George Brown invented a wooden corn planter, and a beautiful example of this miraculous machine sits on the third floor of the Galesburg Antique Mall.

While Brown got his start in central Illinois, so did the men of the Avery Manufacturing Co. The Brown Manufacturing Co. would play an integral role in the development of the Avery Co., and their lives and work crossed paths on these central plains.

The story of the Avery Manufacturing Co. (not to be confused with the B.F. Avery Co.) begins with Robert Hanneman Avery, who was born Jan. 17, 1840, on his father George’s farm. Rex Cherrington, an historian and expert on the Avery family, said they were “among the original founders of Galesburg, they were members of First Church of Christ, non-denominational but comprised of Presbyterians and Congregationalist almost entirely.

“The father, George Avery, was a member of the Underground Railroad and helped runaway slaves to escape. They were prohibitionists, abolitionists and hard-working people,” he added.

Robert was exposed to farming practices and inventive influences in his childhood. Rex said Robert’s great uncle, Rilet Root, was a Galesburg pioneer inventor.

“His most famous invention was the track-clearing device to go on the front of a locomotive engine and consisted of a large fan inside of housing, and snow could be blown from the tracks to clear the way for the train. It was the forerunner of the snow blower.”

Robert attended the preparatory school Knox Academy from 1854-59.

His father was one of the founders. After graduation, Robert worked part-time at the Brown Manufacturing Co., which built a line of corn planters, and taught school before enlisting in the Union Army on Aug. 15, 1862, in Company A, 77th IL Infantry.

Two years after his enlistment Robert, now a sergeant, was captured during the battle of Mobile Bay and was a prisoner of war at Andersonville. Located in Georgia, Andersonville is infamous for the horrible conditions that caused 13,000 Union prisoners to die from starvation, disease and exposure.

The Knox County (Ill.) Genealogy website states: “It was while confined there that Mr. Avery, from sheer lack of mental occupation, first directed his thought to those improvements in the implements of farm work, the perfecting of which have made his name famous.”

That improvement was a one-row cultivator that he devised a model of using scraps of wood.

After the war, once recovered from typhoid fever, Robert worked on the 160-acre farm his brother John had bought for the two of them.

He continued to work on several inventions, first creating his cultivator dreamed up at Andersonville.

Robert was the inventor, but another, younger brother had the faith in the invention to bring it to fruition.

Rex said, “While Robert H. Avery had the mechanical genius and technical aptitudes, his brother Cyrus Minor Avery seemed to have more aptitude for business and finance. That is the way it appears to me, at least, that they complemented each other in the way they partnered.”

To raise capital for the venture, Cyrus invested in the business and Robert sold his share of the farm to John, along with borrowing additional money to begin the agricultural equipment business.

While hopes were high, sales tanked and the company was not a success. Robert sought a new start, moving his family to Kansas where he farmed. While there, he invented a new spiral corn stalk cutter which sold well, leading to an 1872 return to Galesburg where he and Cyrus restarted the Avery Co.

Success was short-lived with the financial panic of 1873, and it was through a deal with the George Brown planter company that they were able to stay afloat. The Averys sold the rights to make the stalk cutter, receiving a royalty on those sold.

The next step for the Averys was in 1874 when they developed their own corn planter.  The original planter is at the Edison Institute Museum at Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich.

The manufacture of Avery Co. equipment from 1872-82, Rex said, was through the partial purchase of the already established Frost Manufacturing Co., a foundry owned by Joseph Frost. The original buildings are gone today; Rex explained, “A few buildings in the south end of Galesburg are the former site of Frost but they are of a later period.”

During the summer of 1882 Robert became president of the Avery Co. and they made the move from Galesburg to Peoria. They bought 15 acres and used $100,000 and built a three-story brick plant that opened New Year’s Day 1883. Avery produced corn planters, check rowers, stalk cutters, cultivators and hand tools – and the company was renamed the Avery Planter Co.

Knox County Genealogy records show: “Mr. Avery remained at the head of the company until his death, which occurred September 1892. His demise was indirectly the result of the hardships undergone at Andersonville, the seeds of disease there implanted in his system having never been eradicated.”

Robert died at the age of 52 of a heart attack while touring the western United States with his family. They toured in a private Pullman railcar, and then Robert died in Los Angeles on Sept. 14. He is buried in Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, Ill.

(Next week, Cindy talks about the rest of the Avery Co.’s ag history.)