Background
Leander James McCormick, the son of Robert and Mary Ann (Hall) McCormick, was born on February 8, 1819, on "Walnut Grove" farm, Rockbridge County, Virginia.
(Excerpt from Family Record and Biography Dr. Hawkes, in ...)
Excerpt from Family Record and Biography Dr. Hawkes, in his lecture on The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, delivered before the New York Historical Society. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Businessman inventor manufacturer philanthropist
Leander James McCormick, the son of Robert and Mary Ann (Hall) McCormick, was born on February 8, 1819, on "Walnut Grove" farm, Rockbridge County, Virginia.
McCormick was educated in an old-field school and also received instruction from private tutors.
As a boy, McCormick manifested much interest in mechanics and when he grew older aided his father and his brother Cyrus Hall McCormick in the construction of reapers in the blacksmith shop at "Walnut Grove. " Cyrus engaged Leander to sell, set up, and repair reapers in Virginia in the early forties, and in 1847 brought him to Cincinnati to superintend the manufacture of a hundred reapers at the foundry of A. C. Brown. In 1849, Leander moved to Chicago, where he took charge of the manufacturing division of the McCormick factory, under contract on a salary basis, for one year. From 1850 to 1859, he held the same position on salary. In the latter year, Cyrus McCormick gave a share of the profits of the reaper business to Leander and also to another brother, William S. McCormick. This gift was confirmed by contract and the name of the firm was changed from C. H. McCormick to C. H. McCormick & Brothers. Under this arrangement Leander continued to supervise the manufacturing department. Upon the expiration of the contract in 1864 it was renewed for a further period. The death of William in 1865 necessitated a change in the firm, and it was known as C. H. McCormick & Brother from 1866 to 1874, when it became C. H. and L. J. McCormick. In 1879, Leander was made vice-president of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. He retired from active participation in the reaper business in 1881 and ten years later sold out his interest to his nephew, Cyrus H. McCormick. Leander McCormick introduced a number of minor improvements in the McCormick machines, took out several patents jointly with employees of the engineering division, and was a factor in helping to build up the successful business so closely connected with the name of the family.
(Excerpt from Family Record and Biography Dr. Hawkes, in ...)
Because of differences in temperament and opinion, relations between him and Cyrus McCormick were strained long before he retired from the family business; in his Memorial of Robert McCormick (1885) he sought to gain for his father, rather than his brother, credit for the invention of the reaper. From 1891 to 1900 he devoted his attention to extensive real-estate holdings acquired in the course of his long residence in Chicago. In 1874 he gave to the University of Virginia a refractor telescope, built by Alvan Clark. This gift was followed by another, of $18, 000, for an observatory, which was named for the donor. In 1896, after years of research, he published a McCormick genealogy under the title, Family Record and Biography.
On October 22, 1845, Leander James married Henrietta Maria, daughter of John Hamilton of Rockbridge County, Va. Four children were born of this union.