Early 20th Century Murray Iron Works Monarch Disc Sharpener

Known for its Howard and Corliss engines, Murray Iron Works of Burlington, Iowa manufactured this disc sharpener sometime in the early twentieth century, possibly as early as 1906.¹  Using sturdy materials and complicated mechanization, manufacturers like Murray Iron Works made disc sharpeners especially for blacksmiths and other business entrepreneurs who would sharpen discs for a charge.  Revealing the entrepreneurial spirit of some individuals on the prairie, a blacksmith in central Canada described in a 1912 magazine letter his acquisition of a disc sharpener which he would use to increase his income.  He noted that his sharpener was the first in the area and that he could probably charge at least 25 cents to sharpen a disc.²  Farmers who understood the long-term savings in getting their discs sharpened sought out blacksmiths like the one in Canada who possessed a sharpener like the Monarch.

Murray Iron Works was incorporated in Burlington, Iowa in 1870, its iron and brass foundry having been established in 1866.  Over the last few decades of the nineteenth century, the company added a machine shop, boiler shop, and engine works.  After 1870, the company, under the leadership of Colonel George H. Higbee, began manufacturing nearly all of the iron castings for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, as well as castings for bridges, buildings, and other structures in the area.  By 1882, the factory was using a 25 and a 30 horsepower steam engine to power all of its machines, making a wide variety of products, including the very popular Howard Automatic Cut-Off Engine.³  At that time, the company’s plant covered two-and-a-half acres, including a 12,500 square foot foundry and a 10,000 square foot machine shop, employing about two hundred people.  Three miles from the main plant, in Lefflers, the company had a second foundry covering 23,000 square feet.⁴

Along with the Howard engine, the company became well-known for its Corliss steam engine and boiler.  It also made air compressors, pumping engines, tubular boilers, water tube boilers, internal furnace boilers, and feed-water furnaces.  The company’s success, as the author of the 1915 History of Des Moines County and Its People was concerned, came from its ability to adapt to the times, to develop new engine designs or properly alter old designs, to establish new work routines, and to manufacture its own castings and bearings with great precision and the highest quality materials.⁵  Although it is unclear when exactly Murray Iron Works produced this disc sharpener, it is clear that the foundry and factory made a complex machine with great precision and high quality materials.

Notes

¹ The disc plow (or disc harrow) was developed in the nineteenth century.  The disc sharpener was probably developed by the early 1900s.  Several disc sharpeners with a variety of designs were issued in the 1890s, including one patented in Canada in 1895 (Patent 50,065).  Murray Iron Works’ patents for this disc sharpener are Patent 751590, dated February 9, 1904, and Patent 809334, dated January 9, 1906.  You can see and download the first of these patents here.  You can see and download the second patent here.  The company advertised its Monarch disc sharpener at least as early as 1908, in the October issue of The American Blacksmith.
² The American Blacksmith (Buffalo: The American Blacksmith Company, October 12, 1913). The blacksmith who wrote to the journal said that before anyone acquired a disc sharpener, many farmers simply purchased new discs when the old ones became too worn to do sufficient work. He asked readers how much he should charge to sharpen discs, adding that he had heard a price of 75 cents apiece but had read in the magazine that 25 cents was a standard price.

³ Murray Iron Works first produced the Howard Engine around 1881.  For an early discussion of the engine with detailed illustrations, see The American Engineer, Vol. 5, No. 23 (June 8, 1883), pp. 294-297, published by Merrick Cowles Publisher in Chicago.
⁴ Commercial and Statistical Review of the City of Burlington, Iowa. Showing Her Manufacturing, Mercantile and General Business Interests together with Historical Sketches of the Growth and Progress of the “Orchard City,” also Sketches of the Principal Business Houses and Manufacturing Concerns.  J. L. Spalding & Co., 1882.
⁵ History of Des Moines County Iowa and Its People, Vol. II (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915), pp. 14-16, 340.