In July when the wheat was ready to harvest Cyrus and his father moved the machine out to the field. There a crowd of neighbors gathered and watched with fascination as the reaper cut six acres of wheat during the day.
McCormick continued to improve his invention and other farmers risked their money in purchasing the first six he offered on the market. Eventually the news spread to the grain fields of the Middle West and he opened factories to supply the farmers there.
For years the inventor strove to improve the reaper; he discovered that other labor saving devices were needed equally as badly, and he offered other types of farm machinery to the rich farm lands.
Inventive genius lay near Lexington along other lines, too. It was near here that James Gibbs invented his common sense stitch sewing-machine which was a forerunner of our more modern models. And what a labor-saving machine that was to all the housewives!
Washington College
The Scotch-Irish were determined to have the best schools and colleges for their children. The Hanover Presbytery, which in 1776 embraced all the Presbyterian churches in Virginia, established a school which they called Liberty Hall Academy. This was built in Lexington, Virginia, with the Reverend William Graham, a native of Pennsylvania, as its first president. George Washington, in 1796, gave the school a regular endowment, the first of its kind. This is how it was made:
The Legislature of Virginia "as a testimony of their gratitude for his services," and as "a mark of their respect," presented to George Washington a certain number of shares in the Old James River Company, an industry then in progress. Unwilling to accept anything for his own benefit, he gave it to the Liberty Hall Academy.
In 1812, the Trustees of the school voted to ask the Virginia Legislature to change the name to Washington College. Many others decided to follow George Washington's fine example. A Mr. John Robinson left his whole estate to the college; the next to aid it, we are told, was the newly organized Society of the Cincinnati of Virginia.
Old records of the school throw an interesting light regarding the expenses of a student in those far-off days. The treasurer's bill for tuition, room rent, deposits and matriculation was $45 per year. Board was $7.50 a month. Laundry, fuel, candles and bed amounted to about three dollars per month. The cost of everything averaged about $140 a year.