”It is just as well to add that the first threshing machine ever operated in the county was the one owned by William Ware, now a resident of Centerville, who did some threshing with it in the southern part of the county, in 1849. This was a ‘chaff-piler,’ otherwise known, a few years later, as a ‘flint-lock.’ There are many readers of this page who never saw a thresher of this description. There was no separator attachment, and the grain fell, enclosed in the chaff, at the mouth of the cylinder, while the straw was blown by the current created by the motion of the cylinder a little beyond the grain, whence it was removed by rakes and forks. The fanning-mill was introduced about the same time, and the grain being passed through the hopper two or three times, it was ready for grinding. These machines greatly abridged the processes mentioned above; but, in a few more years, the labor of threshing was reduced considerably by the combination of both processes.”

Reference Data:

The History of Appanoose County, Iowa, by Western Historical Company, Chicago, 1878, page 343