Manufactured by Seth Wilmarth of the Union Works in Boston, MA, this remarkably long-lived 28" x 96" backgeared and screwcutting lathe would have been constructed between 1841-1854. Rare indeed are surviving machine tools that pre-date the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln - rarer still are ones that remained in productive use for so long, this example being used until the early 2000s to machine tractor drive shafts. Only one other example from the maker is known to exist, a cannon boring lathe now resident outside the Old Depot Museum in Selma, Alabama.