Robert McCormick

Robert McCormick Jr. (June 8, 1780 – July 4, 1846) was an American inventor who invented numerous devices including a version of the reaper which his eldest son Cyrus McCormick patented in 1834. Although he lived his life in rural Virginia, he was patriarch of the McCormick family that became influential throughout the world, especially in large cities such as Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City. Early life McCormick was born June 8, 1780, on the family estate of Walnut Grove in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His parents were Revolutionary War veteran Robert McCormick Sr. and Martha (née Sanderson) McCormick. Robert Jr. had five elder siblings: George, Martha, Elizabeth, William, and James. McCormick's maternal grandparents were Scottish immigrants, George Sanderson and Catharine (née Ross) Sanderson. His paternal grandparents were Thomas (1702–1762) and Elizabeth (née Carruth) McCormick, Presbyterian immigrants born in County Londonderry and County Antrim, Ireland respectively who married in 1728 and settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania in 1735. Career McCormick and his wife Polly raised their eight children on the farm who grew up helping in the shop and the mill. He frequently busied himself with small gadgets and inventions around the farm. By 1809, McCormick had constructed a partially completed reaper. He eventually decided to formalize some of his work when he applied for a patent in 1830 for a "hemp-break", a device for breaking hemp and flax. He also produced a threshing machine, a clover sheller of stone, a blacksmith's bellows and a hill-side plow.