Early 20th Century Avery Two-row Riding Corn Planter

 This corn planter was made by the Avery Company of Peoria, Illinois. Like the nearby planters, this machine dug, planted, and covered corn seeds as it was pulled across the field by horses.
 Like the neighboring Deere & Mansur corn planter, this Avery planter has a check wire attachment. This attachment performed the same task as the wheels on the nearby one-row walking planter and the levers near the front seat of the neighboring Farmers Friend planter. It triggered the planting mechanism near the bottom of the tubes located behind the trench-digging blades, allowing the corn seeds to fall into the trench before being covered by the concave wheels.
 This check row attachment was used with the check wire you can see attached to this planter, and with the stakes found next to the Deere & Mansur planter. The stakes would have been placed at each end of the field, holding the check wire taut as the planter was pulled from one end to the other. As the tractor moved, the check wire passed through the check row attachment located on the side of the planter.
 As the wire passed through the attachment, each knot, or tappet, in the wire triggered the forked lever inside the attachment. The knots – located 40 to 42 inches apart, or the width of a horse – would catch the forked lever and move it back before releasing it. That movement back is what triggered the planting mechanism, dropping the seeds.
 Each knot in the wire is located the width of a horse apart so that the farmer could cross-cultivate the cornfield. The horse pulling the cultivator could walk along the same path that the horse(s) walked while pulling the planter. Since the seeds were dropped 40 to 42 inches apart, that same horse could also pull the cultivator along paths perpendicular to the paths created while planting.

Check wire with knots (tappets).

The maker of this corn planter, the Avery Company, was founded by Robert H. and Cyrus M. Avery, both born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois.  Robert, the older of the two brothers, enlisted to fight for the Union during the American Civil War.  In 1862, he joined Company A of the 77th Illinois Infantry, eventually becoming a sergeant.  During his first couple years, he served in the Army of the Mississippi, participating in the siege of Vicksburg as well as the fighting at Arkansas Post, Jacksonville, and Shreveport.  In August, 1864, Robert was captured by Confederates and was held prisoner for about eight-and-a-half months in a variety of places, including about five-and-a-half months in Andersonville. While waiting in prison, Robert developed ideas for farm implements, including a cultivator, and possibly a stalk cutter and a corn planter.  When he was released after the war, Robert eventually made his way back to Illinois where he joined with his brother, Cyrus, to start a company and to make his ideas a reality.

By the early 1870s, they had established R. H. & C. M. Avery in Galesburg.  They found a large and ready market for their implements and, after about a decade in Galesburg, they found they needed to move to larger and better facilities.  In 1882, the Avery brothers relocated their business to Peoria and had a new factory built next to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad line.  In 1883, they organized and renamed their venture the Avery Planter Company.  During the next several years, the company continued to grow, employing about three hundred workers by 1890.  Robert died in 1892, but Cyrus continued to lead the company into the twentieth century.  In 1900, Cyrus reorganized the growing company as the Avery Manufacturing Company.  After Cyrus’ death in 1905, J. B. Bartholomew took over the company, reorganizing it again as the Avery Company in 1907.
In 1912, the Avery Company plant covered about twenty-seven acres, including nearly six-and-a-half acres of floor space in the factory and warehouses.  The company employed about 1,300 workers and made a wide variety of products, including steam traction engines (one steam traction engine is here in Stuhr Museum’s exhibit), gasoline tractors (two can be found in this exhibit), threshing machines, farm wagons, riding and walking cultivators, stalk cutters, corn planters (including this one), and the “Self-Lift” gang plow (one can be found outside this building).  The Avery Company sold their products across the United States, as well as to markets in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the Argentine Republic, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Sweden, Egypt, China, the Philippines, and Cuba.

Notes

For a brief biography of Robert H. Avery, including details about his Civil War experiences, see Portrait and Biographical Album of Peoria County, Illinois. Volume 2. Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Presidents of the United States and Governors of the State (Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co., 1890), pp. 951-952.
Much of the narrative here can be found in individual biographies found in Peoria City and County, Illinois: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, vol. II (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912), pp. 27, 181-183, 246-248, 662-665, and 787-788.