Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/521

 HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY

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��on the hill opposite their old office, across Main street and main track and switches of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. This house will be remembered b}' many old Ohio people as the McCombs place, having been built many years ago b}^ Mr. McCombs, a brother-in-law of Sec- retary Sherman. Others who Avere at Mansfield during and since the war, will remember it as the Hickox place, having been the property of Mr. Hickox during the years that lie was Presi- dent of the First National Bank of Mansfield. This old place, built su1)stantially in the old- style ante-war days, of brick and stone, they have changed and fitted up in a suitable man- ner for the' general offices of the Aultman & Taylor Company, and the}* will be glad to show their visiting friends through them. They are now able to have their different departments separated from each other, in roomy offices conveniently adjoining each other ; while they have built such fire-proof vaults and provided such safes as give them a security against fire and theft such as the}', of course, never had before.

They are, from their size and arrangement (being divided into four distinct departments, upon two separate floors), an object of interest. Their size is also something worth recording, as in tills respect the}' are not, it is believed, equaled by those of the Bank of Montreal, or those of the National Bank of Commerce, in New York.

Commencing, as the Compaii}' did in 1868, on so modest a scale of manufacture, and pos- sessing no remarkalile or unusual business ability in these particulars, onl}- aiming to hold their own among the general average of Imsi- ness men, their business has, nevertheless, grown to its jiresent enormous proportions l^y a steady increase from season to season, and from a small concern in 1868, using but a mod- erate quantity of materials, their cash pur- chases now each year probably' exceed those of an}' other threshing-machine factory in the land.

��To give an idea of how many goods The Aultman & Taylor Company buy, and the amount pf material they use a 3'ear in building "Aultman-Taylor " Threshing Machines, a men- tion of the quantities of a few leading articles which they buy for one 3'ear, in addition to the more or less large amounts of each of the same kind of goods which they have on hand as a surplus stock of material, will not be out of place. It is here appended in the form of a table :

Molding-sand, fire-clay, etc 50 cars.

Coal 300 cars.

Oil and varnish 8 cars.

Sail and wire cloth 7 cars.

Lumber, belting, etc 507 cars.

Hardware 9 cars.

Iron 326 cars.

making a total of 1,207 cars, which would make a train fifteen miles in length, fai'ther than from Mansfield to Crestline. .

The Aultman-Taylor Threshers are well sup- plied with the various attachments, for thresh- ing clover, timoth}' and flaxseed, cleaning it thoroughly, and saving all expenses in the line of extra mills, making the grain ready for the buA'er as soon as it leaves the maclime.

A very valuable adjunct to their thresher is the self-propelling 'engine, which they have lately perfected. It is known as The Aultman- Taylor TractionBngine, and was first made after they had been making and using regular farm- engines.

The traction engine is distinguished by the same excellence of material and flnish, and b}- the same nice attention to details, which has given their standard farm engine such a reputa- tion and distinction, as the. safest, best, most economical in the use of fuel and water, as well as the most durable ; but the feature which will, of course, attract the most attention, is the tractionor propelling arrangement. This seems to he perfect, as far as experts can tell, and at any rate is so much in advance of other engines

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