John Comly Birdsell — the Quaker farmer who mechanized the clover field

31 March 1815 – 13 July 1894 · shops built in South Bend, 1863

The founding act: John Comly Birdsell, 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 — and took first prize with it 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. The New York business lost money on western freight and markets, and Birdsell moved the work west: he built shops in South Bend in 1863 and moved in April 1864, on the standard biography — his own congressional petition announces the transfer of his manufacturing machinery to South Bend by the fall of 1865, and both datings are printed. The Birdsell Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1870, and a new factory rose on South Columbia Street in 1872.

The run and the end, carried as a conflict: The plant made hullers — 1,500 to 1,800 a year in the strong years, on Farm Collector's account — and wagons, and Birdsell's huller was the only machine made especially for alfalfa seed. The founder died on 13 July 1894, and his sons carried the company after him. The last wooden Birdsell huller was built in 1929 and the last sold in 1930. 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. Businesses — "Birdsell Manufacturing Company" (the 1855 invention and the 1857 State Fair prize; the patent No. 20,249 of 18 May 1858 and the congressional extension fight; the shops of 1863 and the April 1864 move against the petition's fall 1865; the 1870 incorporation and the 1872 Columbia Street factory; the output figures attributed to Farm Collector; the founder's death, 13 July 1894; the 1929–30 end of the hullers; the corporation's end at 1938 vs 1949, printed as a conflict).
2. Banks — Birdsell among the incorporators of the St. Joseph County Savings Bank (1869), cross-referenced in the bankers entry below.