b. 1819, Williamstown, New York
d. December, 1891, Racine, Wisconsin

Jerome Increase Case was an agricultural implement manufacturer and banker. In 1842, he moved to Wisconsin and settled in Rochester. He opened a threshing machine repair shop there and worked as a thresherman. In 1844, he developed a combination grain thresher and separator, moved to Racine and set up a shop to manufacture the improved thresher. The machines were popular, and in 1847 Case enlarged his plant.

Farm Innovations

In the years preceding the Civil War, the market for Case's threshers grew steadily. In 1852, the company began to utilize a new vibrator process. By 1853, Case was selling threshers in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. In 1863, the J. I. Case Company was organized with Stephen Bull, Robert H. Baker and M. B. Erskine becoming partners in the firm and taking over most of the management.

Fortune and Retirement

After the war, the firm became one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural implements in the world. In 1880, it was incorporated as the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company. Case became rich from the company. In 1871, he became a founder of the Manufacturers' National Bank of Racine and the First National Bank of Burlington. A Republican, he served in the state senate from 1865 to 1866 and was twice mayor of Racine. After retiring from business, he devoted himself to breeding race horses and owned the nationally famous trotting horse "Jay-Eye-See." Case's innovations and marketing of farm machinery made him one of the leaders in the agricultural revolution, when saw hand labor gave way to large-scale mechanized farming.

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Dict. Amer. Biog.; F. L. Holmes, et al. I., eds., Wis. (5 vols., Chicago, 1946); Milwaukee Sentine], Dec. 23, 1891; Wis. Mag. Hist., 35; WPA MS.