Awesome Steam Machines! 100-Year-Old Tractors Can Still Plow a Field (Video)

Century-old steam tractors and other vintage equipment have found heaven at a privately owned rural shrine to history in Carthage, North Carolina, called “Ederville,” that opens to the public one weekend a year in November.

In the video at the bottom of this story, we show some of the awesome steam scenes we saw at the site’s 2024 annual 100+ Years of Progress Show, as massive fire-burning iron beasts from the early 20^th century come back to life to blow off some steam and go to work plowing a field.

Volunteers came from various states to run the tractors, including Steve Mcintyre from Mechanicsville, Virginia. His father owns a steam engine, and he has been running them most of his life.

“They’re like a human being,” he said. “They have attitudes. They have personalities.”

He was running The Geiser 40-140-horsepower stream tractor, which was once used for plowing in Montana. It was actually a combination of Geiser “Peerless” and Reeves engines, and he estimated it dated back to 1912.

“It’s the best thing in the whole wide world,” he said of running the steam tractors. “… The people that are involved in the steam hobby, you can’t get a better family than that.”

Here’s a look at some of the antique tractors in the video, which can be watched at the end of this story:

Rumely 40-140 HP

Equipment WorldThe Rumely 40-140 HP tractor was one of the largest of the steam tractors plowing at the Ederville show. (Note, the first horsepower number on the antique tractors is for drawbar pull, and the second number is for running a belt, such as for powering a sawmill.)

The M. Rumley Company was formed in 1887 in La Porte, Indiana, and it began producing steam tractive engines in 1895. The company expanded by acquiring other businesses, becoming the Advance-Rumely Company in 1915.

The Great Depression took its toll on the company, which was bought by Allis-Chalmers in 1931.

Sawyer-Massey

Equipment WorldL.D. Sawyer & Co. began making portable steam engines in the 1860s in Canada. The company was bought by the Massey family in 1892 and became Sawyer-Massey. After 1910, its steam tractors took the circular Sawyer-Massey logo. It exited the farm tractor business in the 1920s to focus on road equipment. The company went out of business after World War II.

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The Geiser

Equipment WorldThe Geiser Manufacturing Company, formed in 1869, built the “Peerless” steam engine in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, starting in 1881. The company was bought in 1912 by Emerson-Brantingham Implement Co. The Peerless steam engines were made until the mid-1920s.

½-Scale Case Traction Engine

Equipment WorldThe little Case in the video is actually a half-scale replica of a Case tractor built from a kit by Todd Heinz of Mount Pleasant, North Carolina.

Reeves 40

Equipment WorldThe Reeves 40 is the only gas-powered tractor in the video. The 23,000-pound tractor was built sometime between 1911 and 1920 in Rockford, Illinois, by Reeves & Co., which also produced the 30-60 Case. The 40-horsepower, 4-cylinder engine was built by Minneapolis Steel and Machinery Company. A label attached to the tractor says, “There are 11 Reeves 40 known to exist with only 5 in running condition.”

The Huber

Equipment WorldMost of the tractors have locomotive-style boilers, but the Huber uses a return flue. That means the fire is going to the front, coming back and then going out the smokestack. It has a 16-horsepower engine and was built in the late 1910s, estimates volunteer Dave Frederick, who was operating it along with Will Sine, both from Haymarket, Virginia.

They said it was more difficult to operate, as it takes longer to build up pressure. But they are also rare.

“There’s not a lot of them left,” Frederick said.

The Huber company was founded in 1875 by Edward Huber. The steam tractors and later road machinery were made in Marion, Ohio.

The Steam Machine Video

• 0:00 – The Noon Whistle Blow
• 0:44 – Rumely 40-140 HP Blows Off Steam
• 1:26 – Little Case Comes to Plow
• 1:56 – Big Rumely Makes Rows
• 2:56 – Sawyer-Massey Enters the Field
• 3:40 – The Geiser
• 3:58 – Reeves 40 Purring
• 4:56 – The Huber
• 5:24 – Closeup with Rumely
• 5:31 – Feeding the Beasts
• 6:15 – Sawyer Massey Blows Farewell

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