DANIEL MASSEY

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO WORLD DOMINANCE

In 1847 Daniel Massey, a Canadian pioneer and farmer, opened a small machine shop near Newcastle, Ontario. At the time his mission was simple: perform repairs and build basic implements for the local farmers. Soon however, his business began to show signs of growth based on a fast-spreading reputation for producing outstanding machinery that stood up to the rugged Canadian land.

Eight years later Daniel Massey retired, his business firmly established and growing rapidly. The Massey family would go to build the business seeing it through the successful merger with the Alanson Harris Company.

AN AWARD-WINNING COMPANY

GOLD MEDAL WINNER (1889)

 A testament to the vision of Daniel Massey was seen in the many contests and awards that Massey products won over the years. Among the most coveted of these prizes were two gold medals at the 1867 International Agricultural Exposition in Paris.

The Massey business continued to grow, and in 1889, Massey added to its trophy case the gold medal at the Paris Universal Exposition. Sponsored by the French Ministry of Agriculture, the Exposition was the largest harvesting machinery trial in history. Massey’s  Toronto Light Binder trashed the competition taking home the gold medal and distinction of “ World’s Greatest Harvesting Machine”.

LITTLE BRANTFORD BINDER (1885)

The Binder War

TORONTO LIGHT BINDER (1889)

Prior to the 1891 merger, the Massey and Harris companies were engaged in a somewhat bitter “binder war”. While strikingly similar in design and performance, the Brantford and Toronto Light Binders inspired undying loyalty in their respective users. By the time the companies joined, both brands had made considerable advances in efficiency and productivity.

MASSEY’S LEGACY

Daniel Massey’s son, Hart, took over the company leadership following his father’s early retirement and death in 1856. Hart’s brother, Walter, took over in 1896, followed by Chester, and finally Vincent Massey who served as the company president in the 1920’s.

ALANSON HARRIS

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO WORLD DOMINANCE

Much like Daniel Massey, Alanson Harris, a farmer and mill owner, had a talent for designing building, and repairing farm equipment. On the urging of hi family and neighbors, Harris purchased a small foundry in Brantford, Ontario, in 1857 and began making and repairing machinery for the local farmers.

Soon Harris was competing for business with the Massey Company. Thus began an intense rivalry between the two ventures that would last for three decades before the companies merged in 1891. By this time, the Massey and Harris companies decided that merging would be better than competing. The result was an agricultural powerhouse in Canada that few were willing or able to match.

EXPANDING THE BUSINESS

MH 20-30 TRACTOR (1929)

The new Massey Harris Company expanded from harvesting equipment to other areas, including wagons, tillage equipment and manure spreaders.

Within 20 years Massey Harris was ready to take their business to the next level: power farming. They forged agreements with the Bull, Parrett and Wallis tractor companies. The company’s success accelerated with the introduction of an advanced U-frame on MH 20-30 tractors of the 1920s and 30s and the modern-looking M-H 101 introduced in 1938.

HARRY FERGUSON

THE FERGUSON SYSTEM

In the 1920s Harry Ferguson revolutionized tractor design and safety in Great Britain with the perfection of the “Ferguson System” of attaching implements to tractors in a way that controlled implement draft and prevented tractor “flip-overs”.

An agreement with Henry Ford to produce Ford-Ferguson tractors in 1938 made Ferguson an important figure in international agricultural equipment. Follow the death of Henry Ford and their agreement, Ferguson produced the popular TO-20, the “Little Gray Fergie,” in Detroit, MI.

LITTLE GRAY FERGIE (1950)  

The Massey Harris company recognized the significance of innovative, patented hitch and hydraulic system that Ferguson had developed in 1953 negotiated a merger of the companies as Massey-Harris-Ferguson, Ltd., later shortened to Massey-Ferguson.

THE FERGUSON SYSTEM

Ferguson’s hydraulic system introduced principles that revolutionized the way tractors use implements. This system’s principles, still used today’s equipment, lets the tractor’s three-point hitching system utilize the weight and pulling forces of the implement to increase the traction of the tractor. It also eliminates the tendency to rear backwards when the implement strikes an obstruction.