HISTORY OF STEAM SHOVELS

OSWEGO

Patented in 1870, the Sage & Alger shovel designed by Clinton H. Sage and Samuel B. Alger, and known as the ‘Oswego Boom Machine’, was initially built by John King & Co. of Oswego, New York. According to literature dated 1885, this location underwent a name to Kingsford Foundry & Machine Works at this time. It also appears that Oswego machines were built by the Vulcan Iron Works of Oswego, New York, owned by the same John King. This was probably the same factory in Oswego, and not to be confused with the Vulcan Iron Works of Toledo, Ohio, also a builder of steam shovels.

The first Oswego shovel was of the luffing type with dipper arm attached and hinged to the boom close to its centre. This was similar to many small rope-operated excavators of later years where raising or lowering the boom provided the crowding action. The Oswego shovel was advertised as built “in first class manner” with framework in white Canadian oak, all gearing of cast steel, double hoist engines with 8” x 12” cylinders, and boiler of upright design, large enough to “furnish an abundance of steam.” The clutches were known as “Alger’s Expansive Friction” type, which were said to take hold of the load gradually and “thus obviate the danger of breakage incident to the use of a positive clutch.”

Another Oswego shovel