The History of the Choremaster Tractor
The Choremaster was an odd duck single-wheel light-duty tractor that garnered some popularity in the Midwestern market in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but it faded from use by the 1960s. A 1 1/2-horsepower Clinton or Briggs & Stratton engine powered the Choremaster. The company offered limited models, including snowplows, but its garden tractor was its primary product.
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The Beginning
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The Choremaster originated in 1947 in the service garage of a Liberty, Indiana, Chevrolet dealership by salesman Carl Van Ausdall. Van Ausdall’s father owned the dealership, and the son spent his downtime at the dealership designing a one-wheeled garden tractor. He built the prototype in the service garage. Van Ausdall likely named the tractor the Choremaster by riffing off the names of the Chevrolet Fleetmaster and Stylemaster sedans and coupes sold at the dealership. Van Ausdall readied the Choremaster for production in 1947 and received a patent in 1950. However, he had little financing and partnered with the Shipley Company to build his invention.
Rise to Popularity
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Shipley maintained all marketing and manufacturing duties, while Van Ausdall remained the owner, designer and held the licensing rights. He received payment for each unit produced through Shipley’s Special Products Division. The first product was the Choremaster garden tractor equipped with the 1 1/2-horsepower Clinton engine and 18-inch wheel. Some versions came with a 1 1/2-horsepower Briggs & Stratton. A snow dozer, V-Type snow dozer and a 21-inch snowplow followed. Neither snow dozers were big sellers, but the snowplow performed well by moving a large volume of snow by forcing the plow’s weight onto the drive wheel for better traction in wet conditions. Midwest tractor parts and accessories shops sold attachments, including leveling and breaking plows, sickle bars, hoes and cultivating tools.
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Features
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Most of the Choremaster units weighed no more than 110 pounds and featured power attachments such as the 24-inch power rotary mower. A centrifugal clutch and ground grip or traction tread tires were options. Van Ausdall experimented with twin blades moving in opposite directions and a double-action sickle bar, but neither appeared as accessories in sufficient numbers. By 1951, the tractors’ output jumped to 2 and 2 1/2 horsepower, and later a 3-horsepower Clinton, depending on the model. Choremaster reached its peak in the early 1950s with three models and a wide range of roto-tillers, rotary mowers, power posthole diggers and even chainsaws as attachments.
Decline
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In 1952, Weber, makers of garden equipment, purchased Shipley. Weber struck a deal with Sears & Roebuck to sell roto-tillers, but they didn’t sell well and Weber laid off many of its workers. By the mid-1950s, no additional attachment or power accessories were available as demand fell. Weber began reducing production. An effort to sell small lawn mowers and other light garden equipment failed to give Weber financial stability. In 1958, Van Ausdall still held the licensing rights to his tractors and sold those rights to Framingham, Massachusetts, buyer Richard Wyman. Wyman redesigned and sold the one-wheel tractor under his own name. By 1964, the Choremaster name ceased to exist.
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