agricultural implement manufacturer, banker, b. Williamstown, N.Y. In 1842 he moved to Wisconsin, settling at Rochester, where he opened a threshing machine repair shop 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 proved popular, and in 1847 Case enlarged his plant. In the years preceding the Civil War the market for Case's threshers grew steadily, in large measure due to the personal selling and service work done by Case himself. In 1852 the company began to utilize a new vibrator process and by 1853 Case was selling threshers in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. Although collecting payments from purchasers and financing the company continued to be difficult up to the early years of the Civil War, Case's shrewd financial judgment kept the company going. In 1863 the J. I. Case Co. was organized, with Stephen Bull (q.v.), Robert H. Baker (q.v.), and M. B. Erskine (q.v.) becoming partners in the firm and taking over most of the management. Following the war, the firm grew into one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural implements in the world, and in 1880 was incorporated as the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Co. With the increasing success of his company, Case acquired a large fortune. In 1871 he was a founder of the Manufacturers' National Bank of Racine and the First National Bank of Burlington. A Republican, he served in the state senate (1865-1866) 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." Although conservative in his business approach and in no way a radical innovator, Case's steady promotion of farm machinery marks him as one of the leaders in the agricultural revolution, which saw hand labor give way to large-scale mechanized farming. Dict. Amer. Biog.; F. L. Holmes, et aI., eds., Wis. (5 vols., Chicago, 1946); Milwaukee Sentine], Dec. 23, 1891; Wis. Mag. Hist., 35; WPA MS.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]