Triple Expansion Steam Engine

Looking Back 1901: Famous inventor dies in Waynesboro

Peter Geiser could have been the patron saint of farmers and Waynesboro. He made farmers' lives easier and brought prosperity to Waynesboro. When Geiser died in 1901, both mourned his passing.

"In the home from which he often looked over the town he had done much to build up by the invention of the grain separator and the prosperity of which had been the ruling passion of his life, Peter Geiser died suddenly last evening," The Public Opinion announced on its front page on March 20, 1901.

Geiser had been born in Washington County, Md., near Smithsburg 75 years earlier. His mother's maiden name was Singer, from the family that invented the sewing machine. So it is probably safe to say that inventing was in Geiser's blood.

He showed that inclination from a young age as he took to whittling and woodcarving. This led to him creating his own workshop where he could build contraptions and figure other ones out. In that workshop, between 1848 and 1850, Geiser developed what would become his life's work. He patented his first grain thresher, separator, cleaner and conveyor in October 1852.

Geiser entered his thresher in a competition at the Hagerstown Fair in 1854 and took first prize against other threshers. He then took his invention to competitions in Ohio and Indiana where his thresher and separator also won the top prizes.

"There is no question that Peter Geiser was one of the great inventors of the age, and should rank along with Cyrus McCormick, John Deere and a host of others," wrote W. J. Eshleman in Steam Traction.

In 1860, Geiser moved his new manufacturing company to Waynesboro. When he opened his business, Geiser ran this advertisement in the newspaper:

"The undersigned having removed his foundry and machine shop to Waynesboro where he is better prepared to carry on his business in all its various branches than formerly would call the attention of persons in want of anything in his line as he is fully prepared to make to order and on short notice, steam engines, grist and sawmills, gearing, shafting and pulleys, iron bridges, cast iron water wheels, iron kettles, stoves, and plow castings, also cast and wrought iron kettles, stoves, and plow castings, also cast and wrought iron for steam or water, and brass castings of every description; in a word he is prepared to do everything usually done in a foundry and a machine shop.

Kempton Park Worthington triple expansion steam engine, Middlesex ...

One of a pair, I think photographed from the top of the opposite engine. (numbered 6 and 7 at the site) Web pages here At the time of the photo, the engines had been out of use for 7 years and were not in a restored state. They had apparently been used as a back drop for a jeans advert, and perhaps other uses. The opening of a museum and renewed steaming of the engines occurred in 2002.

The steam engine and the indicator, their origin and progressive development; including the most recent examples of steam and gas motors, together with the indicator, its principles, its utility, and its application

The steam engine, 4, a treatise on engines and boilers

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