For those of you who are around the Farm you likely know Carlin's husband Jack. He recently came across something that will soon be residing in his garage in Glenview, a rare Economy hit and miss engine. I don't think that I would be going out on a limb to say that there aren't many of them in Glenview. I hope that one day soon Jack will bring his engine to a Wagner event and do some demonstrations with it.
Hit-n-miss Engine
Small stationary gasoline engines provided power for a multitude of tasks on farms from about the 1900's to the 1930's. Even washing machines were powered by small gas engines. They fell out of use as the countryside became electrified permitting the use of electric motors. The hit-n-miss engine is so named because it does not fire in each cycle, doing so only when the governor slows down. It has a characteristic whoosh,whoosh,whoosh,pop, whoosh sound. These are four-stroke, single cylinder engines with typically two fly-wheels, and a pulley that would use a flat belt to drive whatever needed power.
Pictured is a Hercules Economy model E 1.5 horsepower hit-n-miss engine produced in Evansville, IN in 1915. It was manufactured by Hercules but sold under the Economy label by none other than Sears Roebuck.
