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Wood Butter
Churns Page 1 - Swinging, Revolving & Rocking Churns
The butter churns on this page all rely on the
motion of the cream container to churn the butter. There are no
paddles or dashers inside the cream container to agitate the
cream. Rather the cream box is swung, rotated or rocked to get the
cream moving inside the churn. The motion of the cream hitting
the ends of the container is what causes the butter to churn.
Revolving butter churns were especially popular with larger
creameries. These churns were very easily made in large sizes
since there were no paddles to deal with, they were very easily adapted
to mechanical power with a simple pulley and they were very efficient in
churning the cream. Click here for a picture of a 500 gallon revolving
box churn. This churn was called The Key City King and was
manufactured by N. S. Andrews of Dubuque, Iowa. This churn was
advertised in an 1893 dairy publication and was typical of the large
size revolving churns used at that time. 
This is a Davis Swing Churn, although some very early literature
referred to it as a Davis Oscillating Churn. It was patented
on May 1, 1877 and September 9, 1879. The 1877 patent was granted
to Oliver Davis of Waterbury, Vermont and described a churn of similar
shape but it pivoted from below and was rocked back and forth by spiral
springs. The 1879 patent was granted to Francis Butler of Bellows
Falls, Vermont and assigned to the Vermont Farm Machine Company.
Butler was the secretary of the Vermont Farm Machine
Company. His patent described a churn almost identical
to the one pictured, which was suspended from above in a wood
frame.
These churns were made by the Vermont Farm Machine Company of Bellows
Falls, Vermont. This is a size 2 or 10 gallon capacity designed to
churn 5 gallons of cream. This size butter churn was listed at
$8.00 in an 1889 catalog from the company. They were still sold in
1913 and the price had increased by one dollar. This churn has
the plain frame. There was a folding frame available for a dollar
more. The folding frame made it easier to tilt the churn box to
drain out the buttermilk or wash water.
There were no paddles inside the churn. As the churn box
rocked on the cradle the cream rolled over on itself to make
butter. The company said this gentle action did not injure the
butter.
These butter churns were available in twelve sizes (7, 10, 16, 24, 30,
40, 60, 80, 100, 150, 200 and 300 gallons).
The largest sizes were designed to be suspended from the
ceiling beams of the creamery (picture).
For an additional 16 dollars this company sold a treadmill attachment
that allowed a dog, goat or sheep to supply the power to swing the churn
(picture).
This butter churn was awarded medals at the New Jersey State Fair, the
New England Fair, the International Dairy Fair, the Western New York
Fair, the Pennsylvania State Fair, the Carolina Fair, the Massachusetts
Mechanics Association and the Virginia State A & M Society. 
This is a Creamery
Foot Power Churn. The handle allows one to use their foot as well
as their hand to swing the churn. It is stenciled as a No. 1 or 10
gallon small family size with the capacity to churn 1 to 4
gallons. It was manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky
by Creamery Churn Manufacturers. The butter churn pictured
above was patented by William H. Curtice of Eminence, Kentucky on
December 26, 1893 and January 15, 1895. The 1893 patent shows an
early version of the foot lever. The 1895 patent details the
foot lever as it appears on this butter churn as well as drawings for a
screen or strainer to insert in the body of the churn to
separate the butter and buttermilk when the churn is drained.
Thanks Dennis for letting us picture your churn.
This company
also sold a swing churn without the foot power called the Creamery Swing
Churn. It had upright handles on each end of the churn box so one
could swing it by hand. The Creamery Swing Churn was advertised
in 10, 15 and 20 gallon sizes. It also was patented by William
Curtice along with his brother Jesse on September 8, 1891.
Actually the
Creamery Swing Churn was first manufactured by J. F. Hillerich and
Son of Louisville, Kentucky. They called it the Dairy Swing
Churn (picture) and also
manufactured it under the Curtice patent of 1891. J. F. Hillerich
and Son would become famous as the manufacturer of Louisville Slugger
baseball bats. Switching from butter churns to baseball bats
turned out to be a great business decision. Thanks Dave and Myra
for the picture of your churn.
Some of William Curtice's early
patents were his most unique butter churns. On August 28, 1888 he
patented a butter churn that was powered by foot pedals similar to a
sewing machine (picture). The
operator sat facing the churn. This churn had a large,
ball shaped counter weight that hung below the churn on a rod to keep
the churn swinging once the motion was started.
This is a Star barrel churn. The oak
barrel was just tumbled end over end until butter formed.
There were no paddles inside the barrel but since the barrel was
only filled half full the cream would churn as it fell inside the
barrel. The barrel was rotated between 40-80 revolutions per
minute depending on size. Smaller churns would
be rotated between 60 to 80 revolutions/minute and as the
churns got larger the revolutions/minute could be decreased,
approaching the 40 revolutions/minute on the largest sizes. It was
important not to over crank a barrel churn. The cream needed to
fall from one end of the barrel to the other as it rotated. If the
barrel was cranked so fast that centrifugal force held the cream
at the end of the barrel the butter would not form. One
disadvantage of any churn that revolved was that it needed to be
sealed tight so it would not leak. The lid had to fit tight and
the churn could not be vented. If pressure built up during the
churning process the churn needed to be stopped and the pressure
relieved.
The barrel churn pictured above is a size 0 which was 5 (later called 6)
gallons and the smallest size. It sold for $2.85 in the 1896
Sears and Roebuck catalog, decreased to as low as $2.35 in
1912 and went back up to between five and six
dollars in the 1920's and 30's. Star barrel churns
were still available in
the 1942-43 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog but
the price jumped to $7.19. They did not appear in the 1945-46
Sears catalog. The Montgomery Ward
catalog listed their brand of barrel churns in this size
for $3.00 in 1894-95, $5.00 in 1922, $5.95 in 1935-36 and $6.25 in
1940-41. The fact that this style of butter churn was sold for
over 50 years tells one how popular they were. These butter
churns were also available from Sears in 9 (later called 10), 15, 20, 25
and 35 gallon sizes although by the 1920's the two larger sizes were no
longer sold in the hand crank version. Sizes 15 gallons and
above could be ordered with a pulley to be driven by an external motor,
engine or treadmill. For many years Sears referred to their power
driven churns by the name "Success".
The earliest Sears barrel churns had a star symbol stenciled on the
barrel and in the mid 1920's the butter churns had the word
"Star" like the butter churn pictured above. The 1927 Sears
catalog referred to the factory being in northern Illinois. We
suspect that the Star barrel churns were made for Sears by J. McDermaid
of Rockford, Illinois. We have seen a J. McDermaid counter weight
that refers to the Star churn. In addition, John McDermaid was
granted at least three patents for a lever system to seal the lid of a
barrel butter churn that was identical to the lid used on the Star
butter churns. The dates of these patents were October 9, 1888,
March 19, 1889 and September 8, 1891.
J. McDermaid manufactured four barrel butter churns under his
own name, the Boss, the Favorite, the Columbian and the Belle Churn
(picture). John
McDermaid was granted one of the first barrel churn patents on October
24, 1876. This original patent described a barrel churn that had
beaters inside of the barrel to help break the cream and separate the
butter from the milk. These beaters were soon determined to be
unnecessary. Although this 1876 patent was not assigned in the
original patent papers, at some point John McDermaid must have granted a
half interest to H. H. Palmer and Company, which would become a
major competitor. We have also seen an advertisement from the
Aquatic Cream Separator Company of Rochester, New York for a Eureka
Churn which listed all the McDermaid patent dates. J. McDermaid
most likely manufactured this barrel churn also.
In addition to the J. McDermaid patents, there were many other barrel
churn patents. The majority of these concerned the closure or
sealing of the lid. One of the most prolific patent holders was H.
H. Palmer and Company of Rockford, Illinois. They manufactured
two popular barrel churns; the Acme Bail Churn and the
Boss Churn. We have also seen a Fairy Churn manufactured by
H. H. Palmer and Company but it is not as common as the Acme Bail and
the Boss Churn. An 1887 advertisement claimed that 150,000 H. H.
Palmer and Company barrel churns were in use in the U. S. and
Canada. The counter weight on some of their barrel butter
churns listed 10 patent dates. All these patents were either
granted to Samuel Palmer or assigned to Henry Palmer. The dates of
these patents were September 2, 1879, June 1, 1880 (reissue of a Sept
4, 1877 patent), February 21, 1882, February 21, 1888, two patents on
December 17, 1889 and four patents on December 31, 1889. The
Palmers were granted additional patents throughout the 1890's.
Also as mentioned above, H. H. Palmer and Company literature claimed
they owned a half interest in John McDermaid's original October 24, 1876
patent. An 1891 H. H. Palmer and Company price sheet listed the
price for a 5 gallon churn like the one pictured here as $8.00.
One sees the great effect that Sears and Wards had on prices as just a
few years later competition from these mail order houses had pushed the
price on the same churn to $3.00 and below.
Even though H. H. Palmer and J. McDermaid shared McDermaid's 1876 patent
they were fierce competitors located in the same little town. In
1892, H. H. Palmer sued J. McDermaid in court. Palmer claimed that
butter churns manufactured by McDermaid were infringing on three of his
patents, one dated February 21, 1888 and two dated December 31,
1889. The court decided in McDermaid's favor, concluding that none
of the Palmer patents covered any novel features. In fact a
patent granted to William Dobson, a third churn
manufacturer also from Rockford, Illinois, on July 5, 1881
covered all the features that H. H. Palmer was calling their
ideas. We see this often in early patents. Often the ideas
described in the patents were not new or unique but manufacturers
still applied for patents to validate or approve their products.
Barrel butter churns are sometimes found with a lever system or foot
pedal that rotates the barrel from a more comfortable standing position
than the hand crank found on the churn shown above (picture). This
lever system we see more often on Canadian barrel churns however William
Dobson of Rockford, Illinois did patent a lever system to rotate a
barrel churn on October 15, 1901. His company, Dobson
Manufacturing Company of Rockford, Illinois, sold a conventional, hand
cranked barrel churn called The Favorite and also sold a lever operated
barrel churn called The Favorite Special.
Barrel butter churns were very common and many companies made them,
especially in Illinois. Sizes up to 150 gallons were available for
use in larger creameries.
Other barrel butter churns include:
The Babcock Favorite and The Jackson manufactured by W. W. Babcock
Co., Bath, New York
The Batcheller Barrel Churn manufactured by H. F. Batcheller & Son,
Rock Falls, Illinois
The Challenge and Diamond Churns manufactured by The Challenge Churn
Manufacturing Co., Paw Paw, Michigan
The Double Lever Churn manufactured by the Aspinwall Manufacturing Co.,
Jackson, Michigan
The Hawthorne listed in 1922 Montgomery Ward catalog, shipped from
northern Illinois
The Magic Churn manufactured by The American Woodenware Manufacturing
Company, Toledo, Ohio
The O. K. Churn manufactured by John S. Carter, Syracuse, New York
Reid's Cedar Churn manufactured by A. H. Reid, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
The Standard Barrel Churn manufactured by Standard Churn Company,
Wapakoneta, Ohio (click here to go to the page with wood churns
made by the Standard Churn Co.)
The Stoddard Churn manufactured by Moseley and Stoddard Manufacturing
Co., Poultney, Vermont
The Surprise Churn manufactured by Chapin & Smith, Poultney,
Vermont
Union Barrel Churn manufactured by the Union Manufacturing Company,
Toledo, Ohio
Click here to go to the page with stoneware barrel
butter churns.
Click here to go to the page with metal barrel
butter churns. 
The style of butter churn pictured
above is a rectangular churn. The one shown here is
specifically a Whipple's rectangular churn. This one was made by
Cornish, Curtis and Greene Mfg. Co. of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
They were patented January 21, 1868 and July 7, 1885. In the 1868
patent papers Samuel Whipple of Orville, California proposes the
idea of a box shaped butter churn that revolved on trunnions from
diagonal corners. The 1885 patent was granted to David Curtis of
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin and dealt with improvements in the sealing of
the churn lid and a drain through one of the corner supports. This
patent was assigned in two thirds to Oscar Cornish and Walter
Greene. These men formed Cornish, Curtis and Greene Mfg. Co.,
which was a large manufacturer of dairy items.
The pictured butter churn is the smallest model, a No. 0, that
was 7 gallons. The price for one of these in the
1896 through 1898 Sears catalog was $3.50. They also were
sold in a 10, 12, 20, 26, 40 and 60 gallon size. The 40 and 60
gallon sizes were sold with cranks on both ends of the box and could be
adapted to be driven by an external power source. The last year we
found these listed in the Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog was 1906
and the price for a 7 gallon had dropped to $3.23. The strong
buying power of Sears, Roebuck and Company forced manufacturers to keep
prices in line or risk Sears dropping their product. Montgomery
Ward also advertised rectangular churns in their early catalogs.
The Creamery Package Company which acquired Cornish, Curtis and Greene
Mfg. Co. still offered these churns in their 1912 catalog. By then
the 7 gallon size cost 8 dollars.
There are no paddles inside this churn. Cranking made the box
tumble corner over corner and in the process the cream was churned into
butter. The earliest churns used a lid that wedged tight with a
slight rotation (picture). This design was also shown
in the patent papers. Later churns, like the one pictured
here, utilized the sealing mechanisms found on many barrel butter
churns. We suspect that these lids formed a tighter seal and as
the patents ran out they could be used on this churn. The
stenciling on the churn boasts of first place premiums won at state
fairs in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, St. Louis
and Iowa. The stenciling also tells of a first place premium and
medal from the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in
New Orleans, a gold medal from the Grand Union Dairy Fair in Milwaukee
in 1882 as well as a sweepstakes gold medal awarded in St. Louis in
1883.
Although this butter churn design was patented in 1868 and 1885 the
design was still in use in 1939. Click here for a picture of a revolving churn
installed in the Oakland plant of the Challenge Cream and Butter
Association in that year. At the time this was the largest butter
churn in America. It could churn 660 gallons of cream into 2580
pounds of butter in 30 to 45 minutes. The castings were aluminum
and weighed 1500 pounds. At the time they were some of the largest
pieces of aluminum ever cast. This butter churn was manufactured
by the Jensen Machinery Company of Oakland, California. The churn
and the process to use it was patented by Clyde Mitchel of El Monte,
California and Elbert Wetmore of Alhambra, California by way of two
patents issued on May 14, 1940. They assigned both patents to the
Challenge Cream and Butter Association. 
The drawing above is taken from
an 1893 advertisement for the Diamond Balance churn. It was sold
by the Diamond Balance Churn Company of Balston Spa, New York. The
inventors of this churn were Matthew Hoyt and Hugh Murray, also of
Balston Spa. They were granted a patent for this churn on May 28,
1889. One problem with tumbling churns such as barrel churns or
the Whipple churn was that they tended to be jerky in their
motion. As the container rotated the cream would fall to the low
end of the container and then have to be lifted back up. This
meant that the churn tended to crank easy and then hard as it went
through one revolution. In the Diamond Balance churn there was a
center divider that basically divided the square box into two
smaller triangular compartments. Half the cream was always on the
opposite side of the centerline to balance the weight and give the churn
a smooth motion. They were advertised as being available in hand
cranked and power versions. 
Displayed above is a R. W. Fenner butter churn. Its
inventor was Rufus Fenner. This also was a revolving style of
butter churn like a barrel churn or box churn. However it had a
six sided or hexagonal container. In a barrel churn the cream
would fall twice every revolution, in a box churn it would fall four
times but in this churn the cream would fall 6 times resulting in a more
even, smoother motion. Advertisements from 1893 listed R. W.
Fenner of South Stockton, New York as the manufacturer and sizes from
one cow up to 500 gallons were advertised. This butter churn was
also advertised to not only churn the butter but also work out the
buttermilk, eliminating the need for a separate butter worker.
This is one churn that we believe was never patented.
At some point Fredrickson Bros. of Cassadaga, New York and later
Jamestown, New York purchased the rights
to manufacture this butter churn, as many will be found with
their name. We have seen advertisements as late as 1923 for this
butter churn. They advertised sizes from 6 gallons up to 500
gallons. The larger sizes had a pulley to be driven by a motor
and had two covers to remove the butter. 
When we first saw this rocking
device it was described as a washing machine but we thought maybe it was
a butter churn. None of the stenciling gave any indication as to
the intended function. It was called The Perfect and was made by
T. G. Hutcheson of San Jose, California. It was stenciled with an
October 29, 1889 patent date. This patent was issued to Enos
Churchill of Tulare, California and was partially assigned to William
Morrow of San Luis Obispo, California. The title of the patent is
for a washing machine however when one reads the specifications of the
patent it is claimed to wash clothes and churn butter. We are not
sure of the effect one job had on the other. Neither buttery
clothes nor sudsy butter sounds too good. Churchill claimed that
as the unit was rocked back and forth the cream would move towards the
up swept ends, in the process the trapped air would be compressed and
then forcibly driven back through the cream breaking up the
fat globules. The patent said that the churn could be mounted on
rockers like the one above or pivoted on spring brackets. The
sides of the churn are wood while the top, ends and bottom with all the
curves are tin.
Thanks to the Yolo county Historical Museum in
Woodland, California for letting us picture this churn. 
The churn pictured above is a rocker
butter churn. The cream box is mounted on rockers just like a
rocking chair. We have seen them with wood rockers like this churn
or with cast iron rockers. Often these churns would have some
type of fixed dasher in the center of the box. Not only was the
cream churned as it hit the end of the box but it had to also pass
through the fixed dasher in the center of the box as it moved from
end to end. These churns were easy to build and many people just
built one of their own design. That probably explains why one
comes across unique rocker butter churns.
George Bell of Sumner, Michigan was granted a patent on April 17, 1877
for a churn of this style. His design also included a false
bottom of sheet metal. The cream was above the sheet metal
bottom and water could be added to the space between the sheet metal and
the bottom of the wood box. By adjusting the temperature of the
water one could improve the ability of the cream to form butter.
We also came a cross a 1904 advertisement for the Rocker Churn, very
similar to the one shown above. They were made by the Rocker Churn
Manufacturing Company for Forsyth, Georgia. The company
advertised eight sizes from 8 to 60 gallons. The thrust of their
advertising was simplicity. Definitely this design needed little
maintenance or adjustment and was very easy to keep clean. |
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