Avery Co.
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| Private company | |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 1891 |
| Founder | Robert Hanneman Avery |
| Defunct | 1928 |
| Headquarters | Galesburg, Illinois, U.S. |
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Area served
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United States, Europe |
| Products | Steam tractors, trucks, automobiles |
The Avery Company, founded by Robert Hanneman Avery, was an American farm tractor manufacturer famed for its undermounted engine which resembled a railroad engine more than a conventional farm steam engine. Avery founded the farm implement business after the Civil War. His company built a large line of products, including steam engines, beginning in 1891. The company started with a return flue design and later adapted the undermount style, including a bulldog design on the smokebox door. Their design was well received by farmers in central Illinois. They expanded their market nationwide and overseas until the 1920s, when they failed to innovate and the company faltered. They manufactured trucks for a period of time, and then automobiles. until they finally succumbed to an agricultural crisis and the Depression.
Robert Hanneman Avery (16 January 1840, Galesburg, Illinois - 13 September 1892, Peoria, Illinois) was heavily influenced during his childhood by his great-uncle Riley Root, who invented a rotary fan blower to clear railroad tracks of snow. Robert attended Knox College and after graduation, worked part-time at the Brown Manufacturing Company, which built a line of corn planters.
Robert taught school before enlisting in 1862 as a Union Soldier in the American Civil War, in Company A, 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was captured in 1864 and spent a number of months in various prisoner-of-war camps, before being sent to the now infamous Confederate Andersonville Prison for about eight months. There he passed the time devising an improved seed drill by sketching a design in the sand.
After the war he worked on a 160-acre (0.65 km2) farm his brother John had bought for the two of them. Robert continued to work on several inventions, and, during the winters when the farm was idle, he worked in a Galesburg, Illinois machine shop. He used that money and the experience to design and develop patterns and castings for a riding cultivator.
Robert's brother Cyrus Avery thought the invention had huge potential. To fund their company, Cyrus invested some capital, and Robert sold his share of the farm to his brother John and borrowed additional money. They began business as R.H. & C.M. Avery Company. Sales did not take off and the brothers' company teetered on bankruptcy. Robert moved his family to Kansas and took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862 to obtain more farm land. He invented a new spiral corn stalk cutter and this time sales increased quickly. In 1872, Robert moved back to Galesburg and with his brother Cyrus' help, restarted the Avery Company. By 1874 he had a full size working model of his corn planter built. The original planter is now in the Edison Institute Museum at Ford's Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.
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