Imaginative Invention No. 5

Device for Driving Fence Posts

From Scientific Medical & Mechanical Antiques, No. 22

Anderson's Post Driver
"The setting of fence posts is a wearisome and laborious business, whether holes are dug for their reception or they are driven by repeated blows of the beetle. The device herewith illustrated greatly reduces the labor and facilitates the operation. A very few blows with this device will suffice to drive a post sufficiently deep into the hardest soil."
From the Scientific American, 1867.

The iron bound hardwood hammer, weighing about 100 pounds, is lifted by a crank and then released by means of a slip clutch. Mounted on a wagon, the small pile driver could easily be pulled to each new post location. John Anderson, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, patented the post driver on Feb 27, 1866.

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