The American Farm Heritage Museum grounds just outside Greenville, Ill., hosted Farm Heritage Days in late July. This three-day show features fun events like tractor pulls, field demonstrations, an antique fire truck display, gas engine display, live music, Grand-Scale railroad, food, vendors, activities, steam engine, Baker Fan, sawmill and threshing. The Lil’ Red Barn is open as well. This is a kids’ museum that features collections of items from the past that show how people used to live, eat, dress and do chores. Inside the barn is a replica of a general store, a one-room school, a blacksmith shop, a granary and hundreds of items. This year the featured tractor brands at the show included Sheppard and JI Case. The JI Case Collectors Club show at the grounds saw an amazing array of tractors. There was a pretty good quantity of Sheppards available as well. Sheppard tractors are few and far between; their story began with R.H. Sheppard’s love of diesel engines. He started a company that produced many things and moved into the production of diesel engines. According to the company history website, these engines powered generator-sets, pumps, lifeboats and other rescue craft, refrigerated railroad cars and tractors. The engines were produced from the 1930s to 1963. The company moved into tractor production in 1949, when it repowered a Farmall M International by using a 3-cylinder Sheppard Diesel. This bold move led to the development of a whole new line of tractors and the first 3-cylinder diesel tractor in the United States. The Sheppard Co. produced 1, 2, 3 and 4 cylinders until 1956. In 1953, the company applied the first power steering gear and began to use it in heavy-duty trucks – when it ceased manufacturing tractors in 1963, it switched to production of power steering. According to the company, over the years it has been issued more than 50 patents on steering and related technologies from both R.H. and Peter Sheppard. Its M-series gears include five basic models, with several hundred variations of those models. There was also a huge display of Case tractors. One unusual Case on display was a pretty little VAIW tug tractor that came out of New York. Owned by Jim Voyels of Ava, Mo., information on his tractor said it was used in a boat yard on the Hudson River. Many of these tractors included some very early Cases. One lovely Crossmotor 1918 Case 9-18 was owned by Delwin, Laurel and Jeff Van Zante of Otley, Iowa. Delwin said this tractor has been in his family for three generations: “My grandfather bought this in 1920, about the same year my dad was born. “About the mid-Nineties, we decided to restore it.” The restoration was completed in 1998. It runs on kerosene, and was manufactured in Racine, Wis., where all the early Case tractors were made. One white Case tractor’s sign stated: “Queen of the Flambeau Fleet.” According to information provided by owner Dan Jacobs, this tractor was believed to be one of two Model 500s painted white, with several parts chromed. In front of the “Queen” was a majestic Case Eagle that spent its life at a dealership in Fayette County, Ill. Next, the Eagle went on to hold a mailbox. The current owner negotiated 25 years with the former owner before finally buying this treasure. For more information about the American Farm Heritage Museum and its events, log on to www.americanfarmheritagemuseum.com Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication. Learn more of Cindy’s finds and travel in her blog, “Traveling Adventures of a Farm Girl,” at http://travelingadventuresofafarmgirl.com |
