![]() When McCormick learned in 1833 of Hussey’s announcement that he too had produced a working reaper, he immediately filed for a patent and received it on June 21, 1834. Several other inventors, most notably Obed Hussey, were busily working on their own models. As with later efforts by others to invent the telephone, light bulb, and radio, McCormick was not alone in his quest to invent the mechanical reaper. In this effort, he may very well have been assisted by a slave named Joe Anderson who worked in the family blacksmith shop. Taking his father’s prototype, he added several new features and made a few design changes to produce a working model. It was in July 1831 when Cyrus, still only 22 years old, achieved a breakthrough in the design of the reaper. So as young Cyrus grew up, he gained from his father a thorough knowledge of farming and a keen interest in inventing. One particular project in which he invested years of effort and thought was the development of a mechanical harvester, or reaper. His father liked to tinker with machinery and over the course of his life he patented several useful farming implements. In 1779, Cyrus’s grandfather moved to Virginia, where his father, Robert McCormick, was born in 1780.Ĭyrus grew up on his father’s vast 532-acre farm, which included a sawmill, distillery, and two grain mills. His Scots-Irish ancestor, Thomas McCormick, had emigrated from Ulster to Pennsylvania in the 1730s, while his mother’s family traced its lineage back to 1640s Armagh. When that eventually happened, McCormick became a rich man and America emerged as the world’s foremost agricultural producer.Ĭyrus McCormick was born in 1809 in Rockbridge, County, Va. Years of labor lay ahead before the McCormick reaper was transformed from merely a good idea into a reality. It was a welcome reward for years of toil and trouble, but as McCormick was to find out, his work was far from done. To his delight, it stated that the patent he submitted for his invention - a device for mechanically harvesting wheat and other crops - had been granted. ![]() One hundred sixty-eight years ago this week, on June 21, 1834, Cyrus McCormick received a letter from the U.S. ![]()
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