian name. The Museum’s Chase machine, for example, is
labelled as No. 36, and research has disclosed that there was a
Chase Tractor Corporation with a factory on a street just across
the railroad tracks from the giant Massey-Harris plant in
Toronto.

But in both cases, all records have been lost.

Anyone who could assist the Museum in this effort is sincerely
asked to do so; any contribution will be most appreciated. And a
visit should be very worthwhile for those interested in the
development of the farm tractor.

Called the ‘Great Canadian Antique Tractor Field Days’,
this event will take place at the Ontario Agricultural Museum at
Milton on June 29, 30, and July 1, 1985. Activities, demonstrations
and parades will highlight these Canadian tractors, along with
Canadian gasoline engines and steam engines throughout this
exciting weekend.

Tractor Works Serial Numbers

In our May 1985 issue, we began a two part listing of serial
numbers obtained by Gerald Jahreis, 2908 Maple Avenue, Eden, New
York 1405 7, from S. K. Otten in the customer relations department
of International Harvester Company.

What appears below is the second part of the list, covering
output by year of tractors manufactured at IHC’s Tractor Works.
Last month we published the serial numbers of the output of the
Milwaukee Works.

In her letter to Jahreis, Ms. Otten offered help to enthusiasts
who need information or photo copies of manuals. Inquiries should
be addressed to S. K. Otten, Customer Relations Manager, P.O. Box
4521, Oak Brook, Illinois 60521.