Background
Samuel Johnston was born on February 9, 1835 in Shelby, Orleans County, New York, the son of Henry and Nancy (Crippen) Johnston. His father was a farmer who, with his wife, was also engaged in the weaving of fine linen.
Samuel Johnston was born on February 9, 1835 in Shelby, Orleans County, New York, the son of Henry and Nancy (Crippen) Johnston. His father was a farmer who, with his wife, was also engaged in the weaving of fine linen.
Johnston attended the district school near his home and obtained an elementary education.
At the age of twenty Johnston perfected and patented a corn and bean planter, and very shortly thereafter turned his attention to harvesting machinery. The reaping machine as variously made by Bell, Hussey, McCormick, and Dorsey, had in 1860 reached the stage where it was satisfactory for fine standing grain but not for badly tangled crops of varying lengths. About this time, therefore, Johnston, then residing in Buffalo, New York, in an endeavor to correct this defect applied himself to the improvement of rakes and reels for harvesters.
He obtained one patent on a rake in 1863; another on a harvester in January 1865; and on February 7, 1865, was granted a patent for a combined rake and reel for a harvester. This proved to be a revolutionary improvement in harvesting machinery, for practically every maker of reapers in the world altered his machine to use the Johnston system.
In the great field trials of reaping machinery held in 1866 at Auburn, New York, William Wallace & Company of Syracuse entered a Hubbard machine with a Johnston rake attached, which won the gold medal. The features of this patent consisted of a series of centrally located arms, each provided with teeth. The path which these arms described was under the full control of the driver.
He was able to make the rake arms drop down in front of the cutters and pick up the lodged grain and he could cause any desired rake to sweep the platform and discharge the cut, thus making uniform bundles of grain no matter what was the condition of the crop. The patent was assigned to Johnston and R. L. Howard of Buffalo, in whose iron works Johnston's earlier patented corn planter and corn husker had been manufactured since 1858, and here the manufacture of his harvester rake was undertaken.
In 1868 he established a manufactory for his machine on a larger scale at Syracuse, New York, which operated under the name of Johnston, Huntley & Company. Three years later this plant was abandoned and the Johnston Harvester Company was established at Brockport, New York, with which Johnston was actively associated until his retirement from the company in 1879.
During the succeeding years he continued his inventive work on harvester rakes, grain binders, and on a complete grain-binding harvester.
At an early age Samuel Johnston exhibited a marked interest in mechanics and throughout his career applied his talents chiefly to the improvement of farm machinery.
Samuel Johnston was married, June 8, 1856, to Arsula S. Vaughan of Fort Ann, Cattaraugus County, New York, and at his death, in Buffalo, was survived by a daughter.