The collection includes patent applications of and correspondence with John F. Appleby, James Deering, William Deering, Elijah Gammon, C. W. Marsh, George Rugg, Cyrenus Wheeler, various agricultural equipment companies, and several pioneering inventors in the field. Correspondence and genealogical research about Obed Hussey are scattered throughout. Also included are notes, clippings, and drafts for a book that was posthumously published as The Reaper: A History of the Efforts of Those Who Justly May Be Said to Have Made Bread Cheap (New York: Greenberg, 1931). Also included are correspondence and magazine articles documenting Steward's 1896 organizing effort to stop a Bureau of Engraving and Printing plan to mint a ten dollar silver certificate with Cyrus McCormick's image on it; correspondence regarding several competitions among agricultural equipment manufacturers, including the Paris Exposition of 1900 (in French and English) and the 1900 Siamese Royal Commission Louisiana Purchase Exposition; correspondence related to Steward's historical research and publications including, Lost Maramech and earliest Chicago; a history of the Foxes and of their downfall near the great village of Maramech; original investigations and discoveries by John F. Steward ... (Chicago: F.H. Revell Co, 1903); and correspondence and invoices related to the purchase and improvements of a farm Steward purchased, managed by several nephews and a son, in Fox, Kendall County, Illinois (1903-1920).
