Obed Hussey

[5] Moreover, Hussey's cutting mechanism, the combination of a reciprocating knife and slotted guard fingers, became, with some further modifications, the standard one for use in harvesting machinery.

[6][7] Obed Hussey was born in 1792 to a Quaker family in Maine, but moved at an early age to the island of Nantucket.

He and the other crew members were thrown into the sea, but managed to stay afloat by hanging onto the partially submerged wreckage of the boat.

[11] However, the hilly landscape of Maryland made it an unsuitable location for a field trial, so when the machine was ready, Hussey took it to Ohio,[12] where he had a supporter in Cincinnati who provided both financing and manufacturing facilities.

[14] On July 2, 1833, Hussey exhibited his machine before the Hamilton County Agricultural Society near Carthage, Ohio,[15] where it performed successfully.

[30][31] In 1837, he had some reapers manufactured in Maryland and up to six of them were sold there, while other Hussey machines were built in Cincinnati and marketed in Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri.

[37] In 1841, Virginia planters gave the Hussey machine mixed reviews, though it continued to be viewed favorably in the Genesee Valley of New York state.

Hussey's machine could not cut the wet wheat, leaving McCormick the winner of this impromptu meet.

Because a bridge had been swept away by high water, Hussey was unable to get his better, larger machine to the contest field.

[52] In 1846, Hussey introduced his reapers in Champaign County, Ohio and arranged for local manufacture of his machines.

[54] In the late 1840s, Hussey gained ground in the eastern seaboard states partly because McCormick's 1846 reapers suffered from poor workmanship in Virginia.

"[57] By that year, however, many new competitors had entered the field because the original patents of both Hussey and McCormick had expired; both men were then forced to compete with their own ideas.

Hussey and McCormick both sought to expand their markets by displaying their reapers at this event, held at the newly-constructed Crystal Palace, a nineteen-acre conservatory of iron and glass, beginning May 1.

The English machine was also unsuccessful, but McCormick's reaper performed well enough to cut an estimated twenty acres a day.

He began demonstrating his machine in England and, with his personal supervision, it performed efficiently; his reputation revived.

[70] He had success in at least two contests early in the 1852 harvest, but when he took his reaper to Scotland, the Scottish juries awarded prizes to their own.

[76] Hussey achieved a "gratifying measure of success," but was unable to win the top awards, which went to McCormick.

[78] Hussey won a contest with McCormick during the 1852 Ohio harvest, while trials in Geneva, New York were inconclusive.

[82] That year Hussey also won a bronze medal at the New York Crystal Palace and a premium at the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society.

In 1845, he contacted the patent commissioner about obtaining an extension, but was advised to delay the application for renewal until near the end of the original term.

[87] Meanwhile, Hussey had secured patents for an improvement to the reaping machine: "his famous open-back guard fingers.

[95] Hussey's case for renewal was in part that he had not received sufficient compensation from his invention; rather than earning profit from his 1833 patent, Hussey had spent the fourteen-year term of the patent working to perfect his invention "without any return for time and labor,"[96] leaving him "at the very door of poverty.

[102] In April 1857, Hussey obtained a reissue of his 1847 patent covering an open-back guard finger in combination with a vibrating scallop-edged cutter.

It has been said that he: Moreover, he was "highly educated, cultured and refined; a philosopher as well as a writer of both poetry and prose, of more than ordinary ability.

[117] While in his personal life Hussey may have been "the picture of Quaker beneficence"[2] and "without an enemy in the world,"[111] his business adversaries saw him as "a fiercely tenacious, one-eyed devil"[2] who "must be watched with caution.

"[118] In this context, at least, his modesty has been called a myth and his "common reputation for lack of aggressiveness" has been said to be "disproved by almost every move of his career.

At such a stop in Exeter, New Hampshire, Hussey got off the train to retrieve some water for the child of a fellow passenger.

His body was taken back on the train and was accompanied by his family, in great distress, on to Portland, later to be removed to Baltimore,[111][123][112] where he was buried at Green Mount Cemetery.