In 1826, Patrick Bell, a young Scotch student,
afterward a Presbyterian minister, who had been moved by the
fatigue of the harvesters upon his father's farm in Argyllshire,
made an attempt to lighten their labor. His reaper was pushed by
horses; a reel brought the grain against blades which opened and
closed like scissors, and a traveling canvas apron deposited the
grain at one side. The inventor received a prize from the
Highland and Agricultural Society of Edinburgh, and pictures and
full descriptions of his invention were published. Several models
of this reaper were built in Great Britain, and it is said that
four came to the United States; however this may be, Bell's
machine was never generally adopted.
Soon afterward three men patented reapers in the United States:
William Manning, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1831; Obed Hussey,
Cincinnati, Ohio, 1833; and Cyrus Hall McCormick, Staunton,
Virginia, 1834. Just how much they owed to Patrick Bell cannot be
known, but it is probable that all had heard of his design if
they had not seen his drawings or the machine itself. The first
of these inventors, Manning of New Jersey, drops out of the
story, for it is not known whether he ever made a machine other
than his model. More persistent was Obed Hussey of Cincinnati,
who soon moved to Baltimore to fight out the issue with
McCormick.
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