Birdsell Manufacturing Company — the clover huller

South Bend from 1863 – production ended 1929

A Quaker farmer's machine: John Comly Birdsell (31 March 1815 – 13 July 1894), a farmer of West Henrietta, New York, invented in 1855 a single machine that threshed clover, separated the stems, hulled the seed, and cleaned it in one operation — work previously done by flails, horses' hooves, and hand stripping. His huller was patented that December, on the local industries account, and took first prize at the 1857 New York State Fair. The patent itself, Letters Patent No. 20,249 of 18 May 1858 (reissued in 1862), and Birdsell's long fight in Congress for its extension run through the congressional record of the 1870s, where his own petition prices the machine at $150 and announces the transfer of his manufacturing machinery west — to South Bend by the fall of 1865, a year after the standard biography's move date; both are printed. The New York business lost money on western freight and markets, and Birdsell moved the work to South Bend: he built shops here in 1863 and moved in April 1864, on the standard biography. The Birdsell Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1870, and a new factory rose on South Columbia Street in 1872.

Hullers and wagons: The Birdsell plant made two lines: the hullers, and wagons — the firm's own illustrated history in the St. Joseph County Public Library's collection shows a plant of some twenty acres turning out complete hullers through the winter for shipment, and a wagon repository holding everything "from one-horse farm wagons and trucks, to the heaviest mountain wagons." Farm Collector, the antique-farm-machinery journal, records an output of 1,500 to 1,800 clover and alfalfa hullers a year in the company's strong years and calls the works "once the largest factory of its kind in the world" — the superlative is the journal's. Birdsell's huller was the only machine made especially for alfalfa seed, a seed a thirtieth the weight of a grain of wheat.

The end, carried as a conflict: The last wooden Birdsell huller was built in 1929 and the last one sold in 1930; the founder's sons carried the company after 1894. When the corporation itself ended is carried two ways in the record reached: the standard biography says the sons continued the company until 1938, while Farm Collector, working from the family, reports that John C. Birdsell III closed the corporation in 1949. Both dates are printed; the hullers' end, 1929–30, is the one the sources agree on. Birdsell Street in South Bend carries the name.

Sources:

1. Farm Collector, "The Birdsell Alfalfa Huller" (1974) — the machine's dimensions and work; 1,500 to 1,800 hullers a year at the strong period; "once the largest factory of its kind in the world"; the last huller built 1929 and last sold 1930; John C. Birdsell III closed the corporation in 1949.
2. John Birdsell, the standard biography — born 31 March 1815, died 13 July 1894, buried in South Bend City Cemetery; the 1855 invention and the 1857 New York State Fair first prize; shops built in South Bend in 1863 and the move in April 1864; incorporation in 1870; the South Columbia Street factory of 1872; the sons' continuation to 1938.
3. St. Joseph County Public Library, Michiana Memory, "Through South Bend Industries: Birdsell Manufacturing Company" — the firm's illustrated self-history: the plant's twenty acres, hullers completed through the winter, and the wagon line.
4. Aaron Helman, "What the Heck Is a Clover Huller?", South Bend News Times (2025) — Birdsell's move to South Bend, 1,000 machines sold in 1872, and the company's closing in 1930.