1918 11-22 Sawyer-Massy

1918 11-22 Sawyer-Massey

Sitting midway through the second building at the Schwanke Museum, right behind the 1924 John Deere Waterloo Boy and just before the 1943 Clark bulldozer sits the 1918 Sawyer-Massey 11-22, No. 4835. Earlier this year we had the pleasure of a visit from Kee W. Groshong of Columbia, MO. Mr. Groshong is rebuilding a 1919 11-22 Sawyer-Massey and want to see what kind of drive system our tractor employed. The Sawyer-Massey 11-22 we have in the museum features the gear drive Sawyer-Massey also used a chain drive system. The 11-22 means that the tractor has 11 hp on the draw bar and 22 hp on the belt. Sawyer-Massey made 4 models with the 11-22 being the smallest. The Sawyer-Massey we have in the museum also features the Kingston Carburetor. The Massey’s group were part owner in the company till 1910, both companies went their own way after the split and I have more about that in the history below.

Sawyer-Massey

THE SAWYER-MASSEY COMPANY
LIMITED, HAMILTON, ONTARIO

The Sawyer-Massey Company like many companies have their founding father and John Fisher was just one of the many fathers. John Fisher moved from New York State and founded a small company in Hamilton in 1835. John Fisher would produce the first threshing machine to be built in Canada he began his production of the threshing machine in 1836. He would soon realizing the possibility for the company but lacked the capital to move forward so he convinced one of his many cousins, Dr. Calvin McQuesten of Lockport, N.Y. to invest in the company and become a partner with him. The firm began to prosper and would ship most of their production to Western Canada. The company at that time was known as the Hamilton Agricultural Works. Hamilton is located on the western edge of Lake Ontario and in the 1840's, supplies of iron ore became short in supply during the winter season. The iron ore had to be ship in from upper New York State and also from Long Point in Ontario. This would make it hard if not difficult to produce equipment in the winter months.

veiw from the front

In the Early 1840's the two nephews of Dr. McQuesren, L.D. Sawyer and his two brothers Payson and Samuel would join the Hamilton Agriculture Works as machinists. The three brothers would gradually become members of the firm and assume control of the business. With the death of founder John Fisher in 1856 the Hamilton Agricultural Works would make a change in the company and become L.D. Sawyer & Co.
The L.D. Sawyer & Co, expanded their product line and by 1869 the company had included in their manufacturing produces like Separators, Tread Mills, Horse Powers, a combination grain drill with clover seeding attachment which they copied from the American made machine the Empire that was produced by their neighbours the Empire Grain Drill Works of Shortsville Ontario County New York, H. L. & C. P. Brown, proprietors. The L.D. Sawyer & Company also sold during this time the Ohio Reaper and Mowers, the Woods Mower, the Dodge Self Rake, the Pitts Threshing Machine, the Rochester Cutting Box along with the Birdsell Clover Huller as part of their product line. The company found the need to build a steam engine so in the early 1880's they began building the return flue portable steam engine. In 1887 they would produce horse drawn road machinery. At the same time they would become agents for British made Aveling and Porter stream road rollers.

side view

veiw of the rear of the Sawyer-Massey

In 1889 the L.D. Sawyer Co was approached by the president of Massey Harris Company of Toronto, Hart A. Massey where upon they would sell 40% interest in the L.D. Sawyer & Company. Hart Massey was elected President of the L.D. Sawyer Co. And he would begin his presidency by re-organization the company; the first of many changes was the name which he changed to Sawyer & Massey Co. Ltd. It was decided by the Massey Harris Company not to have a corporate relationship between the two companies. Things seem to be going good until 1910 when a difference of opinion arose over the future of the company the Hamilton group wanted to increase production of the steam traction engines, while Massey group favoured developing the gas tractor. The differences were so great that the Massey Harris group withdrew all of their interests in the Sawyer & Massey Co. and the Hamilton group re-organized the company thus the new name Sawyer-Massey Co. Ltd, the following year the new two words circular trade mark would begin to appear on all of their machines. In 1912 the two word circular trade mark would be change this time it would appear with bold letters on the smoke box door of the steam traction engine.

steering gear

 L.D. Sawyer & company had been building the LDS portable steam engine during mid 1880's it was decided at the time to name the steam engine after L.D. Sawyer. This engine featured a return flue type with steam dome and a full water front, the engine was mounted at the rear of the short broad boiler and would have the belt wheel on the right hand side, this same unit would later appear as a traction engine. Even though the LDS was a great engine the machine public preferred the locomotive style traction engine. With the mechanical public preferring that design the company would make changes to their design in the mid 1890's.

Kingston Carburetor

 They would begin producing an open bottom locomotive boiler without a steam dome. So the company produced hundreds of this little 13 H.P. single cylinder side mounted engines around the turn of the century. Later they would begin production on the self feeders and straw blowers when added to the separator more power would be needed so they began to produce a 17 H.P. engine and 20 H.P. engines of the same side mounted design, they would add steam domes and straight smoke stack which were changed to slightly tapered one. The new smoke stack would include a Diamond Spark Arrester with its cone top and spark arrester pipe. They would use the double eccentric link reverse gear on all single cylinder engines until 1908. They would later adopt the Woods Patent single eccentric valve gear, the tandem compound engines were all fitted with the Woolf reverse gear. Later the Waters governor would be added to all of their portable engines, traction engines and road rollers.

When it came to rating horse power Sawyer-Massey thought it was better idea to use brake horse power and in 1914 Sawyer-Massey became the only Canadian company to adopt the idea of rating steam traction engines and portable engines by their brake horse power. J.I. Case Threshing Machine Company of Racine, Wisconsin originally pioneered the idea. So now when rated with the brake horse power system the old 17 H.P. became 51 H.P. and the 20 H.P. became 60 H.P. The 22 H.P. simply became 68 H.P. and the 25 H.P. became 76 H.P. The 27 and 30 H.P. tandem compounds became 87 and 100 H.P. respectively. Steam pressure for all engines was now 175 P.S.I.

Sawyer-Massey would begin to produce and manufacture gasoline powered tractor just before the beginning of World War 1. The Sawyer-Massey 22-45 H.P. the chassis was fitted with steam traction engine, with wheels and gearing mounted with a four cylinder. It was slow speed engine that sat lengthwise well to the rear of the tractor and this would drive the pulley and transmission through a bevel gear. The size was intended for use in Western Canada.

side view of Sawyer-Massey

Sawyer-Massey would follow up that tractor with the 30-60 models. This tractor is considered a war time tractor since it was built during World War 1. Sawyer-Massey would continue building tractors after World War 1, the tractors they building were smaller in size like the 11-22 H.P. and the 17-34 H.P.,   gasoline tractors. They would also build a limited number of 17 H.P. and 20 H.P. steam traction engines. Sawyer-Massey would discontinue production of their gasoline tractor by the mid 1920's and became a distributor for the Wallis tractor. They would also discontinue building their steam traction engine at the same time.

With World War 1 over condition were changing and the threshing machinery line began to slow so Sawyer-Massey decided to concentrate their production on road construction equipment. So they began producing steam Road Rollers, Rock Crushers, Rock Screening Equipment, Dump Wagons, Tank Wagons, pull type Road Graders, this would include their light maintainers up to the heavy leaning wheel grader. Sawyer-Massey also built construction plows of all types, Tow type reversible scarifies, Tow type Rollers, Drag Scrapers, and Fresno Scrapers.

Sawyer-Massey was approached by Willys Overland President T.A. Russell about buying interest in the company. It was then that the three brothers it was time to move on so they sold Sawyer-Massey to the new interest. T.A. Russell who was the president of Willys Overland of Canada would take over and become the new president of Sawyer-Massey. As the stock market dropped in 1929 sale also began to slip then into the 1930 sales outlook seem to look poor so the Sawyer Massey Company began building Motor truck bodies and semi-trailers in an effort to stay solvent. Nothing seems to be working, it was then that Sawyer-Massey took on the distributorship for the Austin Western Road Machinery Co. of Aurora, Illinois. They would discontinue the manufacturing of construction machinery and soon the name Sawyer-Massey cease to exist on new equipment.  After World War 2 the company continued to struggle it was then the owners of Sawyer-Massey Company decided to close their doors. The building are now occupied by Stelco and General Steel Wares formerly the Sawyer-Massey buildings on Wellington Street North in Hamilton Ontario.

Sawyer-Massey name plate