1939 T20

My Grandfather's T20 I restored. Below is the history of it I put together and display with it at shows; This crawler was originally owned by Brady M. Gower for use in his timber operations around Lycoming County, PA. He and his family are listed in 1940 as living and operating a sawmill in Sweitzer’s Gap, off Mill Road in the Nippenose Valley, Lycoming County. In 1944 Carl Wenner bought this T-20 from Gower primarily for use timbering throughout the Bastress and Morgan Valley area of Lycoming County. Carl also owned and operated an A. B. Farquhar sawmill, which was acquired from his cousin, Gus Frederick around 1937. The mill, which was originally set up by Gus Frederick on Carl’s property in Morgan Valley, was moved to the George Waldman farm above Collomsville in the mid 40’s. From there the mill and T-20 were move around the valley to several timbering jobs on the Joe Steppe and Ray Steppe farms then to the John Schuler farm in Bastress around 1950, and finally home to Carl’s own place in 1965. The mill was in that location until its sale in 1981. When not skidding timber and firewood, the T-20 was also used for general farm work, dozing, and snow removal, being fitted with a home built hydraulic dozer frame that was used both with a 9 ft straight blade and a wooden V plow made by Paul Schneider. The T-20 also saw service contracted to the state highway department, pulling Date Kaufman on a grader, reshaping gravel roads throughout the Nisbet, Nippenose Valley, and Antes Fort areas, and loading cinders in the winter. In the late 1970’s, Carl bought a second T-20 to use for parts from Bob Welshans on 4th Gap Road, Loganton, PA. Bob’s father, Don Welshans had bought this T-20 new in 1938 to use in his timbering operation in Sugar Valley. That same year, Welshans’ steam powered mill caught fire and burned along with his new T-20. The IH dealer in Lock Haven completely rebuilt the crawler for him and it was used up until a few years prior to it being sold to Carl Wenner. The Welshans saw mill was in operation from 1936 to the mid 1960’s. They also used the T-20 for farm work. It was great to use for picking stones, Bob said, “you could put it in low gear and it would crawl through the fields slow enough that you didn’t need a driver.” With Carl’s death in 1986, ownership of the T-20’s passed to his five sons who continued to use the ‘37 to skid fire wood until its replacement in this capacity by a Massey Ferguson 165 in 1994. The T-20 sat in retirement in Morgan Valley for the next few years being started and ran occasionally. The T-20 returned to Bastress in 1996 where the badly worn under carriage was swapped out with parts from the 1938 machine. On January 12, 2011 Carl’s Grandson, Jeff Wenner purchased the T-20. Over the next four years, the crawler was completely disassembled, given a full mechanical restoration, sandblasted, and painted. The engine bore was increased to four inches and the factory optional power take off shaft was added during the restoration. The cylinder head and several other smaller parts from the ‘38 T-20 were used to complete the restoration. Submitted by Jeff Wenner, from PA