1900 Gaar-Scott 16 HP Steam Engine Tractor

 This steam engine tractor (serial #9983), sometimes called a steam engine or steam traction engine, was built by the Gaar-Scott Company in Richmond, Indiana. As with the other steam engine tractors in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this Gaar-Scott was probably used to power a threshing machine and may also have been used to pull gang plows. During the threshing season, the owner of this steam engine would have driven it from farm to farm in the area around his own stead, pulling a threshing machine behind. He and the other farmers would have then attached the engine to the thresher with a long belt. As the steam engine ran, its belt wheel would turn. That wheel would turn the belt which would then turn the belt wheel on the thresher. The thresher's belt wheel, with the aide of gears, turned the other moving parts of the thresher. The belt was made long in order to keep the engine away from the thresher, preventing heat and sparks created by the engine from igniting the straw from the thresher.
 The Gaar-Scott Company was incorporated around 1870 by Abram, Jonas, and John Gaar, and William Scott. Throughout the late 1800s, the company specialized in steam engines and threshing machines. Despite its early success, business dropped in the early 1900s. In 1911, Gaar-Scott was acquired by the M. Rumely Company of La Porte, Indiana, which continued to make the Gaar-Scott engines until around 1914.
 This steam engine has the following patent dates molded and painted onto it:
July 6, 1880, corresponding to patent 229715, issued to Horatio N. Land and Howard Campbell, which you can access here;
May 2, 1882, corresponding to patent 257444, issued to Horatio N. Land and Howard Campbell, which you can access here;
May 30, 1882, for which we haven't found a corresponding patent;
May 12, 1885, corresponding to patent 317722, issued to Howard Campbell and Horatio N. Land, which you can access here; and
May 12, 1885 and December 1, 1885, for which we haven't found corresponding patents.