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- Wisconsin State Journal, Sunday, September 2, 1962
- by John Newhouse (State Journal Staff Writer)
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A Time To Gladden a Man's Heart
And These Days Fred Chapman's in His Glory
Fred Chapman, a delightful gent, is having a love affair.
It is with a steam engine. An old steam engine.
The steam engine is a 1916 Reeves double cylinder. It weighs 15 tons, burns soft coal, makes black smoke, and cost $2,500 when it was new.
FAMILY PORTRAIT -- Fred Chapman and his three grandchildren
are having the times of their lives at the thresheree south of
Edgerton these days. Seated, left to right, are Frederick and
David Shumway, 88 Cambridge rd., and being them is Michael Olbrich,
Glenview, Ill. Over at the right is Chapman. Behind them is the
Reeves two cylinder simple, vintage of 1916. -- State Journal
Photo
Best Time of Year
He will not tell how much it cost, when he bought it second hand.
"There are some things a wife should not know," he says. "It makes for a more peaceable home life."
At present, Chapman is having the time of his life, for this is the time of the year when he is alone with his steam engine and his grandsons.
And a lot of other steam engines.
The steam engines are on a 15-acre plot of land on the east side of Highway 51 about 4 or 5 miles south of Edgerton. The land is owned by the Rock River Thresheree Assn., and there are all sorts of steam engines on it.
Saturday the steam engines started snorting and chugging over the plot of land in the annual thresheree. Some of them tug threshing machines up to a stock of wheat bundles to do a bit of threshing.
Start Belting Up
The owners of the steam engines "set up" their machines, getting them level. They "belt up" with the old time 150-foot belts. Where do they get the belts these days?
"You don't get them," says Chapman. "You dig them up. Out of the past."
They saw a little wood. They tow wagon loads of spectators around. They pull eight-bottom plows, with 14-inch bottoms, which takes a lot of pulling.
And this goes on today and Monday, for the public, at a small fee. Hours are from sun-up to sundown, just like on a farm.
"We lead a fine, healthy life," says Chapman of the four or five days he spends here with his three grandchildren, getting the Reeves ready to be shown off and showing it off.
Balanced Diet
"We have no women to interfere with a man's life.
"And we eat a balanced diet of popcorn and Cokes."
Chapman "just happens" to have a few pictures in his pocket. The one showing a popular modern day tractor, with its rear wheels sort of leaning in at the top and about to collapse in despair, happens to come up first.
"The owner of that machine had the temerity to make some snide remarks about old steam engines and how the modern day engines were so much stronger," says Chapman. "That, of course, was his undoing."
The Reeves is rated at 20-horsepower, but they are sort of funny horsepower. Back in the old days, they had horses walking around in a circle to produce the power to drive the cylinder, sieves, and blower of a threshing machine. If it took 20 horses to do the work, the engine that would duplicate this work became a 20-horsepower machine.
"We hitched together," says Chapman, "and the tractor's rear wheels just danced around. So he loaded his tractor down with rocks, to get more traction.
Word Gets Around
"And then," he says with great satisfaction, "we pulled him apart!"
The thresheree was started a half dozen or so years ago by Johh Horton, farmer near here, when he bought a combine and just had to have one more threshing session before he junked his old threshing machine. The word got around. The sentimental gathered. They had a ball.
Next year the Fulton Congregational church needed money. They sponsored another thresheree. Then the association was born.
Chapman, a Chicago boy who'd spent three years in Montana on a farm before he became a vice-president of the Gisholt Machine Co., in Madison, couldn't stay away. And he had to have a machine.
"I used to go to Pete Burno's, up at DeForest," he says. "Pete has a lot of engines. He buys, but he doesn't sell. I used to climb over the old engines, just assuaging my loneliness, and pat them a little.
A Pressing Need
"It took two years before he'd let me have one. It's just like me selling my dog. I wouldn't want to. But if a fellow would appreciate him, and give him a good home, and really needed him more than I did, why, then I'd be tempted."
Chapman, it was easy to see, needed the engine. He got it.
"There are times when you have to have oil on your hands," he says, "and soft coal smoke in your nostrils. And you need a little chaff, and dust, and heat from the firebox, just to feel right again."
Then, too, the engines talk to you, chuffing and chugging, and there's the sweet music of the steam engine whistles, sweetest music in the world.
Memorable Contest
There is a world of pleasure, too, in talking with others and seeing the other engines. The oldest is an 1894 Harrison Jumbo. It engaged a caterpillar tractor in a pulling contest once.
"That cat pawed the air," says Chapman. "Just stood up on his hind legs and pawed the air. And lost."
There are Hart-Parrs, and Rumely Oil Pulls, and the old Sampson made at Janesville, and queer looking boilers, and smoke stacks, and water tanks for those who like the unusual.
He stops at a Mogul, two-cylinders and vintage of 1912, with which be fought in earlier days. It's a kerosene burner, and you started it by pulling the giant flywheel over by hand.
"On a cold morning, you could pull your heart out, and cry your eyes out, and they wouldn't start. Take the plugs out, and pour kerosene or gasoline in the cylinders, and toss in matches to heat 'em up, and they still wouldn't start. They were mean."
After Labor day, Chapman will load up the grandchildren and come home again, to his home at 306 Woodland circle. And his neighbors will shake their heads and say, as they always do:
"Here's Fred Chapman and his grandchildren again, home from the thresheree. And Fred, he's the biggest kid of them all."
