Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

I don't have one yet but I just picked up my first Marseilles equipment made by that company. Anyone see this stuff in their area? So far Dr. Baker's book has been the only material I have seen but some of you guys probably got barns full of it?

Roger Bailey has two Marseille windmills

Wow, I have never seen his collection but it must really be nice!

That looks like the top of an old feed grinder I have. I'll look but don't think it is a Marseilles. Theteeth around the bottom is an adjustment for the size of material going into the bag. Mine is complete will take a picture and post it.

It says Marseilles on it, its a complete, you sat it on the ground on blocks, it had pole that attached to the ring where the bolts are and the horse or team walked round and round in a circle around it. I got a Sandwich one also. You had to put a box under it to catch the ground grain and then dump it. The teeth your talking about is the bur, its visible because the main body is taken apart to move and just sat back together and not straight. If you look under it, there is a large gear about 2ft with a reduction so the horse made enough power, they were the norm around here but almost all are Sandwich models.

Here is a Sandwich one that is open, if you look under the one in the above photo, it has these gears also. Almost every farm had them here, power sweeps are a lot harder to find and that is what I am after next. Thanks

Wow! That's neat. I'm reading a ladies diary written from 1856 to 1874. I'm to 1866 and she wrote about them harvesting wheat and then thrashing it. I'm thinking they used a horse power to drive the thrasher. My feed grinder or chopper is belt driven.

In 1866 it would probably been a threshing stone instead of a threshing machine. Here is a picture of mine, it was commissioned by the Mennonites when they got to Kansas and was owned by the local church, each family would use it, they laid tarps or blankets out and use horses or mules to roll the stone over the wheat to break it loose from the head. Of course they may have had an early thresher, but they were rarer than hen's teeth!

The stone is the star shaped thing with a hole in it, the square stone with the ring is a hitching block that stood next to the gate on a local farm.

Kansas Rust Buzzard
I have a threshing stone and my brother also has one.
As a kid my grandparents had one on each side of the front sidewalk.
My forefathers came to this country in 1874.
I do not know the history of the 2 stones they could of been on this place from new. But grandpa went to a lot of farm auctions.
My guess would be that he got them at a auction in the 1930's to the 50's.
Glen Ediger from Newton KS wrote a book "Leave No Threshing Stone Unturned"
published in 2012
Glen has found at least 100 stones.
The dish in the end of your stone was used as a salt lick in the cattle lot after it's days as a threshing stone.
The stones were carved out of limestone rock. And weight between 700 and 850 LBS
they are 23 to 24'' in diameter and 29 to 30'' long.
Terry