The Tuckahoe Steam and Gas Association preserves the history of the rural Eastern Shore
It’s a busy July day on the sprawling grounds of the Tuckahoe Steam and Gas Association, located just outside the town of Easton, off bustling Route 50. Folks are pouring into the 60-acre park for a four-day celebration of the by-gone days of Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore. History comes to life here as does the Industrial Revolution that made today’s high-tech world possible. And it all began with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1769. This engine, by boiling coal-heated water, created the steam energy to power the machines that make trains, ships, and tractors run. Steam engines powered electric generators, cable car systems, and just about everything else.
On this warm day, visitors watch a model steam engine locomotive as it chugs along the railroad tracks shrieking its whistle and billowing clouds of smoke as it puffs its way along. Other visitors are strolling around the grounds to visit the six museums located on the property. They can watch the blacksmith forging iron in the blacksmith shop or watch the circular saw devour a thick log as it screeches along spitting out planks of wood in the two sawmill shops.
As they wander through the Rural Life Museum, those of an elderly age will recognize objects in the farmhouse kitchen—like the old wringer washing machine powered by electricity, and the even older wash tub with a scrub board. They’ll recognize the icebox, the vintage cans with labels almost 80 years old, and the old coffee grinder. The museum’s vintage Model-T Ford standing next to the antique Gulf and Shell gas pumps might interest the youngsters.
A few months prior to July’s four-day celebration, I met Pat Harvey, the association’s vice president at the museum. As she guided me around, pointing out all the different displays, she said, “You can visit the Smithsonian, but here all your senses are lit up. You can see it, hear it, touch it.”
How did this all begin? Harvey has some answers. It began with an idea as most things do.
“Both my father and my husband’s father were sitting at the kitchen table discussing what a good idea it would be to preserve our way of life before we no longer remembered it,” she explains. “Our aim was to take people to a different time. “We began the project in December 1973 with 40 charter members. By 1974, thanks to a group of volunteers, we could open.” She stresses that the organization is all volunteer run. “We don’t have any employees,” she says. “We also own the property, which is about 60 acres.”
Harvey points out that they have 500 to 600 members across the country—a nationwide organization of Steam and Gas parks. And people from all over the country bring in their antique cars and horse-drawn antique steam engines to display. Folks also donate items they can no longer use or keep. Some even include them in their wills. One such treasured item is the 1947 International firetruck that is used in parades.
There are about seven sheds on the property: One houses a steam engine tractor with a combine and another houses a tractor and corn picker. Old steam engines fill the Steam Museum adjacent to the sheds.
As with almost all the venues across the country, Tuckahoe canceled its 2020 July celebration because of Covid. For the organization it was actually a blessing in disguise. “We have so many events and activities going on all the time, and in 2020 we had nothing but time,” Harvey says. “We got a ton of stuff fixed up and restored. We also had time to plan for a new military collectors’ group that would include old military equipment.”
The exhibit Harvey is most excited about, however, are the two looms, the larger one dating back to the 1700s, and the smaller one to the 1800s. She leads me to the building in which the looms are housed. She takes a seat at the larger one and begins to work the shuttle that moves the strings across the loom as the threads slowly weave themselves into cloth.
These days when new innovations constantly change our lives, it’s difficult to realize how hard and demanding life could be in days past. Until machines transformed tools such as shovels, pickaxes, saws, rakes, and horse-drawn plows into the high-tech equipment of today, most work in farms and factories was demanding and backbreaking.
“Then, the oldest form of horsepower was a horse hitched to a plow,” Harvey remarks. Now with tractors run by computers, and by GPS navigation, farming has become a high-tech industry. “We could almost feed the world,” she says. Yet the forerunners of the high-tech tractors are those old work-horses—the John Deere, the McCormick, and the Farmall tractors.
On a later date, I return to the museum grounds and meet a young man named Scott Thompson. He’s standing near his 1951 Farmall tractor. The tractor is a beauty. Fully restored and shiny red, it’s ready to be displayed.
“I found it abandoned in a field,” he says. “I asked the owner if I could buy it, and he agreed.” With his grandfather’s help, Thompson brought the tractor back to life, and he’s already shown it at the Delaware State Fair. Next to the restored tractor is another 1951 Farmall. It’s rusted out and dilapidated and definitely showing its 70 years.
When the grounds are open, which is the first Saturday of every month, folks sitting in the grandstand can watch the tractor pulling contests to see which tractor can pull the heaviest load for the longest distance—about 263 yards. The loads can weigh 4,500, 5,500 or 6,500 pounds. The youngsters, however, might prefer watching or driving the garden tractors in the garden tractor pull. Here one garden tractor pulls another.
One of the largest buildings on the property is the Machine Museum and, sure enough, the 4,000-square-foot building is filled with machines dating from 1880 to 1920. Mechanical engineer, Dick McBirney, leads me through the collection of every type of machine.
Now partially retired from the Goddard Space Center, he drives from his home in Columbia every first Saturday of the month to meet with visitors and guide them around the building, which contains an amazing collection of tools and machines.
“Machines convert energy,” McBirney explains. “They need to be powered by steam, gas, or electricity.” He points out the collection of lathes that are used to produce round products and the milling machines that are used to make rectangular products. As we walk around the room, he shows me a huge 36-inch Turrett Lathe that was used to produce wheels for trains. Also in the collection is a 1920 gear shaper that was used to make gears. McBirney stresses that so many precision parts have to be accurate—plus or minus 1000th of an inch.
What he especially enjoys doing, however, is showing youngsters the collection, and he has a small lathe that they can try out.
Who designs motors and machines? That’s where McBirney comes in. As a mechanical engineer, he has designed many. He shows me one of his blueprints that’s on the wall behind us. “We used to design them, and then a draftsman would draw them. Now it’s all done by computers.”
These days, we are in the midst of another revolution—one fueled by nuclear energy—energy that now propels us into space. Yet it would never have been possible to come this far without those old steam engines. And one of the best opportunities to step back in time, visit the grounds, and see these engines in action will be Halloween weekend, when The Association plans to hold its fall festival. For more information, visit tuckahoesteam.org.
