The feat that first made Whiteley famous was performed at Jamestown, Ohio, in 1867. His competitor was doing as good work as he was; whereupon he sprang from his seat, unhitched one horse, and finished his course with a single, surprised steed pulling the heavy machine. His competitor followed suit, and succeeded fully as well. This enraged Whiteley, who at that time was as powerful as a young Hercules.
“I can pull my reaper myself,” he shouted, turning his second horse loose, and yoking his big shoulders into its harness. Such a thing had never been done before, and has never been done since; but it is true that, in the passion of the moment, Whiteley was filled with such strength that he ran the reaper from one side of the field to the other, cutting a full swath—a deed that, had he done it in ancient Greece, would have placed him among the immortals. It was witnessed by five hundred farmers, and fully reported in the press. One of the reporters, as it happened, representing the Cincinnati Commercial, was a young Ohioan named Whitelaw Reid, now the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James.
That ten minutes in a horse collar made $2,000,000 for Whiteley. His antagonist, Benjamin H. Warder, was filled with admiration for Whiteley’s prowess, and at once proposed that they should quit fighting and work in harmony.
“Give me the right to make your reaper and I’ll pay you $5 apiece for all I can sell,” said Warder. “It’s a bargain,” responded Whiteley. And so there arose the first consolidation in the harvester business.
Whiteley and Warder did not merge their companies; but they divided the United States into three parts—one for Whiteley, one for his brother Amos, who also made reapers in Springfield, and one for Warder. They united in building a malleable iron foundry and a knife works, so that they could use better materials at a lower cost. They made the first handsome and shapely machines.
For twelve years this triple alliance led the way, and all others, even the mighty McCormick and the sagacious Deering, had to follow. The “Champion” reaper became the leading machine of the United States, and the little town of Springfield, Ohio, was known as the “Reaper City.” As many as 160,000 reapers and mowers were sent out as a year’s work. In all, 2,000,000 of Whiteley’s “Champion” machines have been made in Springfield, and have sold at a gain of $18,000,000.
As the millions came pouring in so fast, Whiteley’s head was turned and he began to run amuck. He cut loose from Warder and from his own partners, Fassler and Kelly, opened war on the Knights of Labour, built the biggest reaper factory in the world, became a railroad president, helped to corner the Chicago wheat market, backed the “Strasburg Clock”—an absurd self-binder that was as big as a pipe-organ—and came crashing down in a failure that jarred the farming world from end to end.
Whiteley lost millions in this crash—and with comparative indifference. It was never the profits that he fought for. At heart he was a sportsman rather than a money-maker. He craved the excitement of the race itself more than the prizes. To win—that was the ambition of his life. And he did not shrink from spectacular methods to accomplish his ambition.
For instance, nothing less would satisfy him, when he exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial, than a quarter-sized reaper, made daintily of rosewood and gold. This brought him so sudden a rush of orders from the East that in one day of the following year he sent seventy loaded cars to Baltimore. With flags flying and brass bands playing, these cars rolled off, with orders to travel only by daylight. When they arrived in Harrisburg, running in three sections, they caught the eye of a railroad superintendent named McCrea—who is now, by the way, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. McCrea saw a chance to advertise his railway as well as Whiteley’s reapers, so he linked the seventy cars together into one three-quarter-mile train, put his biggest engine at the front, and sent the gaudy caravan on its way.
Whiteley never knew how to be commonplace, even in the smallest matters. Wherever he went, his trail was marked by stories of his exploits and his oddities. How he organised the famous “White Plug Hat Brigade” in the Blaine campaign—how he made a twelve-hour speech to help “Mother” Stewart close up the saloons of Springfield—how he found a Springfield farmer using a McCormick reaper, gave him a Whiteley reaper in its place, and flung the rival machine upon the junk-pile, as a sign that he was the monarch of Ohio—how he gathered up a peck of pies after a field test dinner, put them in a sack, and ate nothing but pies for half a week—such is the sort of anecdotes that his life has added to the folklore of the Western farmers.