Historedia
Episode 1 of 1

Patent Grant

When
1834-06-21
Where
United States Patent Office
Part of
Cyrus McCormick granted a patent for the mechanical reaper

Cyrus McCormick received a U.S. patent for his mechanical reaper on June 21, 1834, covering a horse-drawn implement for cutting grain.

The grant occurred two years after McCormick received a patent for a self-sharpening plow. Although McCormick claimed the machine was invented in 1831, the official patent date was 1834. This established the legal foundation for his commercial operations, distinct from the 1833 patent held by Obed Hussey.

Sources

  1. Cyrus McCormick Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-28
  2. Reaper Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-29

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.