SOME JOHN DEERE HISTORY
Intrigued by the replica of the Froelich first tractor exhibited at the Mt. Pleas, ant Reunion in 1952, we are here giving some history as started by Mr. Froelich in 1892. This is copied from some literature of Deere and Company with their permission.
John Froelich was born November 24, 1849, in Giard, Ia., but he was living in nearby Froelich (named for his father) when he began wondering if he couldn't build a more useful traction engine than the steam engines then in use.
PRAIRIE FIRES
He knew about steam engines from experience. They were heavy and bulky, hard to maneuver. They were always threatennig to set fire to the grain and stubble in which they worked.-and on fiat prairie, with wind blowing, that was no joke. Froelich believed that he could build a gasoline tract/on engine- or tractor that would remove all these drawbacks to mechanical power.
THE FIRST TRACTOR
Likely you'd smile if you could see his first attempt. It was a sort of hybrida vertical, one cylinder (14 inch stroke and bore) engine mounted on the running gear of a steam traction engine.
The two halves didn't fit together too well. In fact, in most respects, they didn't flit at all, and Froelich and his helper, William Mann, had to design many new parts. It took time to figure everything out. But the day came when; the hybrid was assembled and ready for trial.
Waterloo
Boy" tractor as exhibited at the Mt. Pleasant Reunion. It was in good running order. It portrayed history and development.
Froelich tugged at the massive flywheel. The machine wouldn't start.
No matter how hard Froelich and Mann yanked on that flywheel, the machine simply wouldn't start.. and some, where, among the spectators, there "was a snickered :"I told you so!"
THAT DID IT
Then Mann had an idea.
He twisted the bullet from a rifle cartridge, wedged the cartridge in the prim, whose interest was in tractors, not sta"ing cup, hit it with a hammer."
With a cough and a roar, the one-lunger came to life. The flywheel beg-an to spin, ..horses reared and tried to pull , loose from a nearby hitching rail.... "I knew old John'd do it!" shouted the on looker who, a moment before, had started to scoff.
Froelich, on the driving platform, gingerly eased his invention into gear. The hybrid lurched forward. He tried the reverse. The machine clanked back, ward.
Out on the road he went, and to a farm whore a neighbor was threshing grain. The hybrid was substituted for the steam engine. It did the job.
A few weeks later, Froelich and his crew started for the broad fields of South Dakota, with the gasoline tractor and a new threshing machine.
That fall they threshed 72,000 bushels of small grain.
Success seemed assured.
But success was still twenty years away. First were to come failure. .discouragement. .heartbreak.