Wood, Tabor & Morse, Allen Wood & 4 Wheel Drive Tractors

 

Eaton is the home of Wood, Taber & Morse Steam Engine Works the maker of agricultural steam engines, The company also made and sold steam engines that worked the fields.

The first four-wheel drive traction engine transmission that used metal gears like today's models  was the brain child of Allen Wood and his engineer Loyal Clark Tabor.  They had a  wish to make this unit available to pull traction engines into the field with all of its equipment.....in other words the precursor of today's tractor.  Yes it meant man rode on it into the field for the first time. To accomplish this, Tabor invented and patented its design with all its gears...

Allen Nelson Wood founder of the company was born in the community of Middleport, one of the stops on the Chenango Canal just below Eaton. His mother and father named him after the great Lord Nelson. Captain Allen Wood Sr., Allen’s father, was a Revolutionary War veteran and a well-known Freemason. His death recorded on March 16, 1823, resulted in the largest Masonic funeral in Madison County history up until that time and for some years to come, because of the decline in Masonry after the William Morgan incident.

Allen Wood Sr. married Lucinda Newcomb of Lebanon, they had five children - Alonzo born in 1808, (he married Lydia Hodges), Olivia, born in 1810, (she married Oliver Whitaker), Tirza (married David Smith of NYC), Polly Hale (married Dr. Orson Gregory of NYC) and Allen Nelson Wood, born on August 14, 1818.

Mr. Wood was a respected member of the area, the Congregational Church, and the business community. Wood was a director, and one of the largest stockholders of the First National Bank of Morrisville as well as director and a major stockholder of the Hamilton National Bank. In 1880.  Allen Wood was the also the main stockholder of the Morrisville National Bank, owning personally sixty-five shares. He traveled as the business agent of the company that had offices in Chicago, Augusta GA. and of course, Eaton, NY.

Through his records of stock found in Cornell's Olin Library it was evident that Mr. Wood invested in many banks across America.  Mr. Wood was also instrumental in bringing the Midland Railroad to the area. To bring the railroad in, Eaton agreed to bond for $150,000.

The railroad, of course, allowed an easier and wider distribution of the steam engines and parts, as well as affording the company an easier way to bringing the needed iron ore from the Clinton area to Eaton for use in the foundry, and the coal from Pennsylvania. A foundry, we might add, which made all the parts for the engines - even to casting all of the needed gears.  Wood and company also employed many through the deepest depressions of the post Civil War period and set up and sold rights to the Oneida Royal Company.

Mr. Wood's great granddaughters visited the Wood House on Brooklyn Street in 1996, and took pleasure in telling of how... their great grandfather, Mr. Wood, who was considered the larger than life pillar of the community... Mr. Wood was on the Board of Directors or Trustee for the banks, the Eaton Congregational Church where he was also a Deacon and Sunday School Superintendent, he was Trustee of the Eaton Village Cemetery Association, and an abolitionist whose house was and Underground Railroad stop and of course – the founding member and co-owner of the famous Wood, Taber & Morse Steam Engine Works... stood only 5 foot three inches tall.


For more information on Mr. Wood, Wood, Tabor and Morse, Patents for the machines visit the Old Town of Eaton Museum on River Road in Eaton.  For information visit their facebook page >>> Old Town of Eaton Museum.

*An interesting side note for genealogists is Lucinda's sister Jerusha, who married their father's brother John Newcomb, lived and is buried in Eaton. One of Lucinda's brothers Daniel married Anna Clark of Eaton.

History, Eaton... What has changed in our World & not for the better I fear!

The history of Eaton Village and the Town of Eaton have continued now for 220 years, in a way it is just a pebble in the sand of time.

Old History book and the new!

The horses and the wagons that carried people to this once a wilderness, have disappeared and in their place have sprung up horse facilities and horse farms of all variety…but these for more pleasant enterprises than hauling people and their belongings up the steep old trails.

The hills that surround the town are still steep but huge tractor-trailers wiz over them with little thought of the heavily burdened ox carts that once served the same purpose.  The wood fires are still burning yet coal, wood pellets, and oil have overtaken their importance.

The memories of the town’s famous inhabitants have now faded, and the young do not have to time to remember their wonderful historic roots.  It seems it is not until they reach the age of retirement that they are suddenly filled with the nostalgia needed and the wish to find out about their past genealogy.

The cell phone and Internet have brought the outside world to a place where young Samuel Chubbuck stood testing and developing the pony key and sounder for S B Morse’s telegraph, an invention that would change the way news was transmitted across the world in the 1800’s.

Gone is the factory of Wood, Taber and Morse who developed four-wheel drive equipment that we think little of today as we watch huge John Deere’s plowing the fields using the sisters of the first 4-driver traction engines they developed.

The church is still standing and open… seeming to follow the historic past, but all the many denominations have spread out of the small villages and into the surrounding area, where stood three now stands one.  Famous preachers are now replaced with musical groups who tour to raise spirits in the ever more connected and depressing world.

Missionaries like the Deans, Emily Judson, and the Wades have faded... but some still go out via the local churches as missions, but it is not the same.

The promise of gas lights and heat at a cheap rate has gone away, though today there are more gas heads and gas lines crossing the town than ever before… yet no gas is delivered to a majority of its rural population.

Cows are really no longer family with pictures and names that are revered…now they are part of a mechanical business we call production.  Herds that once roamed free have expanded to hundreds in barns feeding and milking,  many  - three times a day.

Children can no longer walk to school and return home with lunch pails in hand talking about their day to their friends along the way.  Local education that was the pride and care of the community has disappeared… replaced by central schools and huge buses that runaround the town mostly empty… back and forth, back and forth.

Yes things have changed, we now drive miles to stores rather than walk “over town” to shop locally. We spend our money at institutions run by millionaires and foreign countries rather than keep our money local helping the butcher, baker and candlestick maker.

Doctors no longer make house calls and you can’t stop at Mrs. Chase’s for a remedy or liquid cure…now we now have specialists and travel to big complexes in Syracuse. Our children leave for college and a better way of life to never return in many cases…but sometimes I wonder… are we really better off in the modern world?  Only history will tell.

For a piece of history you can purchase the new Eaton History Book at Dougherty's Pharmacy in Morrisville...

small town fun.....