10/11/2026
About a year ago I posted an article on Facebook about some mysterious etchings found on a rock in the Susquehanna River. It turns out it was not as mysterious as suggested, but some misspellings from a 13-year-old resident from Silverwood Island (Little Hooverโs Island). Well, George Hoover overcame his spelling and punctuation issues and became a fine machinist and mechanic. This article was published in the Sunbury Daily Item in 1975.
๐๐๐ฅ๐ฆ๐๐ญ๐ข๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐ ๐๐ฌ๐จ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฌ
Jim Merkle - Sunbury Daily Item - 1975
DALMATIA โ Your average hobbyist could put his collection of whatever it is he collects on his kitchen table.
George Hoover, Dalmatia, is not your average hobbyist.
His collection of old 1ยฝ to 6 horsepower gasoline engines stretches a good 50 feet end to end in his back yard.
Brightly painted in greens and reds, the ancient motors sitting silently communicate little of the days when they were the main power source on the farm before rural electrification, and little of the years they sat rusting in farm storerooms.
"I would say there were a lot of 'em built back in the early 20's," Hoover, 56, who works at the Brubaker Tool Corp. in Millersburg, said.
In the 20's they were used to run pumps or for whatever other need a farmer might have for belt power, he said.
Some farmers without access to electricity still do, he said. In this area the engines are used by some Amish farmers, who do not use electricity.
By and large, most of the engines lay abandoned for years and deteriorated, he said. "You'd go buy them for almost nothing," he said. Then about six years ago, Hoover said they began increasing in value.
With his eye on them first as an investment, he started buying the old machines and putting them into working order. "Some of them were in really bad shape," he said.
"Some of them had been sitting around for years and years and they wouldn't work," he said. Spare parts have to be taken from other machines or improvised, since there are no more spare parts manufactured.
"If you need parts you've got to make them," he said. "If there's something I can't make (at home) I oftentimes make it in the shop."
Hoover's interest in the old type one cylinder engines began early, when the lifelong resident of the Dalmatia area worked gasoline engines for pumps on Hoover Island near Fishers Ferry.
He says he actually bought his first engine about 35 years ago to cut wood. It was not until the engines started increasing in value that he began thinking seriously about collecting them, he said.
As for his wife, who died earlier this year, he said she showed a reaction common to wives of men with strange hobbies. "To tell you the truth I don't think she thought very much of it."
"She said they made a lot of noise," his daughter Ruth Ann said.
Hoover's son Kenneth, Dalmatia, is also showing an interest in one cylinder engines, but of a slightly larger variety.
Kenneth Hoover is within two weeks of finishing repair work on a 50 horsepower steam engine of the kind once used to power entire sawmills.
The work began about a year ago when he came across a boiler in a cannery, he said. He acquired the engine from a coal washery in Hunter Station and the wheels and undercarriage from Lancaster, Pa.
"It's complete," he said. "It's just a matter of getting my tubes (for smoke to escape through the boiler to the smokestack) and I'm ready to make fire."
The biggest engine owned by the senior Hoover reaches somewhere between the knees and the waist. By contrast, the smokestack on the engine owned by the junior Hoover tops a two story building.
Kenneth Hoover said power is generated through a cylinder with a diameter of 8ยฝ inches and a 10 inch stroke.
He said the state approved the boiler for 125 pounds of pressure. A stamp placed on the boiler when the Frick Co. built it in 1923 approves it for 150 pounds.
As for a use, he said, "I'm going to just use it for a hobby," adding he may display it at fairs.
The wife of the second generation of Hoovers to show an interest in one cylinder engines of one kind or another laughs when asked her view of her husband's hobby. "All I know is I have to follow him wherever he goes," Noma Hoover said.
The eldest Hoover, George, said he is not sure where he will take his hobby from here. He said if he finds good engines, he will buy more, but he is not interested in selling any now.
As for Kenneth continuing and expanding his hobby, George said, "Maybe he will."
The third generation, Kenneth Hoover's teen-age son, Dale said he does not know yet if he will become interested in the hobby.
If the trend continues, chances are he will not. It is hard to imagine some future Mrs. Hoover putting up with her husband bringing home the Queen Mary to work on in his back yard.
Kenneth Hoover, Dalmatia, displayed his reconstructed 50 horsepower steam engine for Daily Item staffer Jim Merkel for this week's cover photo. Hoover says he has no definite use for the engine besides showing it off at fairs.
