threshin.html

The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., July 21, 1960, page 3
Includes photograph whose title follows:

Cort Miller, standing beside a Russell steam traction engine, "the last of four engines from Goldendale" acquired by him and in his collection of items from the era of steam gathered on his ranch at Yacolt, Wash. and on public display at picnic this weekend.

STORY OF EARLY-DAY THRESHERS TOLD BY VETERAN STEAM ENGINEER
By Cort Miller

The sawmill was the first industry in Klickitat county, for the homesteaders needed shelter for themselves and stock. Threshers came later as the need required. About the former I know only from what little is recorded for I came somewhat later.
It is doubtful if the name of the first man to operate a powered thresher in the Klickitat valley could be determined, or the date of same. The following is from what I remember or find recorded in early pioneer history.
Of course, the early settlers did not come to raise grain but to utilize the abundant grasses, rye and bunch grass in raising stock. In fact the first settlers had some doubt that wheat could be grown in the valley and not until it was tried out in small plots with success did growing grain become the big business it did later. To John W. Burgen is given the credit of growing the first wheat.

FLAILS USED

Threshing out the grain from these plots was done with flail on a floor. As the acreage became larger, threshing was done by tramping out the grain with horses, usually by a rider leading several horses around in a corral in which the ripened grain was spread. Sometimes a man on foot with a whip kept several horses on the move over the ripened grain until the wheat was separated.
After the wheat was out the straw was removed and the job of gathering (winnowing) began, which usually was done by throwing the mixture of dirt, char and wheat into the air at time of a stiff breeze (usually quite adequate in the valley). This allowed the dirt and chaff to blow away, leaving the wheat to fall on a canvas to be sacked for use.
Later the breeze was replaced by a fanning machine, using a hand-powered fan and shaking sieve. The fan and sieve later were used in the powered thresher and still is a vital part of all threshers.
It has been my good fortune to have been present at and engage in the threshing and cleaning described above.
My first contact with power-driven threshers came when I, at about 9 years of age, was
I hired to hold sacks in a crew operating a hand-fed sweep-stake horse-powered threshing in 1890.
This was near Glenwood while I was attending school and living with my sister Margaret and her husband, Jim Hill, who taught school in the log school southwest of the town. (I've been told the old school still stands.)
I was paid 50 cents per day which was perhaps enough, for all I did was to hold the sack while the measuring man poured the two half-bushel measures into the sack. I then dragged the sack containing the bushel to the back of the wagon to be lifted in by the driver.
I am told Henry F. Troh owned this thresher but don't know when or whence it came into the district.
White returning home from this job an incident happened which fixed this job firmly in my mind.
Jingling my three silver coins as I walked down the dusty timbered road I picked up a $10 gold coin. This so increased my wealth that I hurried home and gave my sister the silver, for I felt with a gold coin I had it made for life.
The home referred to was the old log house owned by Mr. Berg and was about a quarter- mile north of the Glenwood post office, then operated by Mrs. J.D. Shaw. About half-way between the post office and the Berg house was located a water-powered sawmill then owned by S.B. Shaw.
Previous to my experience at Glenwood I remember an incident that leads me to believe steam-driven threshers were in operation in the Klickitat valley prior to 1888 but by whom I am not sure.

FIRST CLOSE LOOK

One day late in the fall of 1888 when I returned home from a day at the Fruit Flat school (No. 36) 1 found a traction engine parked beside the road in front of our house. This house was three miles north of Columbus (now Maryhill on the Goldendale road. Here too an incident happened that remains still in my memory. This time it was sheer fright that prompted it unlike the joy of finding a gold coin.
On making an inspection of the engine my brothers and I found still some steam pressure on and an older brother found by prodding with a pole he could blow the whistle. This gave him much delight but prompted fear in me, for I expected the owner to hear the whistle, return, and chastise us for meddling.
This engine could not have been the one used by Marion Wren, who threshed in the valley, for he came to Klickitat in 1892 and lived at Columbus (having bought the property of William Hickenbotham). Mr. Hickenbothan was an early pioneer and helped in delivering cordwood to sternwheelers in the late 50s. He also operated the third ferry in Klickitat and at Columbus, in 1888.
There is still in my memory a story of a Mr. Nelson who tried out without success, a traction engine in driving the paddle wheels of the ferry at Columbus. In 1892 he was driving this ferry with a very early gas engine, in which the gas ignition was effected by a hot tube, before spark plugs were invented.
Nelson was an engineer and mechanic and operated a grain thresher and sawmill. He also helped in constructing a grist mill at Goldendale. He operated a ferry at Arlington for many years after leaving Columbus.
So the engine parked by our house in 1888 could have been on its way from threshing in the valley to be tried out by Mr. Nelson in driving the scow at Columbus.
The only record I find of the purchase of a thresher is that Conrad Yeackel, four years after settling in the Centerville district in 1877, bought a threshing machine, presumably a horse power rig. So to him I give the credit of being the first to operate a thresher, and in 1881.

MANY IN OPERATION

By l893 there were many steam machines in operation. Scott Warwick operated a hose-power in that year, for I well remember its long stay on our ranch that wet fall, trying to operate in the rain and salvage the grain, but to no good for the swelled wheat in the end spoiled.
The Tom Flannery rig came into the No.6 district that fall. It was an Advance outfit, but underpowered with the 6-horse engine, especially that wet fall. The engine was exchanged for a 10-horsepower in 1894. This was the rig taken over by the Miller Bros. in 1901, operated our seasons and sold to the farmers of Goodnoe Hills in the fall of 1904.
William Niemela of Centerville purchased a Nichols & Shepard outfit in 1893 and brought the same into the valley over the old road from The Dalles, Ore.
Since the Buffalo Pitts return-flue engine of Dave Vanhoy was an 1893 model it is presumed it began business that year.
This can also be said of Con Yeackel's first steam rig, for his center-crank traction engine was a J.I. Case of 1893 model.
In 1899 the three Hadley Bros. started in the threshing business, using a Buffalo Pitts thresher and a three-wheel traction engine built by their cousin, Eugene Remington and known at the Reminton Patent, built at Woodburn, Ore. Though I had bean a stationary engineer since 1892 this Remington engine was my first contact with a traction engine and I got my first instructions from the builder, Eugene Remington, the fall of 1899.

SCHUSTER STARTS THRESHING

In 1900 WilIiam Schuster purchased a Gaar-Scott outfit. The salesman was Isaac Darland, a man who befriended me. He also sold an outfit to Scott Warwick and a Mr. Cooper. This rig operated one or two seasons in the valley and then was moved to the Wasco, Ore. country. Schuster operated his rig for 27 years.
Many men ventured into the threshing game in Klickitat county but only a few persisted and made a go of it. Those who did not soon dropped out of that specialized business. Of these who persisted year after year I will name those that now come to mind:
Conrad Yeackel perhaps threshed more seasons and more grain, for he at one time operated two complete rigs .
Eli Miller was a close second at threshing. Eli was a fine mechanic and did well any- thing he undertook. He was such a likeable fellow and one I always cherished as a true friend.
Others were Jim and Dave Vanhoy, Green Bullock William Schuster, Dick Divers, Hugh Atkinson, the Wedgwood Bros., Clay Thompson, Mose Clausen, Eshelman and Brokaw. This is a partial list only, and does not include some who started in the business after I left the valley in 1903.
In closing I wish to state I now have four engines at my place, fully restored, engines used by men mentioned above. These, with two others, are used at the annual Steam Sawmilling and Picnic at my timbered ranch. This year's affair the seventh, is July 23 and 24, 1960. I also wish to state I expect to return two or three of these engines to Klickitat, to the Klickitat County Historical Society, provided this society maintains suitable housing to preserve them for posterity.

Editor's note: the 7th annual Steam Sawmilling and Picnic referred to above will be this weekend at C.R. Miller ranch, two miles north of Yacolt, Wash.