Jethro Wood, Inventor of the Modern Plow.

FAC-SIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL WOOD PLOW.

Side view of Plough. A Mould-board, the form of which is claimed as new. B Share claimed. C Standard claimed. DD Screw-bolt, and not confining the beam to the Standard. a, b, c, d, e, the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th and 5th sides mentioned in the specification. g, g. Excavation at the fore part of the mould-board to receive the share which fills it up and forms an even surface. h Hole to receive the knob or head cast on the under side of the share, which, on being shoved up to its place, nooks under the mould-board at the upper side of the hole, and is held in its place by a wooden wedge driven between the knob and the lower side of the hole. f Notches in the Standard to receive the latch i in elevating or depressing the beam. s, t, v. Straight diagonal lines touching the mould-board the whole distance. u Vertical or plumb line touching the mould-board from top to bottom. H Reverse side of the share. x Knob to hold it fast to the mould-board. y Side view of knob. zz Shiplaps fitting under the point and edge of the mould-board. k Another form of standard keyed on top of beam. Fig. 2d, landside view: E The “landside”. F part of landside cast with mould-board. mm Cast loops to hold the handles claimed. n Head of screw-bolt held by a shoulder made by a projection from the mould-board and standard, through which the bolt passes up to the beam. o Share claimed. p Shiplap claimed. G Inside view of landside. r Tennon at forward end to fit into a dovetailed mortice on the inside of that part which is cast with the mould-board.

PREFACE

The immediate occasion of this little volume was a malignant misrepresentation from the pen of Ben: Perley Poore. With slight variation from the original text, the words of Thomas Jefferson about Benjamin Franklin and his maligners, quoted in the body of this monograph, apply to this case: I have seen with extreme indignation the blasphemies lately vended against the memory of the father of the American plow. But his memory will be venerated as long as furrows are turned and soil tilled. The present object, however, is not so much to refute falsehood as to establish the truth, and make it a part of the permanent knowledge of the public. To the extent that this object shall be attained, will these labors be rewarded.

It is not the design of this publication to disparage any one; on the contrary, it is desired to give ample credit to all who contributed to the solution of the plow problem. If only brief mention is made of others, it is because they really deserved but little credit, or their merits are forever buried in obscurity. It is proposed to set forth without exaggeration, the claims of the supreme inventor in this line to the grateful remembrance of the public. And by the public is meant not only the American people, but all who are fed from the ample granaries of this country, or share the benefits of the improved tillage, whether on this continent or in Europe, made possible and actual by the inventive genius of Jethro Wood.

JETHRO WOOD; INVENTOR OF THE MODERN PLOW

The last words ever penned by John Quincy Adams were these, written in the peculiarly tremulous hand of “the Old Man Eloquent:” “Mr. J. Q. Adams presents his compliments to the Misses Wood, and will be happy to see them at his house, at their convenience, any morning between 10 and 11 o’clock.” This note was found upon his desk when he was stricken down with paralysis, February 21, 1848, in his seat in the House of Representatives. The Misses Wood here referred to were the daughters of Jethro Wood, then deceased. They were at that time engaged in a labor of love, and the venerable Ex-President was their friend therein. Prompted more by filial affection than by hope of gain, they were making a final effort to secure from Congress a proper recognition of their father’s claim as an inventor. It is entirely safe to say that if Mr. Adams had been spared to the end of the Congress then in session, that claim would have been then duly recognized, and the name, services and genius of Jethro Wood become familiar to the American public.

Jethro Wood was born at Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on the sixteenth day of the third month of 1774. His parents were members of the Society of Friends. His mother, Dinah Hussey Wood, was a niece of Ann Starbuck, a woman of remarkable ability and high standing in colonial annals. Ann Starbuck was virtually governor of Nantucket. The niece was a woman of excellent intellect, and most winsome character. Her conversation sparkled with genial wit and good cheer. Her husband, John Wood, was a man of sterling worth, calm, self-poised, strong willed, and eminently influential. Jethro was their only son. On New Years Day, 1793, he was married to Sylvia Howland, at White Creek, Washington County, New York. The fruit of this marriage, every way a happy one, was a family of six children, namely: Benjamin; John; Maria, wife of Jeremiah Foote; Phœbe; Sarah, wife of Robert R. Underhill; Sylvia Ann, wife of Benjamin Gould. Of these children the only survivor is Mrs. Gould, who with her sister, Phœbe, were the Misses Wood of the Adams note. So much for the domestic setting of this diamond of inventive genius.

Even as a boy, Jethro Wood showed plainly the drift and trend of his mind. The child was indeed “father of the man,” and almost from the cradle to the grave, he was an inventor. In his childish plays he seemed busied with the idea which he ultimately perfected. Many curious incidents and memories are treasured among the traditions of his neighbors and friends. “When only a few years old,” writes a venerable man whose recollection spans two generations, “he moulded a little plow from metal, which he obtained by melting a pewter cup. Then, cutting the buckles from a set of braces, he made a miniature harness with which he fastened the family cat to his tiny plow, and endeavored to drive her about the flower-garden. The good old-fashioned whipping he received for this ‘mischief,’ was such as to drive all desire for repeating the experiment out of his juvenile head.”

Such innate and ruling passion might be suppressed, but could not be subdued. As his mind matured, his thoughts took definite shape. His home was always upon a farm, but he was never a farmer, in the sense of Poor Richard’s homely couplet:

Born in comparative affluence, blessed with a good education, an ample library and a well equipped workshop, enjoying the correspondence of such men as Thomas Jefferson and David Thomas, he was unremitting in his endeavor to realize his ideal. “His chief desire,” to quote further from our venerable correspondent, “was to invent a new mold-board, which, from its form, should meet the least resistance from the soil, and which could be made with share and standard, entirely of cast iron.” To hit upon the exact shape for the mold-board he whittled away, day after day, until his neighbors, who thought him mad on the subject, gave him the soubriquet of the “whittling Yankee.” His custom was to take a large oblong potato which was easy for the knife, and cut it till he obtained what he fancied was the exact curve.

The manhood home of Jethro Wood was at Scipio, Cayuga County, New York, a purely agricultural town, with nothing in its later history to distinguish it; but in its palmier early days of the present century, it must have been a nursery of invention. Roswell Toulsby, Horace Pease, and John Swan, of that town, each took out letters patent for improvements in plows, and that prior to the issuance of any patent to Mr. Wood. Their improvements were of no practical value, and played no part in the development of this branch of mechanism, but their efforts serve to show the state of the intellectual atmosphere breathed by the man who was destined to solve the knotty problem which underlies the very foundation of scientific agriculture.

Of the cotemporaries of Mr. Wood, who wrought at the solution of this problem, the most illustrious was Thomas Jefferson, statesman, philosopher and farmer.

In one of his letters to Jethro Wood, Mr. Jefferson spoke of his own labors in that direction, as the experiments of one whiling away a few idle hours, but herein he did himself injustice. His efforts, however, were far from exhaustive in their results, and it was with good reason that he urged Mr. Wood to go forward in his undertaking, and no doubt he was perfectly sincere in wishing him success. His correspondence, as published in nine large volumes, attests his long and deep interest in the problem, which it was reserved for Jethro Wood to solve. Having carefully examined those volumes, to glean all there is in them on this subject, I herewith append the observations found, for besides being in themselves interesting, in view of their authorship, they throw important light upon the general subject.

Under date of July 3, 1796, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Jonathan Williams: “You wish me to present to the Philosophical Society the result of my philosophical researches since my retirement. But, my good Sir, I have made researches into nothing but what is connected with agriculture. In this way I have a little matter to communicate, and will do it ere long. It is the form of a mould-board of least resistance. I had some years ago conceived the principle of it, and I explained it then to Mr. Rittenhouse. I have since reduced the thing to practice, and have reason to believe the theory fully confirmed. I only wish for one of those instruments used in England for measuring force exerted in the drafts of different ploughs, etc., that I might compare the resistance of my mould-board with that of others. But these instruments are not to be had here. In a letter of this date to Mr. Rittenhouse I mention a discovery in animal history, very signal indeed, of which I shall lay before the society the best account I can, as soon as I shall have received some other materials collecting for me.

“I have seen, with extreme indignation, the blasphemies lately vended against the memory of the father of American philosophy. But his memory will be venerated as long as the thunder of heaven shall be heard or feared.”

March 27, 1798, Jefferson wrote to Mr. Patterson: “In the life time of Mr. Rittenhouse, I communicated to him the description of a mould-board of a plough, which I had constructed, and supposed to be what we might term the mould-board of least resistance. I asked not only his opinion, but that he would submit it to you also. After he had considered it he gave me his own opinion that it was demonstratively what I had supposed, and I think he said he had communicated it to you. Of that however, I am not sure, and therefore, now take the liberty of sending you a description of it, and a model which I have prepared for the Board of Agriculture of England, at their request. Mr. Strickland, one of their members, had seen the model, also the thing itself in use on my farm, and thinking favorably of it, had mentioned it to them. My purpose in troubling you with it is to ask you to examine the description rigorously, and suggest to me any corrections or alterations which you may think necessary. I would wish to have the idea go as correctly as possible out of my hands. I had sometimes thought of giving it into the Philosophical Society, but I doubted whether it was worthy of their notice, and supposed it not exactly in the line of their publications. I had therefore contemplated sending it to some of our agricultural societies, in whose way it was more particularly, when I received the request of the English board. The papers I enclose you are the latter part of a letter to Sir John Sinclair, their president. It is to go off by packett, wherefore I wish to ask the favor of you to return them with the model in the course of the present week, with any observations you will be so good as to favor me with.”

Writing from Washington, July 15, 1808, to Mr. Sylvestre, in acknowledgment of a plow received from the Agricultural Society of the Seine (France), he adds: “I shall with great pleasure attend to the construction and transmission to the society of a plough with my mould-board. This is the only part of that useful instrument to which I have paid any particular attention. But knowing how much the perfection of the plough must depend, 1st, on the line of traction; 2d, on the direction of the share; 3d, on the angle of the wing; 4th, on the form of the mould-board; and persuaded that I shall find the three first advantages eminently exemplified in that which the society sends me, I am anxious to see combined with these a mould-board of my form, in the hope it will still advance the perfection of that machine. But for this I must ask time till I am relieved from the cares which have more right to all my time – that is to say, till next spring;” i. e. until after the expiration of his second term as President of the United States.

The importance of any step in civilization can be understood only in its relations, antecedent causes and actual results.

The Scientific American, which is certainly good authority in such matters, ranks Jethro Wood with Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton, Charles Goodyear, Samuel B. Morse, Elias Howe, and Cyrus H. McCormick, and these are certainly the great names and this a just classification. Each in his way laid the foundation on which all inventors in his respective line have built, and must continue to build, and none of them all came so near perfecting his grand idea as Mr. Wood. His now venerable daughter stated the exact truth when she remarked in a letter not designed for publication: “My father patented the shape and construction of the plow. He took the iron and shaped the plow that turns the furrow for every product of the soil in America. His plow has never been improved. It came from his hand simple and perfect, as it now is, and there is no other plow now in use.” It was not the use of cast iron that he invented, although the use of “pot metal” by him occasioned a great deal of hostility to the original Wood plow.

Jethro Wood took out two plow patents, and those who wish to belittle his work, descant upon the first as if it were his only claim to credit. That first patent was issued in 1814. It fell far short of satisfying the patentee’s ambition. The plows made under it must have been a great improvement on any then in use, for although he abandoned it almost from the first, a great many of them were sold during the period between the first and the second patents. The second patent dates from 1819. The natal day of the modern plow may be fairly set down as September 1, 1819. The original specifications in this plow deserve to be given in full, and may well be inserted in this connection. The document was the handiwork of Mr. Wood himself, and runs thus:

“The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent, and making part of the same, containing a description in the words of the said Jethro Wood himself of his improvement in the construction of Ploughs.

“Considering the manifold errors and defects in the construction of Ploughs, and the inconveniences experienced in the use of them, the petitioner and inventor hath applied the powers of his mind to the improvement of this noble utensil, and produced a Plough so far superior to those in common use, that he asks an exclusive privilege for the same from the government of his country.

“The principal matters for which he solicits Letters Patent, he now reduces to writing, and explains in words and sentences as appropriate and significant as he possibly can. But, being perfectly aware of the feebleness and insufficiency of language to convey precise and adequate ideas of complicated forms and proportions, the said Jethro Wood annexes to these presents, a delineation upon paper of his said new and improved Plough, with full and explanatory notes; urging with earnestness and respect that the delineation and notes may be considered as a part of this communication. The said petitioner and inventor also, being perfectly convinced, as a practical man, that a model of his inventions and improvements will convey and preserve the most exact and durable impressions of the matters to which he lays claim, he sends herewith a model of the due form and proportion of each, as a just exhibition of his principle and of its application to the construction and improvement of the Plough, requesting that the same may be kept in the Patent Office, as a perpetual memorial of the invention and its use.

“In the first place, the said Jethro Wood claims an exclusive privilege for constructing the part of the Plough, heretofore, and to this day, generally called the mould-board, in the manner hereinafter mentioned. This mould-board may be termed a plano-curvilinear figure, not defined nor described in any of the elementary books of geometry or mathematics. But an idea may be conceived of it thus:

“The land-side of the Plough, measuring from the point of the mould-board, is two feet and two inches long. It is a strait-lined surface, from four to five and one-half inches wide, and half an inch thick. Its more particular description will be hereinafterwards given. It is sufficient to observe here, that of the twenty-six inches of length on the land-side, eighteen inches belong to the part of the Plough strictly called the land-side, and eight inches to the mould-board. The part of the mould-board comprehended by this space of eight inches is very important, affording weight and strength and substance to the Plough; enabling it the better to sustain the cutting-edge for separating and elevating the soil or sward, and likewise the standard for connecting the mould-board with the beam, as will hereinafter be described more at large.

“The figure of the mould-board, as observed from the furrow-side, is a sort of irregular pentagon, or five-sided plane, though curved and inclined in a peculiar manner. Its two lower sides touch the ground, or are intended to do so, while the three other sides enter into the composition of the oblique, or slanting mould-board, over-hanging behind, vertical midway, and projecting forward. The angle of the mould-board, as it departs from the foremost point of, or at, the land-side, is about forty-two degrees, and the length of it, or, in other words, of the first side, is eleven inches. The line of the next, or the second side, is nearly, but not exactly parallel with the before-mentioned right-lined land-side, for it widens or diverges from the angle at which the first and second sides join towards its posterior or hindermost point, as much as one inch. Hence, the distance from the hindermost point of the mould-board, at the angle of the second and third sides, directly across to the land-side, is one inch more than it is from the angle of the first and second sides, directly across. The length of this, the second side, is eight inches. The next side, or what is here denominated the third side, leaves the ground or furrow in a slanting direction backward, and with an over-hanging curve, exceeding the perpendicular outwards from three to six inches, according to the size of the Plough. The length of this third side is fourteen inches and one-half. The fourth side of this mould-board is horizontal, or nearly so, extending from the uppermost point of the third side, to the fore part, or pitch, eighteen inches. The fifth, or last side, descends or slopes from the last mentioned mark, spot, or pitch, to the place of beginning at the low and fore point of the mould-board, where it joins the land-side. Its length is thirteen inches.

“Besides these properties and proportions of his mould-board, the said Jethro Wood now explains other properties which it possesses, and by which it may be and is distinguished from every other invented thing. The peculiar curve has been compared to that of the screw auger; and it has been likened to the prow of a ship. Neither of these similitudes conveys the fair and proper notion of the invention.

“The mould-board, which the said Jethro Wood claims as his own, and which is the result of profound reflection and of numberless experiments, is a sort of plano-curvilinear surface, as herein-before stated, having the following bearings and relations: A right line, drawn by a chalked string or cord, or by a straight rule, diagonally or obliquely upwards and backwards from a point two inches and a half inch above the tip or extremity of the mould-board to the angle where the third and fourth sides of the mould-board join, touches the surface the whole distance, in an even and uniform application, and leaves no sinking, depression, hole, cavity, rising, lump, or protuberance, in any part of the distance. So, at a distance half way between the diagonal line just described, and the angle between the first and second sides, a line drawn parallel to the diagonal line already mentioned will receive the chalked string or cord, or the straight rule, as on an uniform and even surface without the smallest bend, sinuosity, or bunch, whereby earth might adhere to the mould-board, and impede the motion and progress of the Plough, under, through and along the soil.

“In like manner, if a point be taken one inch behind the angle connecting the second and third sides, and a perpendicular be raised upon it, that perpendicular will coincide with the vertical portion of the mould-board in that place; or, in other words, if a plumb line be let fall so as to reach a point one inch behind the last mentioned angle, then such a plumb line will hang parallel with the mould-board the whole way; the line of the mould-board there, neither projecting nor receding but being both a right line and a perpendicular line.

“Moreover, if a right line be drawn from a point on the just described perpendicular, an inch, or thereabouts, above the upper margin of the fourth side, and from the point to which the said perpendicular, if continued, would reach; if, the said Jethro Wood repeats, a right line be drawn downward and forward, not exactly parallel to the diagonal herein already described, but so diverging from the same that it is one inch more distant or further apart, at its termination on the fifth side of the mould-board, than at its origin or place of beginning; such line, so beginning, continued, and ended, is a right line parallel to the mould-board along its whole course and direction, and the space over which it passes has no inequality, hill, or hollow thereabout.

“Furthermore, an additional property of his mould-board is, that, if it be measured and proved various ways, vertically and obliquely, by the saw in fashioning it, by the rule in meeting it, and by the chalk-line in determining it, the capital and distinguishing character of right lines existing on, over and along the peculiar curve which his mould-board describes, is always and inseparably present. This grand and discriminating feature of his mould-board, he considers as of the utmost importance.

“He therefore craves the aid and elucidation of his drawing, and of his model, in their totality and in their several parts, to render plain and sure whatever there may be, from the abstruse and recondite nature of the subject, uncertain or dubious in the language of his specification.

“In the second place, the said Jethro Wood claims an exclusive right and privilege in the construction of a standard of cast iron, like the rest of the work already described, for connecting the mould-board with the beam. This standard is broad, stout, strong; and rises from the fore and upper part of the mould-board, being cast with it, and being a projection or continuation of the same from where the fourth and fifth sides meet. Its figure, strength, and arrangement are such as best to secure the connexion, and to enable the standard thus associated with the beam, to bear the pull, tug, and brunt of service. By a screw bolt and nut properly adjusted above the top of the standard and acting along its side, assisted, if need require, by a wedge for tightening and loosening, the beam may be raised and lowered; and the mould-board, with its cutting edge, enabled to make a furrow of greater or smaller depth, as the ploughman may desire, and a latch and key fixed to the beam, and capable of being turned into notches, grooves, or depressions on one edge or narrow side of the standard, serves to keep the beam from settling or descending. By means of these screw bolts, wedges, latches, and keys, with their appropriate notches, teeth, and joggles, the Plough may be deepened or shallowed most exactly.