John Deere: Changing The Farming Industry

Shalee Daming
Period 6
John Deere
“I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me,” Words from the man who changed the industry of farming. John Deere, a man that sure did change the farming industry. He lived a legacy that will stay with the farming society for a long time. John was born on February 7, 1804, in Rutland, Vermont. He was the third son of William Rinold Deere and Sarah Yates Deere. In 1805, the Deere’s moved to Middlebury, Vermont. While in Middlebury, William engaged in merchant tailoring he also boarded a boat for England to hopefully make a more comfortable life for the family, but he was never heard from again. John was only 4 years old. John’s education was limited to the
common school of Vermont. At only 17, he apprenticed himself and learned the trade of blacksmithing; he carried his skills to various places in Vermont. He became an apprentice to a respectful man, Captain Benjamin Lawrence. John was paid $30 stipend for the first year out of four and an additional $5 for each of the remaining years, along with a set of clothes and room and board. Mr. Deere completed his apprenticeship in 1825, he moved on to journeyman position. Then he fell in love, around the time he moved on to the new position, he met Demarius Lamb.
Demarius was a young woman who attended boarding school in Middlebury. Despite the couple’s different backgrounds, they married in 1837. During the next ten years, John and the family moved from town to town in Vermont trying to find steady work. There were many skilled blacksmiths in the area and there was lots of competition. Because of the difficulties finding a job, John borrowed money to buy land and build his own shop. Then tragically, it was destroyed by fire twice. He had to sell the newly owned property and put his dream on hold for the time being. The tragedy left Deere in debt; he was in need of a stable income. By the 1830s, Vermonters shared John’s economic woes. The state’s woods had been cut down, the land was losing value, and rich soil was washed away by a line of vigorous storms. The grasshopper plague also had a huge effect on the economy, it weakened crop yields. To put more negatives on the plate, the nation’s banking system was collapsing this was called as the “Panic of
1837.” With depressing business conditions in the Northeast, he decides to move him and his young family to a small village on the Rock River in northwestern Illinois, named Grand Detour. On the way back to Vermont, a man enticed John with tales of opportunity in the prairie. He decided to leave his pregnant wife and four children to head west and establish the family. When he arrived in Grand Detour, he rented land near the river and built a blacksmith shop and had work in just a few days of opening.
Soon after opening he heard stories about frustrated Vermont farmers struggling to break through tough prairie sod. The northerner’s cast-iron plows that worked well in the sandy New England soil didn’t do so well in the sticky Midwest soil. Soil stuck to the cast-iron bottoms and were removed by hand every few digs. Plowing with these plows was tiring and very time-consuming. John realized that a plow with a nicely polished surface could clean itself as it moved through the field.
On a beautiful day in 1837, Deere caught a broken saw blade in the corner of a sawmill and asked the owner if he could take it and use it. While working with it in his shop, John Deere came up with the most marvelous invention to farmers in the 1800s, the world’s first successful steel plow. From this success, John opened up the West to agriculture development. By that time, John sent for his family. In late 1838, Demarius and the five children headed West on a six-week journey.
Knowing he didn’t have the facilities or financial help to keep the work going Deere soon found that his future was more in the plow business versus the blacksmith business. So from there on out he set to building steel plows. He was constantly changing and improving the design of the plow to set his product apart from other plow makers. John began to hire help to help finance the young thriving company.
Motivation, dedication, and ability to solve problems were all characteristics of Mr. Deere. These three things helped his business really take off. In 1848, John Deere moved the steel plow operation to Moline, Illinois. Moving to Moline, lowered costs by taking advantage of better transportation and water power provided by the Mississippi River. Within just a few years, the production had reached 1600 plows a year! Many of Deere’s first plows were loaded on wagons and peddled throughout the countryside. Older and other plows were shipped to river towns along the Mississippi by steamboat. Unfortunately, railroads did not yet extend west beyond the river, therefore teams and wagons were dispatched to deliver plows in nearby villages. Deere insisted on high standards of quality. He wanted to help the farm families in any way possible. He also wanted to make other people happy, for example his oldest surviving son Charles. John made sure that Charles received formal education so he could one day run the business. In 1853 he joined the company as a bookkeeper, he was 16. He quickly gained a very good reputation as a businessman. This helped the father and son to focus on what they did best.
In 1858, John turned over the management to Charles; he was 21 at the time. This gave him John more time to contribute to society. He soon became interested in politics and became chairman of the county convention for the Whig party. Then as the Republican Party formed he quickly became an active member and strong abolitionist during the years of the Civil War. John also brought a fire engine to Moline, co-founded the First National Bank and was a trustee of the First Congregational Church. Deere was well known for the generous contributions to local educational, religious and charitable organizations.
John’s role in the business was minimal after the Civil War. He purchased a farm east of Moline in the early 1860s. He raised registered Jersey cattle and Berkshire hogs. In 1865, his wife Demarious died at the age of 60. In 1866, John traveled back to Vermont and married Demarius’s younger sister Lucenia. John was elected the second mayor of Moline in 1873, in the throes of the temperance movement. He helped pass a liquor license ordinance and received widespread criticism. However, Deere was credited for constructing and repairing sidewalks, streets, and replacing open drains with sewer pipe to prevent diseases.
After his term, John was ready to leave politics behind him.
John and Lucenia made frequent visits back to Vermont. They made winter trips to Santa Barbara and San Francisco to escape Midwest winters. On May 17, 1886, at the age of 82, the legend plow maker died. Moline fell into mourning. The factories and offices of Deere & Company’s were draped in black. The flags flew at half-mast and many citizens placed photos of John Deere in windows of their homes.
John Deere’s legacy still lives today, him and his workers and their spouses went on to lead the company John Deere founded for the next 96 years. Today, Deere & Company is guided as it was from the beginning. The key values to the company’s early success were quality, innovation, integrity and commitment. To this day, these key things still make a difference. Today’s farming society still has as much respect for the inventor as the past society had. John Deere defiantly made a difference to farmers and the citizens of Moline. His legacy will live
forever.

http://nortrax.com/about/deere/index.html http://www.biography.com/people/john-deere-9269591 http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/corporate/our_company/about_us/history/past_leaders/john_deere_founder_biography.page http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/corporate/our_company/about_us/about_us.page http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/39.html