Historical Highlight: The Centennial of the Reaper

Historical Highlight:
The Centennial of the Reaper, September 25, 1931

[The following highlight features a bulletin published by the university on August 15, 1931. Titled “Cyrus Hall McCormick and Washington and Lee University,” this pamphlet briefly biographizes the famed inventor and benefactor. It also advertised the Centennial of the Reaper Celebration, which drew nearly 7000 attendees to campus and the county on September 25, 1831. The photos included in this highlight are from that day, while a larger selection of photos may be viewed HERE. All sources can be accessed in Special Collections and Archives. Please contact SHP for further inquiries.]

McCormick and Virginia

Cyrus Hall McCormick was born at Walnut Grove Farm in Rockbridge County. Virginia, about eighteen miles from Lexington. He came of the Scotch-Irish stock which formed the principal element of the first settlers of the Valley, which encouraged churches and schools, which established the institution later to be known as Washington and Lee University. The family of Cyrus McCormick was identified with the agricultural and the religious, and subsequently the industrial, life of the section.

In Rockbridge County in the summer of 1831 McCormick invented the reaper, destined to change the course of agricultural history; here it received its first trials; here for a while its manufacture was carried on in the blacksmith shop at Walnut Grove.

In 1847, Mr. McCormick, visualizing the West as the grain region of the future, moved to Chicago. Undaunted by obstacles and inevitable struggles, he slowly developed an enterprise that by 1860 was selling 4,000 reapers a year. He triumphed over competition and won success of the first order, not only in America but in all the world. McCormick was more than inventor and more than manufacturer; he devised effective business procedure, including advertising, modes of distribution. processes of sales; much of his work in this field was epoch-making. He was deeply interested in the public questions of his day. and he was active in manifold movements looking toward general welfare.

Throughout these later years, Mr. McCormick remembered Virginia with great affection. He lent his influence to restoring good feeling between the sections. He did much in a personal way to relieve the suffering of his people in the unhappy days that followed the Civil War. Seeking to rebuild the civilization of his own state, he befriended educational institutions including several besides Washington and Lee, notably the Union Theological Seminary, now at Richmond.

His Service to Washington and Lee

Among the very first of the group of generous friends who responded to needs of the University under the leadership of General Lee, was Cyrus H. McCormick. In January. 1866, early in the first session of the new administration, he wrote an encouraging letter and enclosed a check for $10,000. This sum of money meant vastly more then than it would under our own conditions. The supporters of the institution were heartened; and in deep gratitude the Board of Trustees named in McCormick’s honor a department of the University, now the chair of Physics.

During his life. Mr. McCormick increased his donation to more than $20,000, and he provided another $20,000 for the University out of his estate. At the time of his death, his wife made an additional gift of $10,000. Within comparatively recent years, his children gave $200,000 to an endowment campaign undertaken by the University. Mr. McCormick and his immediate family have thus taken a place among the foremost benefactors of Washington and Lee.

His interest in the University was expressed in many ways. In 1869 he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees. He accepted the duty and continued in the relationship for the remaining fifteen years of his life. At the time of General Lee’s death in 1870, Mr. McCormick became chairman of a committee in New ’York that sought to promote a special memorial in Donor of Lee. The attachment which Mr. McCormick felt for the University never faltered and it was in itself a source of perpetual inspiration.

A Recognition

On the 25th of September of this year, the centennial year of the invention of the reaper, Washington and Lee will hold a celebration honoring Cyrus Hall McCormick, the man and the benefactor. Associated with the University is a group of leading Virginians as sponsoring committee; the celebration thus becomes more than local in significance.

The chief feature of the program will be the unveiling of a statue of Mr. McCormick, the gift of his children.

The unveiling of the statue will constitute the exercise of the morning. This will be followed by a luncheon to special guests and a general dinner on the grounds for the crowd that will gather. In the afternoon the scene of the activities will be shifted to the environs of Mr. McCormick's youth. A brief service will be held at Mt. Carmel Church, of which Mr. McCormick was charter member, and a pageant at Walnut Grove will close the day’s program.

The addresses of the day will be delivered by competent speakers. A large gathering from Virginia and from many other states will be present and the occasion will be one of the distinguished features of the recent University history.

The sons of the University and all of its friends are cordially invited to attend this celebration.