BYJOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
YORK By today’s standards,
they were primitive at best.
But to a farm culture that knew
only draft horse power, or arm
wrenching crank machines, the
early gasoline and steam engines
were a bom beyond belief.
Nostalgia, a search for roots,
and a longing for "the good old
days,” have stirred renewed in
terest m the farm machinery of
grandpa’s day. Thus, for the
seventh consecutive year, the’ York.
Fair aboard invited York County
members' of the Steam Engine
Society to share some of their
fascinating collections with the
several hundred thousand fair
attendees.
On April 29, 1909, one Samuel
Leibenknecht of Hellam patented
the rights to produce a milling
machine driven by belt from a
steam or small gasoline engine.'
Leibenknecht numbered each of
his individually crafted farm-size
gram grinders, finishing some 400
mills before ceasing production.
Gene Brenneman, R 2
Dallastown, counts No. 50 of the
Leibenknecht mill line production
among his priceless possessions,
in Brenneman’s broad-ranging
searches as a collector and auc
tioneer, No. 50 is trie oldest of the
machines he’s ever come across.
During the Fair’s nine-day run,
Brenneman and the Leibenknecht
null No. 50 were headlines in the
frequent demonstrations of the
"way it was” that-took place
among a neat line up of threshers,
old tractors, early gram mills and
crushers, and miscellaneous small
farm machines.
Unearthed in a state of
deterioration at an area granary.
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York Courrtlans got steamed up over old machines
the decades old mill was recon
ditioned by Brennemhn, after he
had first inventively crafted new
parts for the repair. But the prized'
part of the mill, the hard-to
replace 12-inch diameter stones,
were intact and original.
Running off belts from an early
model tractor, or from a one
cylinder gas engine, the mill’s
major use was to grind chop for
livestock. Shelled gram was
poured into a top bin and fed
between the two stones turning
against each other within the
wooden outside structure. Coar
seness of the' finished gram
product was determined by how
closely together the two stones
were set.
"It takes a long time to sharpen
those stones,” Brenneman relates.
"There’s a special tool, sharpened
at both ends, used to hone the
grooves in the stones that grmd the
grains.”
For the public demonstrations of
the mill’s workings, Brenneman
has several bushels of shelled com
batch roasted at Biesecker’s Mill,
with delighted spectators eager to
purchase and carry home small
bags of the finished ground meal.
While Gene is briefing the crowd
that has gathered at the
Leibenknecht null, his son Ralph is
likely to be spuming a story
elsewhere in the display about the
background of - another of the
family’s extensive collection.
Bitten early by the old-engine
bug, Ralph picked up two broken
down engines at a junkyard when
he was the mere age of ten. In the
following years, he rebuilt the
three-quarter horsepower model
but grins as he admits he’s still
planning to refurbish the larger,
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youthful purchases.
An assortment of other collector
pieces have been acquired by the
pair and restored to like-new
condition, complete with shiny
paint jobs and decorative lettering
and ornamentation.
A one-horse Flmchbaugh engine
is a favorite, rescued from a junk
truck for just a few dollars, and
one of perhaps only a half-dozen in
existence across the country.
Another Flmchbaugh three-horse
engme, dating to 1911, was bought
at a local sale.
Down the line-up of small pieces
sits an-earlier version of the corn
planter, a French and Orumgold
model, produced hy a York firm.
There’s also an Ontario gram-drill,
horse-drawn ancestor to the giant
seeding machines pulled today by
four-wheel drive tractors.
Some time ago, Ralph found an
early 1800’s model field-size gram
thresher, focal point for another
demonstration during fair days.
Built by a Spangler in York, the
wagon-size gram separator was
another giant step m harvest ef
ficiency for farmers accustomed to
the hand flailing technique.
Each year, the Brennemans
hand-bmd a load of wheat for use
with the century and a half old
machine.
At still' another corner of the
display, a crowd gathers to study
Merle Dellinger's com cracker
demonstration.
His one and a half-horse Her
cules gasoline engines clatters as it
pulverizes shelled corn into
coarsely-ground feed. Although the
cracker was Dellinger’s first
acquisition, like several others
(Turn to Page D 8)
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Merle Dellinger pours more corn into his antique "corn
cracker”, a once-familiar piece of farm equipment that
ground corn into coarse feed. Visitors at the York Fair’s
popularold machinery display took home bags of Mellinger’s
cracked yellow grain to fill their bird feeders.
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Name
State
Phone (includes.area code)
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 24,1981—07
.County