Built in Cornwall, England, in the late 1830s, this walking beam engine was sold to the Vaucluse Gold Mine in Orange County, Virginia, where it powered the mine's ore-crushing stamp mill and other machines until just before the Civil War. The mine reopened after the war and functioned sporadically until the mid-1920s. In 1930, Henry Ford purchased the property and rescued the rusted beam engine, taking it to his Deerfield Village museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The Ford museum deaccessioned the engine in 1983 and transferred it to WMMI, which placed it on exhibit in 1987. Cornish engines could be found in western mining operations throughout the nineteenth century.