Early Life
Jerome Increase Case was born December 11, 1819, in Williamstown in Oswego County, New York. His father was Caleb Case (1787–1874) and mother Deborah Jackson (1789–1833). He was one of seven children. Through his mother he claimed to be related to Andrew Jackson.
His father sold some primitive "ground hog" machines (imported from England) that helped speed up the separation of grain after it was harvested. In 1840, Jerome started a small business threshing his neighbors' crops with the horse-powered devices. In the summer of 1842, he bought six of the machines on credit and traveled first to Chicago by ship. On his way north to Rochester, Wisconsin he sold five and kept one for his own business. Through the winter he worked on improvements to the thresher, but the new model was not ready for the 1843 harvest. By May 1844 the new model which did a better job of fully separating the grain was working. Since Rochester did not have water power available, he moved to Racine, Wisconsin.
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