Salesman's Sample Painted Cast-Iron, Brass and Wood Horse-Drawn Mowing Machine, Walter A. Wood Mowing & Reaping Machine Co., Hoosick Falls, New York, Circa 1890. The mower with two brass wheels enclosing gears, moveable sickle bar, painted on the machine "WALTER A. WOODS MOWING MACHINES. HOOSICK FALLS N.Y.," including an 1890 advertising calendar; housed in a wood travelling box, the interior of the lid stamped "W.H. CARR MAKER TROY N.Y.," the exterior affixed with a label printed "CANADIAN EXPRESS CO., BRYANT'S ?"Mowing machine: H: 14 in., L: 21.25 in., W: 10.5 in.Box: H: 10.625 in., W: 18 in., D: 12.125 in.Walter A. Wood (October 1815, Mason, New Hampshire - 1892, Hoosick Falls, New York). A year after Wood was born his family moved to Rensselaerville, New York. As a boy he learned the blacksmith trade from his father, who built wagons and plows. In 1836 he moved to Hoosick Falls where he became a skilled machinist in the shop of Parsons & Wilder. In about 1840 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he resumed building carriages and wagons. Several years later Wood returned to Hoosick Falls. During the 1850s he and his brother-in-law J. Russell Parsons observed a farm machinery trial sponsored by the Geneva, New York Agricultural Society. They were impressed with the performance of a mower-harvester patented by John H. Manny of Illinois. They bought the rights to manufacture the machine and divided the state of New York in half, Parsons and Chandler Ball representing the eastern half and Wood the western half, with manufacturing taking place in two separate shops in Hoosick Falls. Wood continued to refine the mower-harvester, and also developed a machine for just mowing grass. By 1860 Wood was producing about 6,000 machines of this type a year. Hart Massey in Ontario, Canada bought a license to make the machine in the Massey plant in Ontario.By 1890 Wood's mowing and reaping machine factory employed about 2,000 men and produced 90,000 prize-winning machines per year, many of which were shipped overseas. They also produced rakes, manure spreaders, plows, harrows, lawnmowers and washing machines. The firm was unable to withstand the culminating effects of several earlier fires, the panic of 1895 and World War I, and entered receivership several times. It was dismantled and sold off in 1924. Wood died of pneumonia in January 1892.

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