(The ad below is taken from 1907 Canadian MFG's Blue Book)

"Harvesting machinery , agricultural implements and

gasoline engines of the highest grade"

"Why Sylvester Machines are Easy Sellers

Because they have stood the test and do their work most satisfactorilly

You can make no mistake in buying Sylvester Machines"

Head office for Alberta, British Columbia, Maitoba and Saskatchewan, Brandon, Manitoba

"Send for illustrated catalogue"

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Richard Sylvester, along with his brother Robert were the founders of Sylvester Manufacturing Company, which was located on the south west corner of Victoria Avenue and Kent Street West. It was a leading industry in town, employing over 100 men. It was one of the first companies to manufacture plough points, cultivators, binders and the Sylvester threshing machine was the first of its kind to operate on the prairies.

The following information & photographs are extracts from Antique Gas Engine & Tractor Magazine Volume 1 #2 June/July 1978 - Editor H L ( Larry ) Healey

reproduced with permission.

".... around 1914, he (Richard Sylvester) obtained a contract from the Canadian Northern Railway for water tower pumping engines (combination pump and engine). From this contract he developed an oil vaporizer to burn diesel fuel in these engines. Hundreds of these vaporizers were shipped to the U.S. for use on Fairbanks-Morse engines (and maybe others).

In 1916 he started building engine powered railway work and repair cars and built many different models from one man air cooled engines up to four cylinder liquiid cooled. (As a kid we used to call them Jiggers). Sylvester steel products still make these track cars and just in the last 5 years stopped using the old style combination hopper / rad cooled two cycle models in favor of four cycle overhead valve air cooleds. They stopped making farm impliments around 1920 era to concentrate on the railway line of goods, probably the best move they could have made (with the depression coming, which wiped our all but the giant firms). Somewhere in this interim era they built a line of farm engines which were the same as the American designed Associate, (in books at least) about six of these are still known around. Frank Reesor of Markham, Ont. owns a smaller model in good condition.

Sylvester also handled the Kalamazoo Railway Supply Company line of equipment (out of business now). They also made track push and motor cars as well as pump and velocipedes.

On March 8th, 1956 Sylvester Manufacturing was purchased by Mr. K.G. MacDuffee and the name was changed to Sylvester Steel Products Ltd. up to this time the track cars were made mainly of wood. The new management found the wooden cars were not meeting the requirements of the railroads as to weight, design ect. Working along with Maintainance Of Way Departments over six or seven years they developed a light weight steel frame section car and a light weight aluminum frame inspection car, which was competitve with similar products made in the U.S. This brings up to the End of the Era that we as antique collectors are interested in."

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Thankyou Larry for sharing this information with Sylvester speeder seekers!