Invention of combine harvester by McCormick

In 1820s, inventor and farmer Robert McCormick attempted to design and build an automatic, horse-drawn reaper (cuter) on his rolling farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Robert tried for many years to develop a successful design for a mechanical reaper and combined harvester and finally gave up.

Robert’s 19 year son, Cyrus became inspired to pick up the project himself. Cyrus dreamed of creating a single machine that would combine the tasks of cutting, reaping, and threshing into one automatic process.

He mounted a paddle on wheel on a platform above a knife with metal blades to cut the grain. He built a platform behind the cutting apparatus to hold the stalks. He then mounted a second set of paddles above a rotating drum on the platform.

Cyrus McCormick built his first production model combine on an eight-foot-wide platform and attached harnesses for a pair of horses to pull it. This combined sped though the fields faster than a team of 30 men. McCormick demonstrated his invention in July 1831 in a field several miles from his family farm. He improved his reaper for several years and took out a patent in it in 1834.
Invention of combine harvester by McCormick