Pic-Old Steam Engine That Used To Be In My Neighborhood

Saturday I attended the estate auction for a Mary Liter that passed away earlier this year at the age of 105..There were lots of 80-100 year old pictures on the sale..Upon looking at them I discovered that 6 of them were from my neighborhood so I bought them..I did some research when I got home and found that many years ago Mrs Liters Dad Wilson Spayd owned a 160 acre farm 2 miles east of me..When I was a kid in the 1950's I heard older neighbors talk about the Spayd farm which had been sold years earlier..Heres a description of the pictures..

1-An old Reeves steamer that used to be in the neighborhood..

2-The old Marvin Chapel Methodist Church which was located 1/4th mile south of me..I think that it burnt down before I was born in 1949..My parents are buried in the cemetery there and I'm currently on the cemetery board..I had never seen a picture of the church..

3-The Wilson Spayd farm house 2 miles east of me.....The house has been gone for years..Mrs Liters parents are in the center.

4-Wilson Spayd with his 1000 lb hog "Jim"...

Upon pulling up an early 1900's online plat book I found out that there used to be 9 houses on my 640 acre section....Now there are just 2 of us....Its easy to see why there were 1 room schools every 3-4 miles..I also discovered that there used to be a Christian Church 1 mile south of me...At age 66 I'm the second oldest person thats lived most of his life in this neighborhood..I now have to be the historian...In the past 10-20 years all of the long time neighbors have died,moved, or are in a nursing home...Needless to say there are no century farms in my area..

Great to see those pictures. I counted 11 men around that old steam tractor. I bet it was a threshing bee. Happy farming.

Nice! Good to hear you're keeping a record of the area.

Sadly we live in a culture that mostly doesn't keep good records of family lineage and area history. I recently moved my Mom in with us at age 86. Had to sell her place, went through all her belongings, found tons of old family pictures. She could identify very few of the people or places, nothing written on most of them. Once she's gone, a lot of history will be lost.

I'm just as guilty, I have very few photos, now most are kept in the computer, once the hard drive dies, they're gone...

im sure those farmers didn't call it a threshing bee. its just the way it was back then. took lots of hand to keep the machine running all day. once it started rolling in morning there was no stopping. only stopped for 2 coffee breaks and dinner. supper was usually had after the end of the day when it was already dark. the loads had to keep coming into the machine regularly as the empty wagon was leaving for another load of bundles. could not have any waiting time for a load. the machine had to run steady, unless it happened to break down. so that took a lot of guys. say 2 field pitchers loading each wagon, then for unloading the bundles took more there too. on the bigger machines you had a wagon on each side of the feeder chain with guys pitching bundles into it.it would take 2 bundles side by side. they had to be thrown in heads first. the smaller machines you had one wagon unload at a time.one bundle after each other. and when you had one farmers grain in you moved to the next farmers grain. it was not like everyone had a threshing machine. you worked for all the neighbours and they helped you.not like nowadays one person sits in a computerized combine telling him what to do. and if you don't make your combine payment it is shut down from head office. we used the threshing machine right up till 1972, which was replaced with a massey super 92 combine. it was not easy work back then, but everyone was happy at supper time. ooh and the meals were brought out to the field by the women , no inside eating till supper.
and nice pic's of the old days.

And don't forget the water wagon. That beast was thirsty and had to a drink or it'd blow.

My 98 year old Mother passed away in 2007...She had a bunch of old pictures from the late 1800's thru the 1940's....Very few had any writing on them and we had no clue whom lots of the people were....I and my brother kept every picture where we knew the people or place but sadly we threw away lots of the unknown pictures..I wish now that we had kept them..One great picture we found was my grandparents wedding photo from 1892..I have practically no pictures from my Dads side of the family..

i'd say they didn't make cracklins outta the hog skin,...looks to be the making of a fine coat,...don't ever remember seeing one with so much hair.....

1206, nice pictures. Good for you preserving some local history otherwise they would end up in the local dump.
We used a threshing mill up until mid 1970s. I can remember them using a IH 10-20 to drive the mill.
My Dad used to talk about hauling water with team of horses and wagon for a steam powered sawmill.

JimB

Really nice photos of days gone by. Nice you bought them.

blaine, isn't it great when a piece of a puzzle falls into place when you least expect it? that church picture, for example.
the spayd family had a pretty impressive house, must have been well off.