An International Hit: The Successful American Platform Scale

Each grapevine will produce about 10 pounds of grapes. It has always been important to know what the yield is from the vineyards. Weighing the grapes is essential also because grapes sell today for thousands per ton. More grapes are being shipped through interstate commerce. Commercial sales are under the jurisdiction of the government, and there are a host of rules and regulations. There are legalities of being “commercially compliant.”

These days, there are various methods or processes for weighing grapes. Many wineries have a weigh station. This should be the first stop that the grapes make after they are harvested. It is one of the many requirements by the government to report tonnage. This is the business of making wine, after all, an alcoholic beverage. There are many sizable methods in which substantial pallets or trucks of grapes can be weighed. These could include steel weighing pads, a weighbridge, pallet truck scales, pallet weighing scales, or weighing forks. Something that has changed since the early days is that now all scales do not comply with government rules and regulations, unlike the early days of weighing your harvest.

So, let’s discuss a basic tool that would’ve been used during the 1800s: the platform scale.

Image Sourced From Wikipedia

Wine History Project Scale Artifact

The Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County possesses what some may think an unusual artifact for a wine collection. Within our collection is a platform scale that weighs approximately 500 pounds. Don’t worry, it’s on wheels which still roll across a flat surface.

However, if you think about it, using this scale was a way for the early grape growers to weigh their harvest of grapes.

Object ID S6

Object Name Scale, Platform

Circa 1849 – 1900

Materials Brass, iron, wood with original blue paint

Description Brass beam with platform on wheels with weights.

Fairbanks Platform Scale Facing Away From Barrel

The low profile of the Fairbanks Platform Scale makes it possible to weigh pallets, large loads, or individual crates and boxes. The material to be weighed is placed on the scale. The function of the platform is to transmit the weight of the object and to support the object during weighing.

There are several types of platform scales, and the thing to remember is that the platform scale allows for quick, convenient, accurate measurements to prevent overloading or shipping mistakes.

Thaddeus Fairbanks (1/17/1796 – 4/12/1886)

He was born to Phebe (Paddock) Fairbanks (1760 – 1853) and Joseph Fairbanks (1763 – 1846) in Brimfield, Massachusetts. In 1815 they moved to St. Johnsbury, Vermont and their son, Thaddeus set up a wheelwright’s shop where he made carriages until 1824 above his father’s gristmill and sawmill, next to the Sleepers River. Thaddeus married Lucy Peck Barker in 1820 and they had five children.

In 1824, his brother Erastus (1792 – 1864) joined him to establish E. & T. Fairbanks, a partnership to manufacture heating stoves and cast-iron plows. He patented a design for a plow in 1826. By 1830 the brothers became interested in raising and processing hemp. Thaddeus became the manager of the St. Johnsbury Hemp Company and during this time he patented a hemp and flax dressing machine. He also built a set of scales that would measure large loads of hemp accurately. His brothers recommended that he make and sell these scales for general use. Thaddeus patented the original design for his most famous invention, the platform scale for weighing heavy objects in 1830. Prior to this invention, weighing heavy objects required hanging objects from a balancing beam and could not be weighed accurately.

Thaddeus Fairbanks' Brother Joseph Paddock

Thaddeus Fairbanks’ brothers Erastus & Joseph Paddock

In 1833/1834, Thaddeus, Erastus, and their brother Joseph Paddock Fairbanks (1806 – 1855) formed E. & T. Fairbanks and Company to manufacture and sell these platform scales. From 1842 to 1857, the company doubled in volume, and the partnership was incorporated in 1874 into a firm known as Fairbanks Scale Company. Ownership of the company has changed several times, but Fairbanks Scales continue to be made to this day. Thaddeus received 43 patents in his lifetime, achieving the last one at the age of 91.

Fairbanks' Weighing Machines Exhibit List

List of World’s Fairs where Fairbanks scales were on exhibit between 1851 and 1881

Fairbanks Scale Works In St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Fairbanks Scale Works in St. Johnsbury, Vermont In The Countryside

Fairbanks Scale Works in St. Johnsbury, Vermont Industrial

Patents

On April 10, 1790, George Washington, then the first president of the United States, signed the Patent Act of 1790 into law. This authorized that “useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device or any improvement therein not before known or used” were important. By the end of July 1790, Samuel Hopkins of Vermont became the first person to file and be granted a patent. In 1836, the United States patent law further clarified the law to establish a patent office where patent applications were to be filed, processed, and granted.

In a newspaper article in St. Johnsbury Caledonia newspaper, “as told by Henry Fuller at a Fairbanks celebration event in August 1920, Sir Thaddeus Fairbanks went on horseback from St. Johnsbury Vermont to Washington, D.C. in 1830 as he wanted to patent his invention.”

The original patent was used to create a platform scale built of wood, and these were introduced as town hay scales for the villages of Vermont. New styles were gradually invented, including at first portable platform, warehouse and counter scales, and later railroad track, canal, elevator and livestock scales; additional postal and druggist balances ranging in hundreds of varieties and ranging from one-tenth of a grain to five hundred tons.

A serious difficulty in the early days of scale-making was that of construction. Thaddeus Fairbanks remarked, “to make everything out of nothing was a difficult task.” Thaddeus was entirely averse to public life, it is written, but he gave his undivided work of brains and hand for fifty-five years to the mechanical department of the business, continuously advancing on his original invention, constructing special machinery, devising new applications for which he secured a series of 32 patents.

Pamphlet published by Rand McNally, Chicago, 1893

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition In Chicago, Illinois Souvenir Pamphlet

“In a quiet village among the green mountains of Vermont there were three brothers doing business, manufacturing wagons, stoves, and plows. They also handled quantities of hemp.

The customary way of weighing by the beams or steelyards was too slow. Thaddeus Fairbanks, one of the brothers, set about to improve this method, and made for their own use a scale with a platform. This scale proved useful and convenient. After being somewhat perfected, it was patented in 1830, which was the first patent taken out on a Platform Scale. …The invention was not confined to their own use, but others becoming acquainted with its usefulness, sought for it”

It continues by exclaiming these facts:

“For improvements in scales, Thaddeus Fairbanks received thirty-three patents, besides numerous others on various machines and devices required in making the different parts. From the small factory, 60 x 25 feet, in which this industry was begun, the works have extended to cover more than twelve acres of floor space, in which are employed about seven hundred skilled mechanics, a large portion of whom have made this industry their lifework.

From this factory in St. Johnsbury, Vt., sales warehouses of their own, in nearly all of the large cities of this country, are supplied at the rate of more than 2,000 scales per week. There are agencies, also, in the cities of foreign countries, so that Fairbanks’ Scales are distributed to every portion of the earth, where civilization has gained a foothold.”

In Conclusion

The Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo includes here some photos of a Fairbanks Platform Scale similar to the one we have in our collection including the logo label which exists on the object along with an advertisement for Fairbanks.