Reeves History and Biographical Information

Many and varied were the products of Reeves Pulley of Columbus, Indiana, as noted in the literature and pictures in the collection. Wooden pulleys, steam and gasoline engines, saw mills, and threshing machines sold so well that at one point the Company required nearly a thousand workers to keep up with demand. In 1899 the Company held seven U.S. and three Canadian patents, plus one each in England and France. When Milton Reeves moved the plant to Columbus, Indiana, on Seventh St.—since 1999 called Reeves Way—it was the largest factory in southern Indiana.  His horseless carriage, technically separate from Reeves Pulley, never competed well against the Ford Quadricycle, Stanley Steamer, or Puegeot Lion.  In 1912 the Emerson-Brantingham Company of Rockford, Illinois, purchased the Reeves Company.  The firm continued to operate, but the Collection contains little information about later years. The Columbus facility located on Reeves Way and once an expansive center for a variety of heavy duty manufacturing, now (2007) houses offices for a local law firm, a warehouse for a discount store, and a flea market.

Jabez Reeves, the entrepreneurial “father” of the Reeves Pulley Company, was born (in 1806) in Brown County, Ohio. There in 1824 he married Nancy Coe. To their home were born ten children, including William F. (b. 1827), Alfred Benton (b. 1940), and James M. D. (b. 1844?), all of whom figured prominently in the establishment, maintenance and growth of Reeves Pulley. Some time in the 1840s Jabez and family moved west to Rush County, Indiana where he farmed and began to work on his inventions. In 1873 he began manufacturing field cultivators in nearby Knightstown, Indiana. Three years later the Reeves brothers founded the Hoosier Boy Cultivator Company. In 1877 the Company moved its operations to Columbus, Indiana, where Jabez then 70-plus years of age, and his son William F. drew up a partnership agreement. The following year, for reasons not clear, William handled over his interest to his son (and Jabez’s grandson) Marshall T. who became president of the company.  In 1880 Milton M., another son of Jabez, purchased part ownership in the company. From that time on the business was know as Reeves and Company. Jabez died in Knightstown in 1895.

William F. Reeves, son of Jabez, was born on the family homestead in Brown County, Ohio in 1827. Nine children were born into the home of him and his wife, including Marshall T. and Milton O. He farmed in the summer and taught school in the winter. The latter position he held for five years before returning entirely to the farm. In 1850 he married Hannah Gilson, four years his junior. After earlier establishing the Hoosier Boy Cultivator Company, in 1888 William and three sons (Marshall, Milton and Girnie) founded the Reeves Pulley Company in Columbus, Indiana in 1890. He died in Knightstown, Indiana in 1892.

Other Reeves’ family members were waiting in the wings. Alfred Benton, son of Jabez was a man fully alert to the interests of the business and possessing executive ability. Through his sales and marketing skills Reeves implements could be seen throughout the Great Plains. In 1859 he married Louise Redick who died seven years later, leaving Alfred with one child. A second marriage (1867), this one to Pantha Wadlington, brought them three children. In his later years Alfred, a Democrat by persuasion, served on the Columbus City Council, was chief of the Fire Department and, with his family, a member of the Christian Church in the city. He passed away in 1889.

James M. D. Reeves, son of Jabez and Nancy (Coe), was born in Rush County in 1844. He worked on the family farm in his early years and was educated in the rural schools. At age 16 he went to Knightstown—the family had not yet moved to Indiana—where he worked as salesman in a mercantile house. The 1860 U.S. Census listed him as “literate.” Six years later he started his own dry goods business which he quit after a half-dozen or so years. At 25 years of age he married Mary Hill of Knightstown who gave birth to two children. He worked for a while in sales in Indianapolis, but in 1879 became a senior member of the Reeves Company in Columbus. Like other members of the clan, James voted the Democratic ticket and was a member of Columbus’ Christian Church.

Marshall T. Reeves, son of William F., was born (1851) in Rush County where his parents had settled. Like most of the first generation Reeves, Marshall spent his boyhood on the farm where he became self-reliant and early on repaired and improved farm machinery. After completing the first eight grades of his education, he taught school in Rush County and later relocated in Knightstown, where with his father William and his uncle Alfred, he engaged in the manufacture and sales of an improved version of the Two-Horse Tongueless Corn Plow, his first invention. In 1872 he married Louisa McBride of Rush County. Following improvements on the Tongueless Plow and after renaming it the Hoosier Boy Corn Plow, Marshall saw it widely adopted by many farmers in the corn-belt states. In 1881 the Reeves Straw Stacker made its debut on the implement market. Like others in the large family Marshall—wealthy, a philanthropist, and a self-made man—was a Democrat, a member of the Christian Church and of the Columbus City Council (to which he was twice elected), and president of Reeves Pulley in the mid-1980s. He died in 1925.

Milton O. Reeves, another son of William F., was born in Rush County in 1864, married in 1882 and early pioneered in the automobile industry as the builder of either the fourth or fifth American auto, and even sold some of them. But his work on the horseless carriage he did without directly tying it to the Reeves Company. He called his vehicle a “motocycle” (not motorcycle). Largely because of its variable speed transmission (based on belts and pulleys), he believed it was superior to Henry Ford’s “quadricycle” which had only one speed. His first recorded test of the transmission in an auto took place on 26 September 1896, before all the coach work was complete. It worked perfectly, as did the power train, but it was noisy and emitted nasty fumes and vapors. A double muffler, later installed, was probably the industry’s first. Later that fall when the car was driven to Indianapolis, it attained a top speed of 15 mph, and was reportedly “the first auto in the city.” (In a later test the vehicle would attain 30 mph.) Nonetheless, in 1898 Milton confessed in a Board meeting that he had lost momentum in his work because of matters of vibration, odor/vapor, exhaust—and “other [problems] too numerous to mention.” “I have been discouraged,” he acknowledged, “with the machine as a whole.” His distress however probably grew out of the almost complete lack of sales from his intended wealthy customers.

Two auto models, more the product of Milton Reeves’ own initiative than of the Company itself, deserve mention. His eight-wheel Octo-Auto was hailed by writer and editor Elbert Hubbard for its comfort and durability. Traversing Chicago streets, including those with ruts six inches deep, it brought “ease to the passenger and . . .length of life to the auto, “remarked Hubbard. Its tires reportedly should last eight times as long as one might expect because eight wheels carried the load and eased the car in and out of road furrows caused by horse-drawn wagons. With 40-horsepower and a length exceeding 20 feet, this 4-passenger vehicle retailed for $3200.00.

The Sexto-Auto, a six-wheel version of the Octo-Auto and in the luxury class, had variable speed and reportedly made several cross-country jaunts. It never caught on with the American public, probably because of its price: in 1910 it sold for $4500.00. The second motocycle he built was called “The Big Seven,” for the number of adults it held. The last such vehicle which came from Milton’s plans was perhaps the “grandfather” of modern buses, for 20 passengers could squeeze into five soft, leather seats. More like a bus than a passenger car, its wheels were too far apart and the engine did not run well when it encountered wagon ruts in dirt or gravel roads. Milton’s vehicles were not successful but he jump-started a new era in land transportation with his variable speed transmission, important both to automobiles, to lathes, and other Reeves engines…

Nonetheless, the Reeves name was firmly entrenched in the manufacturing world. When Milton died in 1925 at the age of 60 he held more than 100 patents. In 1910 his gifted designer and builder was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal for pioneer work in the development of the variable speed transmission, so important was it in the country’s first automobiles.

Columbus was a town like many others throughout the Midwest in the 1870s. It was primarily an agrarian community with no industry to speak of - just a few mills. When the Reeves brothers moved to Columbus and brought their company, The Hoosier Boy Cultivator Company, Columbus had its first real industry. The company name was changed to Reeves and Co., and then in 1888 they started the Reeves Pulley Co.

This was a different era in manufacturing, more of a hands-on management style. The men running the company knew all of the workers by name. They also knew how all of the machinery worked. It was said that if there was a problem with any machinery at Reeves Pulley, M.O. could diagnose the problem and tell how to fix it within minutes.

The Reeves family members held over 140 patents between them. Their foresight took them from cultivators to vari-speed transmissions to autos. The greatness of their inventions is evident in the fact that some of their inventions are still being manufactured with very few changes over 100 years later.

Their contribution to our community did not end in the business sector, but they also were pillars in their respective churches. They all devoted much time, money and leadership to their churches. Some supported the arts and others served in the city government. They were all family men and big family outings were common.

Columbus was a better place to live after the Reeves family decided to settle here.

Reliance Electric-Dodge Founded: 1888 Location: 1225 Seventh Street, Columbus (1890– )

Milton O., Marshall, Alfred, and Milton M. Reeves purchased the Edinburgh Pulley Company, renamed it the Reeves Pulley Company, and moved it from Edinburgh to Columbus. Two years later they moved their enterprise to a new brick building on Seventh Street, one that continues to house the company more than a century later. Originally the brothers made only one product, the wood split pulley. It proved strong and versatile. One of their largest pulleys was used in the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. One model could be attached to a back hub of a car and, with other accoutrements, be used to power a sawmill. Until the line-shaft method of powering factories became obsolete in the 1930s many factories used the Reeves pulley to power manufacturing concerns. The wooden pulleys were more efficient producers of energy than their iron cousins and were less dangerous because they were less likely to break. Around 1896 the company began experimenting with the new technology of the automobile. For three years the brothers produced a motorcycle-style car, powered by a two-cylinder Sintz gasoline engine. More important for the future, Milton invented the variable-speed transmission. The transmission was, at first, too bulky for most cars and was used instead in large machines such as those that produced paper. The brothers soon tired of making cars that provided little profit. 

By 1904 they began producing gasoline engines for other car manufacturers. Their first model was an air-cooled, four-cylinder, twelve-horsepower, and gasoline engine. The first successful engine they created was the model E, which they sold to the Auburn and Alex Malcomson auto companies. It could deliver up to twenty horsepower. Before World War I the brothers introduced stationary gasoline engines, used primarily in farm equipment for tasks such as grinding feed or pumping water. The low profit margin spelled doom for the gas engines, however. After 1914 the company stopped making engines and switched to producing variable-speed transmissions. The stationary-engine business was sold.

Bartholomew County Historical Society
524 Third Street Columbus, IN 47201
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