Horses and Horse Powered Equipment Featured

[Michael E. McCracken]

The 40th Freeport Show is featuring horses and horse powered equipment at The Stephenson County Fairgrounds, Freeport,IL September 18 -20, 2009. If you have any items or horses you would like to exhibit? You are more than welcome. Check the show calendar here on Stak for more information. Thank You, Michael

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Horsepower equipment includes the clubs 12 Horse Sweep Powered Case Threshing Machine. Some treadmill powered equipment, etc. And I believe there will also be plowing demonstrations etc., down at the railroad & museum complex as well.

And the Farmer's Hitch Class Horse Pulls starting 1/2 hour after the Midwest Championship Antique Tractor Pull on Saturday afternoon.

Don't forget we are also featuring Rawleigh and Rawleigh Schryer gas engines as the feature display in Gasoline Alley.

New show dates are going to take some getting used to with shorter cooler days, but the more, the merrier, so please be sure to attend if you can.

While we have lost some exhibits over the years, there's still something for everyone there with Steam Engines, gas and diesel tractors, hit & miss and throttle governed engines, model engines, blacksmith shop, Sawmill, Barrel Stave Mill, Shingle mill, Flour Mill, Antique Cars and Trucks including several built In Freeport, Antique Fire Engines, Railroad with Heisler Logging Locomotive, Farm Museum with 20+ rooms filled with local memorabilia, Cooper Corliss Stationary Steam Engine with 25+ foot diameter 60 Ton Flywheel (which is advertised to be the largest running steam engine within a 500 mile radius), Daily parade (weather permitting) HUGE Flea market, several building filled with displays, etc., etc....

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Just curious how many people are coming to the show.....

So far there are only 4 people signed up on the calendar posting, but I know not everyone that goes to a show enters their names on the listings.

[mschreiber]

i'll be there from nw indiana bringing a h drawn bobsled. thanks.

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Even though we featured Fire Engines before already, I'm guessing there will be some horse drawn fire fighting equipment here again too. At least I'm hoping so.

We have several antique Fire Engines owned by the club, and often have other local Fire Departments show up with their eqipment aw well, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of the earlier stuff again even if it isn't featured this year.

If I heard right, there will be a 12 horse hitch making its rounds around the fairgrounds a few times a day along with during the daily parade.

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Show Starts in 2 Days.....

I'm still trying to find some pictures of the Horse Power Threshing, but unfortunitely someone removed several pictures from the clubs photo albums. I'm posting one picture of 2 pages of pics if you can enlarge it enough to see anything, will keep looking for more but there are 30 or more albums to go through.....

[OTTO-Sawyer]

I see we picked up a couple more Stakker's on the calendar.

Stop in and say hi if you get a chance so I can put a name with the face. I'll (OTTO-Sawyer) be at the sawmill when it's running, and for a while when it's not running (sharpening the blade), Joe Maurer will be up in Gasoline Alley with 12HP & 14HP Stovers and several other engines, F12Mahon will be down running the Cooper Steam Engine behind the Museum. I need to appologise to Michael McCracken, as I'm not sure where he will be, but being listed as a contact person for the Rawleigh engines, I'm guessing he will be around them? Please don't be offended if I don't recognize any of you the next time I see you though, my facial recognition software never fully loaded when I was assembled , that's my story and I'm sticking with it....

Didn't think to mention before, that we also have horse drawn and tractor drawn people wagons giving people rides around the show ground to save wear & tear on your feet.

See Ya There.

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Got some nice looking teams of horses on the grounds. I think I found where the missing horsepower threshing pictures disapeared to when I opened up the show schedule. I'll post those two pics here. I don't know how clear they will be as they are scanned copies of smaller printed copies from the schedule, but hopefully they will turn out OK.

There's a couple nice looking teams of horses pulling people wagons, and while I didn't see a twelve horse hitch roaming around ( I probably heard that wrong at the meeting) there was a beautiful looking 6 horse hitch that did a side stepping U-Turn in the middle of the drive at the sawmill while I was cleaning up for the night before heading home. Wish I would have had the camera ready for that one.

[Mike Rock]

What a great day for a steam and horse powered show. Temperatures were nice and no rain. Met Joe Maurer, Michael McCracken and Otto-Sawyer. Had a ball and saw some nice equipment. Found out how the hay press power worked. Cool.

And.... ta ta !!! got to ride with Joe in a 1908 Austin, ran around Freeport with the top down and the wind blowing hats off. Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going back in the morning and see who else I can scout up.

Mike

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Mike:

Thanks for taking the time to stop down at the sawmill. I think I need to do a little follow up discusion with you if possible.

That Austin is one fine looking car..... never seen it before. If he hadn't driven it down by the sawmill I maybe would have missed it being here. Kind of sucks being too busy to see anything at your own show, but for some reason I still enjoy it.

The Austin owner said his grandfather bought it new and it's been in the family ever since. Discussed some the engine problems he was having, and need to get some more info from him as well so I can follow up with him and see if my suggestions help or not. I'm kind of jealous though that you got to go for a ride in it.

[Mike Rock]

Sunday at the Thresheree

Well, the Austin automobile is a 1911, not a 1908. I have several 1911's but they are .45 caliber.

Again, a wonderful day. Made the rounds emphasizing horsey stuff. That horse drawn corn picker, IHC, was the highlight of the show for me. I did make a mistake and ask 'how much'.
Don't even ask unless you are seated. I do want to make an appointment to photograph it in disgusting detail though.

The IHC hay press has a very interesting 'power'. The horse moves in his circle but the operating rod for the hay press moves straight line back and forth. They did not design it like a piston engine with guides but used a fascinating set of half gears and rollers. It provided two power strokes per revolution (I believe....).

The Case separator was originally owned by my butcher in New Glarus, the Hoesly family. It was neat to read the history of operation.

Nice day.

Mike

[Michael E. McCracken]

I got home from show 11:50 PM just under 10 hours thats doing good for me. Ran into heavy rain between Rockford and Chicago and agin west of Fort Wayne. I was over to the horse area several times during the show enjoyed seeing all of the equipment, horses and mules. I kind favor the mules as my Grandfather was a mule man. Friday I did get to see the threshing, first time for me to see it done by horsepower. The rest of my time was mostly spent in Gasoline Alley. We had 31 Rawleigh Schryer engines there plus 2 down at the Cooper Building. I was well pleased with the turnout. Engines came in from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio & Wisconson.

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Michael:
Thanks for getting the count on the # of Rawleighs at the show. I never even had time to get around to see any of them myself.

Mike Rock:
I still need to make contact with you again somehow..... I tried sending an e-mail and sent a PM through here also...

Hope you made it home safely!

Alan aka OTTO-Sawyer.

[Loren in MN]

If the show had been another weekend, I would have brought 3 more Rawleigh's. I have a 1 1/2hp style Z Rawleigh/Schryer, a 1hp style Z with the attached pumpjack with a Leader name tag and cast base with pump, and a 1 1/2hp Rawleigh later style AA with a webster mag.
Sorry I missed it!

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Sorry you missed it.

Your 3 engines would have increased the count by almost 10%

Our show had always been the Last Full Weekend in July for the first 39 years, but then the local Fair Board decided to up and change the dates of the County Fair and run us out on those dates. Hard to say what the future will hold for us, but if I understand it right we're now locked in to the Spetember dates for 3 years before we can do anything different....

[Thiel]

Otto-Sawyer, Michael McCracken and others,
are there any pictures available from the show, especially the gathering of the Rawleigh's? I am in the process to restore one and need all the references I can get. Living in the south does it make not always easy to attend these great shows.
Thanks

[OTTO-Sawyer]

I didn't have much time to get around looking at things myself this year, let alone very much any other year, so the only pictures I have myself are from a few years back if I can find them and scan them into my computer.

We do have a collection of photo albums at the museum though, which I will be heading in to shortly for our monthly meeting today. If they have anything developed yet for this year I will try to snap copies of them with my digital and get them posted.

Our annual Fall Plowing and Fall Harvest Demonstrations are this next weekend the 24th & 25th, and we usually have horses and mules plowing there, so I should be able to get some shots of that as well.

If AnyOne Else has any pictures to share, please do so as I would like to see what I missed at our own show.

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Thiel:

I talked to Joe Maurer & Ironman briefly tonight to see if they had any pictures to post on here. Joe didn't get any of the Rawleigh's but Ironman said he had pictures of all 21(? I thought Michael McCracken said there were 31 there plus 2 more down at the cooper building).

I don't know if any of them will be posted on this thread, or on the one started about the Rawleigh & Rawleigh Schryers at Freeport, but I would try watching that thread for engine pictures.

There were two photo albums at the museum during our club meeting last Sunday, but they were mostly pictures of this years queen, and horses going through the parade. Hopefully there were more pictures than that still waiting to be developed....

In the mean time, here's a couple shots of some of the horses in action. I appologize for the quality, but they're digital shots of other pictures with poor lighting conditions.

And again.... if ANYONE Else has more pictures to post here Please Do So.