Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association Thresher Reunion, 1987-09-09, Page 22PAGE A-22. THE CITIZEN. WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 9. 1987.
Dan remembers 26 years threshing
When the big steam tractors
rumble around the track at the
Huron Pioneer Thresher Reunion
this week Dan Hallahan expects to
be where he’s always been in
recentyears: ridingonthebigCase
engine of Warner Andrews of
Auburn that’s now run by War
ner’s son Bill most of the time.
For Dan, one of the few
remaining members of the group
that originally met to set up a show
of pioneer farming equipment at
Blyth, drivingtheengine will bring
back old memories, not just of
other Reunions but of 24 years
spent with threshing gangs, all but
the last couple of years using big
steam engines.
Gas tractors may have been
progress but Dan leaves no doubt it
was steam engines he preferred,
even if they made for more work.
The tractor, when it replaced the
steam engine to drive the thresh
ing machine was handier, he
concedes. You didn’t have to get
out of bed at five in the morning to
fire up the engine so there’d be
enough steam to power the-
machine when the rest of the
threshing gang was ready for work.
With the tractor you just made sure
it had enough gas and oil and away
it went. Still, he says, a little
wistfully, he’d still like to go back
and put in a week barn threshing.
Farming isn’t something he
gaveupeasily. On his wall is a large
coloured photo of himself driving a
big old John Deere Tractor. It was
taken a couple of years back whdn,
in his 80th year, he plowed 80 acres
on his son Frank’s farm. In recent
years with problems with his vision
declining fie’s had to give up
helping but he still drives out to the
farm a good deal.
The farm goes back more than a
century in the Hallahan family.
Dan’s grandparents settled the
land near Westfield in East
Wawanosh township in 1856 after
arriving from Ireland. They had
travelled the distance from Mount
Forest to Westfield by oxen. Dan
took over the farm from his father
in 1929. Since the thresher reunion
started in 1961, the grain used in
the threshing demonstrations at
the reunion has come from the
Hallahan farm nearly every year.
In his early years on the farm
Dad did all those jobs that steam
engines were used for. He crushed
gravel for the township and he
pressed hay. The hay bales of those
days, he is quick to point out, were
much different than the hay bales
we know today. Hay was forked
into the baling press then com
pressed into 110-140 pound bales
andtiedwithwire.Thehaywas
DAN HALLAHAN
then loaded into freight cars and
shipped off to markets in Toronto
and the United States. If the bales
were just the right size, he recalls,
you could fit 212 bales into a box
car.
He recalls too, shipping cattle
and pigs in those days before there
were trucks topick up stock right at
the barn door. He can recall driving
cattle to the railway station in Blyth
where there were big holding yards
the cattle were keptinuntilthey
were loaded on cattle cars. Pigs
were hauled to town in wagons with
stock racks pulled by horses. He
recalls Archie Montgomery and
Bill Johnston bought and shipped
stock in those days.
The railway station was an
exciting place in those, days. Dan
can recall three and four engines
sitting in the station at a time and
there were two passenger trains a
day went through Blyth.
One of the tasks of the old days
he doesn ’ t seem yearning to repeat
was silo filling in the days when a
steam engine was used to drive a
cutting box. Corn varieties were
later in those days which meant the
work was done in the late fall when
it was wet and cold. Corn was cut by
hand using a sharpened hoe and
loaded on wagons. It was brought
to the barn and put through the
cutting box and blown up into the
silo. “One place I was always
tickled to be on the engine was
when they were cutting corn,” he
chuckles. Another dirty job was
that someone had to climb the side
of the silo and pull up the heavy
pipes through which the corn
would be blown into the silo.
The whole operation would
require a crew of 16 or 17 men, he
recalls. Luckily there weren’t
many silos and not much corn
grown in those days in this part of
the country.
Hispleasantestmemories re
volve around harvesting grain. He
did it all over the years. He
remembers doing quite a bit of
stooking of grain for his neigh
bours, earning 50 cents a year. At
times he drove the team drawing
water to keep the steam engines
supplied. Sometimes he was in
charge of running the threshing
machine but most of the time he
was the man in charge of the steam
tractor.
The days were long in threshing.
The man in charge of the steam
engine was up at5 a.m. to build up
steam in the engine so there would
be power there when the others
were ready to start at 7 a.m. The
gang might be working until lOthat
night if the machines were being
moved from one farm to another,
CongRatcdations
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storey modernized home, double detached garage. Paved road.
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COMMERCIAL BUSINESS BLOCK, owner operated hardware,
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Contact P.H. HILLER REALTY LTD.
935 Main St. W., Listowel, Ont.
Phone: 291-1544; Evenings Helen Cullen 291-1709
sometimes a distance of three or
four miles.
A good season, in the days when
threshing was done out of the barn,
would be 75 to 80 days. Sometimes
up to two farmers a day would be
threshed out and sometimes it
would take up to a day and a half to
Continued on page 23
on the 26th
Annual
Reunion
of
the Pioneer
Thresher-
Association
G.L.
Hubbard
Ltd.
Blyth 523-4554
D.C., D.T., F.I.A.C.A.
73 Montreal St.
Goderich
524-4555
Hours: Monday,
Wednesday & Friday
Douglas B. Palmer
HEALTH CARE THROUGH
NATURAL MEANS
Queen St.
Blyth
523-9321
Hours: Tuesday &
Thursday afternoon
Clinton Community
CREDIT UNION
wishes the Huron Pioneer
Thresher and
Hobby Association
great success on your
26th Annual Reunion in Blyth
70 Ontario St.,
Clinton 482-3467
Proud to be
working with the people
of Bly th and area
since 1952
374 Main St. S.,
Exeter 235-0640