From Wellsville Daily Reporter - Aug 13, 1895 - Transcribed by Mary Rhodes
THE FIRST MOWING MACHINE
But few people are aware, says the Almond “Era”, that the first mowing machine ever invented was the genius of a Belfast man, and that this piece of mechanism was successfully produced in that town in 1842, on what is known as the C.P. Bixby farm, near Rockville.
Joseph Miller, the inventor, with several others tried an experiment in mowing grass with it on the above date, and although at that time it was only a temporary arrangement, it did good work and gave general satisfaction. Undoubtedly many would think it was constructed on about the same principle as the present machine, and to some extent this it true, for in fact, all machines, all mowers and reapers and binders are patterned after the Miller invention.