Advertisement for Nichols and Shepard traction engine Nichols and Shepard Co. was an American partnership company which manufactured farm machinery, steam engines and mill machinery. In 1848, John Nichols opened a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

shop in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he began making various farm tools for local farmers.Robert N. Pripps and Andrew Morland, ''Oliver Tractors'' (Motorbooks International: Osceola, Wisc., 1994) p. 34. He built his first thresher/separator in 1852. The business was successful, so in the 1850s he joined with David Shepard to form a partnership known as Nichols, Shepard and Company which manufactured farm machinery, steam engines and mill machinery.C.H. Wendel, ''Oliver/Hart-Parr'' (Motorbooks International: Osceola, Wisc., 1994) pp. 92-93. The first thresher/separator of small grains (largely

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and

oats The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human co ...

) was developed in about 1831 by the Pitts brothers—Hiram and John Pitts of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. However, this early thresher, called the "ground hog," was quite unlike the conventional thresher/separators that developed since that time. For instance, the ground hog's separating unit was largely a slatted apron which pulled the grain across a screen. John Nichols and David Shepard realized that the apron style separator was not a technology that was going to work. Consequently, in 1857, the Nichols and Shepard Company developed the first "vibrator" separating unit for the small grain thresher. This vibrator-style of separator soon became universally adopted by all other thresher/separator manufacturers. The Nichols and Shepard Company received a patent from the United States government for their "Vibrator" grain separator on January 7, 1862. The company also obtained a number of other patents for other advances in the thresher/separator technology, for original improvements in steam engine traction technology. During the 1920s, the Nichols and Shepard Company developed a successfully functioning corn picker. In 1929 the Nichols and Shepard Company was acquired by the Oliver Farm Equipment Company. Thus the 'corn picker' became the direct ancestor of the Oliver cornpicker.''Oliver/Hart-Parr'', p. 143.

References

{{Reflist Manufacturing companies established in 1848 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1929 Defunct agriculture companies of the United States 1848 establishments in Michigan 1929 disestablishments in Michigan Defunct manufacturing companies based in Michigan Oliver Farm Equipment Company

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References