Singing plow solved prairie soil challenges

GRAND DETOUR, Ill. — The steel, the shape and the polishing of the singing plow invented by John Deere in 1837 gave farmers the tool they needed to break the Prairie soils.

“It was the combination of all three of those things that made John Deere’s plow successful over the existing plows,” said Rick Trahan, a blacksmith at the John Deere Historic Site. “The more they worked with this plow, the shinier it got.”

Trahan is one of several blacksmiths who provide daily demonstrations of blacksmithing techniques just steps away from the location of Deere’s shop where he made his first plow in 1837. The location includes the archeological site where Deere forged the first self-scouring steel plow, John Deere’s family home as well as a replica of the original blacksmith shop.

“This is a 1-inch-by-1-inch scale replica of the original shop,” Trahan sated. “This building was built in 1964 and the size, shape, layout and placement of things in here are based on the post holes and the findings from Deere’s shop.”

Deere’s blacksmith shop was found during a dig by University of Illinois archeologists. The current historic site had other owners after Deere moved to Moline. “His granddaughter, Katherine Butterworth, purchased the home in 1919,” said Kristen Veto, manager of the John Deere Historic Site. “She bought six acres which included the merchant’s house that she turned into a guest house and we now use as the gift shop.”

Inside the building that protects the archeological site, many items are on display that were found during the dig.

“They left the bricks where the melting furnace was and you can see where the grindstone was located,” Veto said.

John Deere made his first plow from a discarded steel saw blade that he acquired from a neighbor’s saw mill. He cut the teeth off it, shaped it and polished the steel. The result was a plowshare that cut cleanly and smoothly through the soil.

A replica of the original John Deere plow also is on display in the building. This plow was made in 2004 by the blacksmiths at the historic site to mark the 200th birthday year of John Deere and the 40th anniversary of site becoming a Registered National Historic Landmark.

Tools Of The Trade

Not only did the blacksmiths make the plow, they also made all the tools for the project. “The old tools are either under glass in a museum or gone and we wanted to most accurately reproduce the original John Deere plow as we could and you can’t do that using modern tools,” Trahan explained.

“We hand-made the plow the same way it would have been done in 1837,” the blacksmith said. “It is the most accurate representation of his original plow known to be in existence and it was built and finished right here.”

Once the plow was built it was hitched up to a horse and Bob Lane, the CEO of John Deere at that time, put it to use in the prairie field at the historic site. “It worked as advertised,” Trahan stated. “Right out here, we recreated the original field test that John Deere had done.”

John Deere started his blacksmith business in Vermont, where many blacksmiths were competing for work. He moved to Grand Detour where he knew several others from Vermont. Deere arrived in Illinois alone and built a three-room house for his wife, Demarius, and their children.

The house included a bedroom for the parents, a bedroom upstairs for the kids and an everything room. As his business grew, Deere added onto the house twice. The first addition included a kitchen and an apprentice room on the second floor and then a work room, wash room and pantry were added.

“This is the original well that John Deere built and they were the only ones that had a well,” Veto explained. “Everyone else went to the village well to get water, but all Demarius had to do was go out the kitchen door for her water.”

A rag doll on display was found in the walls of the house while it was being refurbished. “It fits the time period of John Deere’s kids, but we can’t say for sure that it was his kid’s doll,” Veto stated. “They had nine children and after Demarius died in 1865, Deere married her sister, Lucinda.”

In 1839, Deere made 10 plows and in the 1840 census, his occupation is listed as plowmaker and he made 40 plows that year. With the assistance of a partner, Deere increased his production to total 400 plows in 1843.

“In 1848, Deere moved to Moline and brought two partners with him from Grand Detour,” stated Neil Dahlstrom, John Deere manager of corporate archives and history. “The water power of the Mississippi River was a big need for running a factory, bringing in raw materials and shipping final product out.”

Plow Demonstrations

Deere was responsible for sales and traveled to county and state fairs to demonstrate his plow. “A lot of his reputation came from talking to customers and then he would go back to Moline and make suggestions for improvement,” Dahlstrom said.

The partnership in the company dissolved in 1852 following an argument about how to build plows. “Robert Tate recorded in his journal that the argument was about how often they should make improvements on their product,” the archives manager said.

“Tate said, ‘We don’t have to make improvements, what we build the people will buy,’” Dahlstrom reported. “Deere said, ‘They don’t have to buy what we make, we have to continually improve our product or someone will beat us.’

“Those are the same things we talk about today and that perspective comes from John Deere himself,” Dahlstrom said.

The Civil War had a substantial impact on Deere’s business since the markets south of Illinois were cut off. “One of the innovations that was a result of the war was the introduction by Deere of the Hawkeye Riding Cultivator,” the archives manager said. “Instead of walking behind a plow, you could sit on the seat and ride and Deere was one of a couple of companies that introduce that concept.”

John Deere’s son, Charles created the Branch House System in 1869. “He built a branch house in Kansas City, St. Louis and Council Bluffs, Iowa, which spearheaded national distribution,” Dahlstrom said.

“Deere factories would build products, ship them to the branch houses and when a customer ordered something, he didn’t have to wait for it to come from Moline.”

The company entered the corn planter business in 1877. “We still manufacture corn planters in Moline at the site were we entered the business and today it is called John Deere Seeding,” Dahlstrom stated.

A Different Approach

Charles Deere remained CEO of the company until his death in 1907, when his son-in-law, William Butterworth, became the company CEO. “He took a different approach and his goal was to manufacture everything used on the farm,” Dahlstrom explained. “Deere made a number of company acquisitions and quadrupled its size.”

The capstone of those acquisitions was the Waterloo Company in 1918. “World War I drove the tractor technology because there were manpower shortages on the farm,” Dahlstrom explained. “We liked the Waterloo because it was a kerosene tractor and kerosene was less expensive than gasoline.”

William Butterworth was worried that when the war ended, there would be a major spike in gasoline prices. “He was right, gasoline prices went up pretty substantially after the war,” Dahlstrom said. “Deere sold the Waterloo Boy until 1924 when it was replaced by the Model D gas tractor.

“John Deere never saw a tractor,” Dahlstrom noted. “The Deere company is 80 years old before it got into the tractor business.”

The final member of the Deere family to hold the CEO position was William Hewitt who remained in this position until 1982. “He led the next major growth period in the company during the late 1950s which changed the landscape of the company,” Dahlstrom reported. “That’s when Deere acquired a company in Germany which was our entry into worldwide manufacturing.

“All of our CEOs have owned farms so it has always been part of the culture to put a lot into research and development,” Dahlstrom stressed. “John Deere is a company that looks back to the past a lot, but doesn’t live in the past.”

For more information about the John Deere Historic Site, go to www.visitjohndeere.com.