What is this"Thing"

A friend of mine has a "Museum", which is a room of antique tools and gadgets of all kinds. But this "Thing" we can not identify. I do not know if it is a "common" tool or somthing someone made for a specifit use. The only writing I can find is on the "u" shaped piece of metal with the threaded handle on it. It appears to say J.MATERN and beneath that ...NGTON,ILL If you know what it might be.....?

Dear Webmaster,

A diligent search of the internet revealed two facts that may coincide with your Illinois What's IT which is signed Matern. Isearched with the name and Bloomington, Ill.

There is an account by Dr. E. Duis, from "The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois" published in 1874 which mentions a carriage maker L. Matern. That doesn't sound like much of a connection however at a website www.thewheelmen.org their is a listing of bicycle brands and there is a listing for WJ Matern of Bloomington in 1896. I would theorize that the Materns were in the carriage business and one of them at least WJ explored that new fangled invention the bicycle.

Here is the page with the mention of Matern bicycle.
http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/bicyclebrands/showresults.asp?whichpage=2&pagesize=50&alphachar=M

It looks to me like your item is a piece to some type of machine that might have been used to manufacture wheels or some other carriage related item. Perhaps "The Wheelmen" can help narrow it down.

Joe Hauck