C. AULTMAN & CO., AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS, CANTON, O.

      Among the largest and most useful manufacturing establishments in Ohio, is C. Aultman & Co., of Canton, who were incorporated in 1865, with a capital stock of $100,000, for the purpose of manufacturing the Buckeye Mower and Reaper and Sweepstakes Thresher. A private firm, bearing same time, and out of which the present organization grew, was started as early as 1853, on a very small scale. The works now cover twenty acres of ground, and give constant employment to five hundred hands—the amount paid out in salaries alone amounting to $20,000 monthly. The foundry covers an area of seventy-five by two hundred feet, in which is cast sixteen tons of iron daily— there being one thousand and forty-five different patterns for castings, used in the various sizes of reapers, and in keeping up the repairs of old ones; and the threshers require between five and six hundred castings for this department. They have a stock of over eight hundred tons of pig iron on hand. The blacksmith shop is furnished with seventeen fires, steam-hammers, dies, punches, trip-hammers, and a steam tire-setter, doing away entirely with the old process of heating. The wood-working department is a perfect wonder of discipline, and covers three hundred and eighty-eight feet front, by sixty feet deep—a fine continuous four-story brick building, the machinery in which is propelled by a fine eighty horse-power engine, they having a separate engine of one hundred and twenty horse-power for the iron department. More attention has been paid, probably, to the development of machinery for facilitating and economizing farm labor than any one branch of industry; more particularly is this applicable to reaping and mowing machines. For twenty years past the genius of invention has been tasked to produce a combined mower and reaper, and perfection was finally attained—if such a thing is possible—by the world-renowned "Buckeye." The last invention, which has perfected this machine and out rivaled all others, is a self rake, which owes its grand success to Mr. Lewis Miller, who is the good genius of the "Buckeye." In his fertile mechanical brain was conceived the plan of a light turntable rake, to supersede the heavy reel-rake, heretofore used in sweeping the platform of the reaper. The company, whose officers are Lewis Miller, President; H. C. Fogle, Secretary and Treasurer; Jacob Miller, Superintendent; Geo. Cook, Assistant Superintendent, have a surplus of one-half million of dollars, and are at present adding to their immense building capacity. The immense capital employed, and the business standing of the Company, individually and collectively, give a reputation, of which the State might well feel proud.

      The C. Aultman & Co. was founded in 1851 by Cornelius Aultman. This company made agricultural equipment. Ohio records show that the name "C. Aultman & Co." was registered on 28 September 1865. Those same records seem to say the company had ceased doing business under that name by 27 August 1914. The firm was reorganized as the Aultman & Taylor Machinery Co., which was in business until about 1924 being bought out by the Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co.

      An 1891 catalog of "C. Aultman & Co. Threshers and Steam Engines" says that they had been in business since 1831. It states, "Eighteen hundred and ninety-one is the sixty-first year of our thresher business. John Miller (C. Aultman’s step-father) of Greentown, Stark County, Ohio, was the first maker and user of threshing machines in this part of the United States, in 1831. His son, Hon. Lewis Miller, is the present president of this company. His grandson, Mr. Robert A. Miller, is its general manager."

Information Sources

• Ohio, the future great state: her manufacturers, and a history of her Manufacturers by William J. Comley, W. D'Eggville, 1875 page 429Listed in the 1874 work, Wiley's American iron trade manual of the leading iron industries of the United States: "Agricultural machinery. Works also at Akron. 300 hands employed."
• Listed in C. H. Wendel's "The Circular Saw Mill". Wendel reports an 1897 catalog that shows their "Star Portable Sawmill", intended for farm or other light-duty use.
• Encyclopedia of American Steam Traction Enginesby Jack Norbeck, 1975 page 65
• Steam Power on the American Farm by Reynold M. Wik, 1953 pages 251 & 254
• American Gasoline Engines Since 1872 by C. H. Wendel, Volume #1, 1983 page 39
• The Steam Tractor Encyclopedia by John F. Spalding & Robert T. Rhode, 2011 pages 75-81