Cyrus Hall McCormick was an American inventor and businessman who founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. Originally from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, he and many members of his family became prominent residents of Chicago.
A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reaper that was used in modern-day France during Roman times. The Gallic reaper involved a comb which collected the heads, with an operator knocking the grain into a box for later threshing.
Raphine is an unincorporated community in Rockbridge County in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S. state of Virginia.
The Leander McCormick Observatory is one of the astronomical observatories operated by the Department of Astronomy of the University of Virginia and is situated just outside Charlottesville, Virginia (US) in Albemarle County on the summit of Mount Jefferson. It is named for Leander J. McCormick (1819–1900), who provided the funds for the telescope and observatory.
Leander James McCormick was an American inventor, manufacturer, philanthropist, and businessman and a member of the McCormick family of Chicago and Virginia. Along with his elder brothers Cyrus and William, he is regarded as one of the fathers of modern agriculture due to his part in the development of the McCormick Reaper and what became the International Harvester Company. He also owned and developed vast amounts of real estate in downtown Chicago and Lake Forest, Illinois. In 1885, he donated one of the world's largest telescopes to the University of Virginia.
William Sanderson McCormick was an American businessman who developed the company that became the major producer of agricultural equipment in the 19th century. The business became the International Harvester corporation after his death. Although he died relatively young with most of the fame going to his brothers, his extended McCormick family continued to be influential in the politics and business of Chicago.
Robert Sanderson McCormick was an American diplomat. Born in rural Virginia, he was part of the extended McCormick family that became influential in Chicago.
Harold Fowler McCormick was an American businessman. He was chairman of the board of International Harvester Company and a member of the McCormick family. in 1948 he was awarded the Henry Laurence Gantt Medal by the American Management Association and the ASME.
The Cyrus McCormick Farm and Workshop is on the family farm of inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick known as Walnut Grove. Cyrus Hall McCormick improved and patented the mechanical reaper, which eventually led to the creation of the combine harvester. The farm is near Steele's Tavern and Raphine, close to the northern border of Rockbridge and Augusta counties in the U.S. state of Virginia, and is currently a museum run by the Virginia Agricultural Experimental Station of Virginia Tech. The museum has free admission and covers 5 acres (2.0 ha) of the initial 532-acre (215.3 ha) farm.
Obed Hussey (1792-1860) was an American inventor. His most notable invention was a reaping machine, patented in 1833, that was a rival of a similar machine, patented in 1834, produced by Cyrus McCormick. Hussey also invented a steam plow, a machine for grinding out hooks and eyes, a mill for grinding corn and cobs, a husking machine, a machine for crushing sugar cane, a machine for making artificial ice, a candle-making machine, and other devices. However, he devoted the prime of his life to perfecting his reaping machine.
Leander Hamilton McCormick was an American author, inventor, art collector and sculptor.
Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. was an American businessman. He was president of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company from 1884 to 1902.
Rev Patrick Bell was a Church of Scotland minister and inventor.
The McCormick family of Chicago and Virginia is an American family of Scottish descent that attained prominence and fortune starting with the invention of the McCormick Reaper, a machine that revolutionized agriculture, helped break the bonds of slavery, and established the modern grain trade by beginning the mechanization of the harvesting of grain. Through the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and later, the International Harvester Company and other investments, the McCormicks became one of the wealthiest families in America. The name became ubiquitous in agriculture starting in the 19th century and the press dubbed the McCormicks the "Reaper Kings". Later generations expanded into media and publishing, finance, and real estate. Various family members were well known as civic leaders. They are descended from an influential leader of modern agriculture, inventor Robert McCormick Jr. (1780–1846), and Mary Ann "Polly" Hall of Steeles Tavern, Virginia. The family is Presbyterian.
John Francis Appleby (1840–1917) was an American inventor who developed a knotting device to bind grain bundles with twine. It became the foundation for all farm grain binding machinery and was used extensively by all the major manufacturers of large grain harvesting machines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Appleby's knotting device was a major landmark in the mechanization of agriculture and aided the development of the western wheat fields of the United States.
Nancy Maria "Nettie" Fowler McCormick was an American philanthropist. She was also a prominent member of the McCormick family
John Henry Manny (1825–1856) was the inventor of the Manny Reaper, one of various makes of reaper used to harvest grain in the 19th century. Cyrus McCormick III, in his Century of the Reaper, called Manny "the most brilliant and successful of all [Cyrus McCormick I's] competitors," a field of many brilliant people.
Hickory Hill is a historic estate in Rockbridge County, Virginia.
William Grigsby McCormick was an American businessman of the influential McCormick family in Chicago, who was a co-founder of Kappa Sigma Fraternity.
Charles A. Spring Jr. (1826–1901) was a prominent Chicago capitalist during its transition from a frontier town of 30,000 in the 1850s to an industrial metropolis of more than 1.7 million at the turn of the 20th century. He was a key figure in its rise, serving as inventor Cyrus McCormick's closest adviser and as general manager of the McCormick Harvesting Company for many years.
