The ancestor, part one: the Fort Wayne Agricultural Works built the threshing machines

1863 – 1865, as dated in the record

A Fort Wayne factory for the harvest: Williams' Fort Wayne Directory for 1864–65 lists the Fort Wayne Agricultural Works three ways: under Agricultural Implements, under Machinists, and under "Plows, Threshing Machines, &c." Its own advertisement in the same directory places it "on the canal feeder at north end of Calhoun Street" and states its business in capitals: it manufactured threshing machines, reapers, and mowers. The Smithsonian's Warshaw Collection of Business Americana holds the firm's "Excelsior Farming Implements Catalogue," dated about 1863 — a Fort Wayne implement factory with a printed catalogue, selling the machines that harvested the county's grain.

Shown at the state fair, at home: When the Indiana State Fair was held in Fort Wayne in 1865, the Chicago Tribune's report of the fair listed the Fort Wayne Agricultural Works among the exhibitors and carried "Fort Wayne Threshers and Reapers" in the fair's power department. The distinction matters to this section: the thresher was the stationary half of the rig. It did not move itself, pull itself, or power itself; it stood in the barnyard or the field and was belted to an engine, and hauled from farm to farm behind horses. The tractor's local ancestor is the other half of that rig — the engine — and it is the subject of the next entry.

Sources:

1. Williams' Fort Wayne Directory, 1864–65 — the Fort Wayne Agricultural Works listed under Agricultural Implements, Machinists, and "Plows, Threshing Machines, &c.," and its advertisement: the works on the canal feeder at the north end of Calhoun Street, manufacturing threshing machines, reapers, and mowers.
2. Smithsonian Institution, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana — the Fort Wayne Agricultural Works' "Excelsior Farming Implements Catalogue," about 1863.
3. Chicago Tribune, report of the Indiana State Fair held at Fort Wayne, September 1865 — the Fort Wayne Agricultural Works among the exhibitors, and "Fort Wayne Threshers and Reapers" in the power department.