Bios:  MCCORMICK, John Buchanan,  Indiana Co, PA

SUBJECT: MCCORMICK, John Buchanan
SUBMITTER: E.K. Warner
EMAIL: wgene@twd.net
DATE: Oct 23, 1998
SURNAMES: BARDS, BUCHANAN, CONLEY, McCORMICK
as recorded by Prof. J. T. Stewart in "Indiana County, Pennsylvania
- Her People, Past and Present"
Published by J. H. Beers & Co., 1913 Reformatted by E.K. Warner, September
1998

JOHN BUCHANAN McCormick was born Nov. 4, 1834, in the little village of
Sinking Valley, near Tyrone, Huntingdon (now Blair) Co., Pa., of Scotch-Irish
parentage, descending from the McCormicks and Conleys on the paternal side,
and the Buchanans and Bards in the maternal line. They settled in Colonial
times in Franklin and Cumberland counties, Pa., and at Bardstown, Kentucky.

In March, 1838, Joseph A. McCormick, father of John B. McCormick, moved
with his family from Sinking Valley to Smicksburg, Indiana Co., Pa., on
sleds, the growth of timber being so heavy at that time that the snow remained
until late in the season of springtime. The lad was now about three years
and four months old. At the age of six, barefooted and bareheaded, he followed
after the hounds, Ranger and General Jackson; from the hills across the
creek to the loop hills and back where the deer would generally take to
the water above the village. A tow shirt and tow trousers to cover his
nakedness and keep out the sun, with a straw hat (which was soon torn up
in the brush), made up his summer costume. In the wintertime later he carried
a cowbell while trailing the deer through the snow for his highly esteemed
friend, Dr. William N. Sims, to head at well-known crossings. The advantages
for education at that time were meager enough. His first teacher was a
Mrs. McCumber, wife of a Baptist minister. The McCumbers came from the
State of Connecticut. The largest room in their house was the schoolroom,
and the seats were two pine slabs, brought from Travis's sawmill, with
four legs to each, and placed around the wall. Mrs. McCumber was an accomplished
artist in water colors, and her pupils received cards, decorated with flowers,
or foxes, dogs, cats, deer, coons and other animals as rewards of merit,
handpainted and beautiful, and much appreciated by her handful of "scholars."
This no doubt accounts, in part at least, for Mr. McCormick's artistic
tastes. He picked up most of his knowledge piecemeal, while all through
his life experience has been his best teacher About this time his Grandmother
Buchanan; who was the daughter of Rev. David Bard, visited them, and being
an artist in mezzotints and other lines she taught him to outline horses,
cattle, houses and various other objects with grains of corn on the bottom
of wooden seated chairs or table. Those were the little things that started
the restless young mind to work out other matters later. He went into the
shop to assist his father at the age of eight. At that time all the material
for the making and repairing of tarpole wagons was taken from the woods.
White oak was used for the tongues, and a tree that would split out eight
pieces was selected, and placed heart up to season. For axles hickory was
used, split and seasoned. February was the month for cutting. Mr. McCormick
said: "My father and I used to cut this timber when I was only able
to steady the crosscut saw, and our dinner would be-cold boiled pork and
corn pone and sometimes bread, which people now would consider entirely
too plain. "
At the age of ten he was a fair workman, and turned the material on a tramp
lathe and framed and painted a little rocking chair for his baby sister.
At the same time he turned clothespins from dry wild cherry to place in
the bedrooms of the double porch house in Smicksburg built in 1844, by
Hezekiah Christman. When seventeen years of age he was allowed to start
in with his uncle, David B. Buchanan, in an old-fashioned cabinet and chair
shop, where all the work was done by hand, and he thoroughly mastered the
trade in all its details, from the woods to the finishing. At the same
time he cultivated a taste for music, and the first violin he played upon
was made by himself. His musical talents he turned to advantage. For about
five month. in the year, for about twenty-two years, he taught old-fashioned
singing school in schoolhouses and churches in Indiana and adjoining counties,
where the name of McCormick became as familiar as household words. Trudging
from place to place (and he did not wear an overcoat), he estimates that
in looking after his schools alone he walked 42,000 miles in the twenty-two
years. It was in this manner, and in house painting and graining, he made
the money which afterward enabled him to develop and bring forth his turbine
wheels.
In 1873 Mr. McCormick went to Brookville, Pa., to Brown, Son & Co., where
the shops and patterns were burned twice. After the testing of the "Hercules"
turbine at Holyoke, McCormick and Brown made an agreement with the Stilwell
& Bierce Company, of Dayton, Ohio, which proved very disastrous for them.
Mr. McCormick went into their employ to perfect patterns. After six months
they had received all of the information they desired, and unknown to him
took out patents on the so-called "Victor Turbine", which embodied
everything in the "Hercules." Mr. McCormick went to Holyoke in
1877, and engaged with the Holyoke Machine Company to manufacture the "Hercules,"
remaining with them for about eleven years, putting eighteen sizes, right
and left hand, above eighty percent useful, an efficiency percentage which
Mr. Emerson highly commended. After perfecting the "Hercules"
there was a misunderstanding between Mr. McCormick and the company, and
he had to sue them to obtain his rights. Hon. George D. Robinson, ex-governor
of Massachusetts, was his attorney and won his suit against the company.
Mr. McCormick then brought out a turbine about twenty-five percent stronger
as to diameter than the "Hercules," entitled "McCormick's
Holyoke Turbine," which was perfected in all sizes at the shops of
J. & W. Jolly, Holyoke, Mass. It was also made by the S. Morgan Smith Company,
York, Pa., and the Dubuque Turbine & Roller Mill Company, Dubuque, Iowa.
James Emerson, the great tester of wheels, said: "Mr. McCormick as
a designer and perfecter of
hydraulic motors stands upon the top rung of the ladder, has stood there
for twenty years without a parallel, not in the United States alone, but
upon this planet. "
Mr. McCormick has published two musical works, viz.: "School & Concert",
310 pages, and "The Village Choir", 336 pages, said to be the
greatest collections in their class in the English language. Mr. McCormick
is unassuming about what he has, or has accomplished, but he prizes a few
old paintings which he executed many years ago, in particular a night view
of "Donati's Comet, as it appeared at Smicksburg in 1858, when it
was at its brightest (size 30 by 28 inches); " The Country Boy on
Sunday Morning" (size 10 by 12 inches) and the beautiful hills which
surround the farm where he makes his home. It seems to be his artistic
delight to show and describe the view to strangers.
Now, in his seventy-ninth year, Mr. McCormick is working at all kinds of
farm labor as though he were compelled to do so to keep the wolf from the
door. His greatest delight seems to be the improvement of his land and
bringing his farms to the highest state of cultivation, and to find out
for a certainty what can be produced per acre on Indiana county soil.


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