Feb. 18, 2002

Until May 17, 1886, John Deere spent the large majority of his 83-year-old life building a business and being a great man in the community.

Let’s review a highlight reel of Deere’s life from his early days in Vermont to his last days in Moline…

The pioneer spirit was very contagious as word spread of successful settlements in the wild West. Conestoga caravans carried entire families and all their portable possessions in search of a new life out West.

After a trip west to Illinois, John Deere’s good friend, Major Leonard Andrus, returned to recruit, raving of the potential for a new community. Andrus actually found the country around Grand de Tour, named by the French for the big bend in the Rock River. "Eventually Deere decided he had less to lose and more to gain by casting his lot anew on the virgin prairies."

John Deere sold his shop and followed suit on a solo trip out west, leaving his family behind in Vermont. He reached Grand Detour in 1836 where Andrus had built a sawmill and wood-working business. The need for a blacksmith shop was obvious as none could be found closer than 40 miles from the town. Soon, John Deere was a very busy man.

In between repair jobs, Deere managed to build himself a shop and little frame house of 18 by 24 feet, with five rooms. When the home was ready, Deere sent for his wife and five children.

"A family tradition of their arrival at the end of a long six-week trip tells of Mrs. Deere handing her husband a squirming little bundle containing their year-old son Charles Deere, whom the father looked upon for the first time."

Deere’s business became more focused on plows as the prairie needed to be opened. "The land was easily broken — the first year —İand it produced abundantly. The disillusionment was to come the second year."

"It was when the northern Illinois pioneers went back into their fields the second year that they learned of the plowing tribulations that were to be their lot. The sticky, mucky soil refused to fall away from the moldboards. It stuck until the plow could no longer move in the furrow. It made little difference if one or two ox teams were hitched to the plow, they stalled despite all the power the farmer could assemble."

"Farmers gradually learned to carry with them a wooden paddle, with which to scrape the mud from the plow as it accumulated. Plows could be cleaned with the paddle, a fresh start made down the furrow, only to face the necessity of stopping to repeat the operation every rod or less. An acre a day was impossible."

Deere listened to their complaints and considered them a challenge. When he spied a broken sawmill blade at the Andrus mill, he thought the bright shiny surface just might be the answer to shedding the sticky soil.

And as they say, the rest is history…Deere’s self-scouring steel plow worked magic on Lewis Crandall’s field in 1837. The next year, he built two plows; and 10 the year after that. By 1842 he was building about 100 a year, at an approximate rate of almost two a week.

He shipped his plows to farmers to try. If the plows worked, the farmers owed Deere $10; if the plows didn’t work well, Deere sent for them back.

Eventually, Deere ran out of broken sawmill blades in the area. He knew he needed to get his own steel supply. He ordered specially rolled slabs of steel that could be cut into a dozen moldboards. By the time the steel was shipped across the Atlantic and over land to Grand Detour, it cost Deere about $300 per ton.

Then Deere discovered Pittsburgh’s steel production and ordered the first slab of cast steel plow ever rolled in the U.S. in 1846. That year, 1,000 plows were made in Deere’s factory.

However, Deere was disappointed with the location of Grand Detour as river transportation never materialized and road transportation was rough and rut-filled.

When Deere found Moline with its dam for water power and good navigation of the Mississippi, he was sold and began plans to relocate his plow factory at the age of 43.

After several failed partnerships in his early days in Moline, the business was reorganized in 1868 as Deere & Company, with the senior Deere as president and his son Charles as vice-president.

At his funeral in 1886, most of Moline turned out to pay their respects to the man who made the town "Plow City." The pastor said this in Deere’s eulogy: "Nothing left his shop but spoke the truth, was just as represented…He was not a theorizer, or one who dealt in impractical things, but in solid facts."

"Wealth was a natural product of business growth and John Deere was generous with it. A tender heart was beneath the rough exterior and great human sympathy behind the furrowed brow. Much of his money went for the establishment of Sunday schools in the new sections of Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas. Much of it went to help fellow workmen and the less fortunate of his older friends. Also he was generous in contributions for worthy civic enterprises in his home community."

By the time Deere died and left his legacy of a highly successful farm equipment manufacturing business to his son…"The mechanical needs of the farmer were growing and John Deere developed numerous other implements along with the steel plow, harrows, cultivators, etc. Later the expansion of Deere & Co. was to add new factories making non-competing lines, and in each of which had developed eminent standing in its particular field. The village forge of 1837 has grown into the eleven mammoth factories of 1937."

İAn industry pays tribute to a great man

On a September evening of the Illinois State Fair at Freeport back in 1877, the men of agriculture gathered to pay tribute to the aging John Deere. Here’s an account from "The Prairie Farmer" newspaper from Chicago on Saturday, September 28, 1877:

"Not the least pleasant of the evening meetings was the serenade and public ovation tendered to the veteran plow manufacturer, the Hon. John Deere, of Moline, Ill., on Wednesday evening in front of the Brewster House. After inspiring strains of music from the city band had ceased, Hon. Charles Rosenstiel of Freeport, appeared upon the balcony, escorting Mr. Deere, whom he introduced to the audience amid applause. Mr. Deere replied in a brief and appropriate manner, thanking the people for the compliment.

"Dr. Hamilton, of Pecatonica, was then called forward. He paid a glowing tribute to Mr. Deere, who has been intimately connected with the prosperity of the Northwest for half a century. He said: Mr. Deere came from Vermont, and on the Rock River he made the first steel plow, in 1840, out of an old hand-saw. His business had grown by perseverance and honesty till now, the Deere plows were known in all civilized countries, 500 of them being made very working day, using 5,300 tons of steel yearly.

"The speaker was followed by Jere Pattison, of Freeport, who spoke in the most eulogistic manner of the pioneer manufacturer of the West. After this gentleman the Hon. James Herrington, State Representative from the Fourteenth District, paid a high compliment to the old veteran in a neat speech. The remarks were interspersed with music, and frequently applauded."

A description of Deere

"John Deere reached Grand Detour in 1836 in the prime of his physical manhood.

"He was of impressive stature, though only about six feet tall, but with massive shoulders and arms which readily indicated the physical prowess that was his. His well defined facial features indicated correctly his strength of mind and decision. A heavy head of hair crowned a rather high forehead and treated with the common abandon of his day added materially to the impression of physical strength.

"His unusual strength made him a tireless worker, and his application to his work surrounded him with a degree of reserve, though his more intimate friends found him a very human and highly congenial associate and friend. He could relax when occasion demanded, but usually the driving force of wanting to get something done motivated his work, and this tireless industry prevailed to the end of his days."

His humble beginnings in Grand Detour quickly grew into a bustling business at his blacksmith shop. This is where Deere would form the first self-scouring plow that would make him famous.

John Deere received his first shipment of plow steel from England in 1843. He would later order the first rolled steel slab designed to his specifications from a Pittsburgh steel factory in 1846.

As the family story goes, when Deere's wife and five children arrived in Grand Detour, she handed him his youngest son Charles whom he was seeing for the first time!