Early 20th Century Pattee Jenny Lind Walking Cultivator

In order to keep weeds under control, farmers cultivated their cornfields using tools which dug up the earth alongside the corn plants, burying neighboring weeds or exposing the weeds’ seeds or roots to the elements.  For many centuries, farmers cultivated their fields by hand with hoes and other similar tools.  Then some inventive minds began developing cultivators with small shovels which could be pulled by horses.  By the 1800s, many farmers used one-horse cultivators which had two small shovels to dig up the earth in between rows of corn.  By the 1870s, some individuals had developed two-horse cultivators, constructed with an upside-down “U’ shape in the middle of the wheel axle.  This inverted “U” allowed the cultivator to pass right over the corn stalks as they were growing.  One of the inventors of this type of cultivator, James H. Pattee, used the term “New Departure” to describe his design.  By using this type of cultivator, a farmer cultivated both sides of a row of corn at the same time – the new device was essentially two one-horse cultivators connected by the U-shaped axle.  Depending on the size of the cultivator, a farmer might be able to cultivate his fields until his corn was three feet tall, thus allowing his crop to thrive without having to compete as much with weeds and other plants for nutrients.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, several inventors, including Pattee, redesigned the two-horse cultivator to include a beam, or tongue.  Pattee’s Jenny Lind cultivator is one example of this design.  In the case of the Jenny Lind you see here, the rod and spring mechanisms which attach the wood beam to the axle near the wheels were patented on January 3, 1899, allowing us to date this cultivator to the early twentieth century.¹  There is an example of a two-horse walking cultivator without a tongue (that is, without the wood beam) here at Stuhr Museum, near the walkway not far from the Pattee cultivator.

The creator of the Jenny Lind cultivator, James Howard Pattee, moved with his brother and fellow inventor, Henry H. Pattee, to Monmouth, Illinois, from their parents’ farm near Canaan, New Hampshire, in the mid-1860s.  In 1872, James Pattee patented his “New Departure” tongueless cultivator which was, as an 1886 historian stated, “extensively adopted throughout the great West.”²  At some point in the 1870s, James and Henry partnered with their brother-in-law, Ithamar Pillsbury, and started Pattee Brothers & Company.  In 1881, they renamed their venture the Pattee Plow Company.³  By 1891, they had developed a variety of products – along with the Jenny Lind and New Departure cultivators, they had the Pattee Walking Tongue Cultivator, the Pattee Surface Cultivator, the Challenge Corn Planter, the Challenge Cotton Planter, and the Reliable Combined Cultivator.

Why exactly the Pattee company chose to name this cultivator after the famous Swedish opera singer, Jenny Lind is not known.  Perhaps they knew it was a name that would get people’s attentions.  Born in 1820, Jenny Lind was brought over to the United States by P. T. Barnum to perform in several cities around the country.  Barnum highly promoted the singer during her 1850-1852 tour, turning her into an early example of a celebrity.  She was dubbed the “Swedish Nightingale,” and her name and likeness were used to sell a wide variety of items during and after her lifetime.  According to Howard Wight Marshal, Lind’s likeness and name were used to sell dolls, stoves, Cuban cigars, soap, songs, gloves, bonnets, porcelain dishes, Steinway pianos with curvaceous “Jenny Lind” legs, opera glasses, tea kettles, hats, engraved portraits, and photographs.⁴  As Marshal tells us, she also had a polka named after her, published in 1846 (before her U.S. tour) by Allen Dodworth, the New York dancer credited with introducing the polka to the United States.⁵  To Marshal’s list, we might add a number of agriculture-related items which were given the name “Jenny Lind,” including Jenny Lind potatoes, strawberries, and musk melons, as well as individual horses and cows.⁶

Jenny Lind Songs in La Figlia del Reggimento Poster

Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, Illinois. Lind donated $1500 for
the building of this chapel for the local Swedish Lutheran community.

Notes

¹ James Pattee’s patent discussed here is Patent 616961.  The Jenny Lind here at Stuhr Museum does not have the shovel design described in the patent.  You can view and download this patent here.

² Hamilton Child, Gazetteer of Grafton County, N. H., 1709-1886. Part First (Syracuse, NY: Hamilton Child, 1886), pp. 227-228.

³ Farm Implements, vol. XXIV, no. 1 (Jan. 31, 1910), p. 30E, in an article on Henry Pattee’s death in 1909, stated that they started the Pattee Plow Company in 1877.

⁴ Howard Wight Marshal, Play Me Something Quick and Devilish: Old-Time Fiddlers in Missouri (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2012), p. 149.  The list could go on, and it could include an island and a locomotive.

⁵ Marshal, Play Me Something Quick, pp. 146-151, gives a nice description of Lind and her visit.

⁶ Potatoes: The Cultivator, vol. V, no. XI (November, 1857); and the Fifth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, 1860 (Augusta, ME: Stevens & Sayward, 1860).  Strawberries: The Cultivator, vol. V, no. IX (September, 1857); Ohio Cultivator, vol. XVIII, no. 3 (March 1, 1862); vol. XVIII, no. 4 (April 1, 1862); and Ohio Cultivator, vol. XVIII, no. 11 (November 1, 1862).  Musk melons: Southern Cultivator, Devoted Exclusively to Southern Agriculture, Horticulture, Plantation and Domestic Economy, Manufactures, the Mechanic Arts, &c., &c., &c., vol. XVIII, no. 3 (March, 1860) and vol. XVIII, no. 5 (May, 1860); and John R. Shaffer, Report of the Secretary of the Iowa State Agricultural Society for the Year 1878 (Des Moines, IA: R. P. Clarkson, 1878).  Horse: Nineteenth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies: To the General Assembly of Ohio, for the Year 1864 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1865).  Cows: The Cultivator, vol. IX, no. 7 (July, 1852), published in Albany, New York; and Royce Shingleton, Richard Peters: Champion of the New South (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985), p. 40.

Early 20th Century One-row Riding Cultivator

 This riding cultivator can be dated to as early as 1904, and it may have been made by the Emerson Manufacturing Company of Rockford, Illinois. A farmer used this cultivator to dig up unwanted plants, and to turn over and break up the soil along both sides of a row of corn. The farmer would hitch this cultivator to two horses that would pull it over a row of growing corn. The cultivator would pass over the corn while the four small shovels turned over the earth and dug up the plants alongside the corn. The farmer could adjust the shovels by pulling on the levers in front of his seat.

 Without any clear information about this cultivator, it is difficult to identify its manufacturer. Between 1850 and 1930, there were hundreds, possibly thousands of companies that made cultivators and cultivator attachments. Even though the manufacturer of this cultivator did not place its name on this machine, we can locate several part numbers as well as two patent dates.  The patent dates have led us to identify this cultivator as one manufactured by the Emerson Manufacturing Company. The patent dates are February 6, 1900 and June 7, 1904, and they appear to refer to patents 642795 and 761734, respectively. You can view Patent 642795, Gustav Jernberg's cultivator patent assigned to the Emerson Manufacturing Company, by clicking or touching here. You can view Patent 761734, Lewis E. Waterman's cultivator patent assigned to the Emerson Manufacturing Company, by clicking or touching here. In 1909, the Emerson Manufacturing Company would become the Emerson-Brantingham Company, maker of two tractors as well as a threshing machine here in this exhibit.

Early 20th Century Riding Disc Cultivator

 Although there are no clear identifying marks on this implement, this riding disc cultivator may have been made by the Moline Plow Company of Moline, Illinois. The only potential identifying marks are very small "M"s inside circles located on a few of the individual parts on this implement. As with the other cultivators in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this tool played an important role in the crop growing process. If a farmer did not cultivate between the rows of crops, the weeds and other unwanted plants could overwhelm the crop plants. Those unwanted plants would consume nutrients and potentially smother the crop plants, especially early in the growing season.
 Farmers typically cultivated their fields three to five times, depending on weather, soil, conditions, and the persistence of unwanted plants. Many cultivators were built to pass over crops that were about a foot-and-a-half tall, giving those crop plants a great opportunity to thrive when the unwanted plants were no longer being dug up.
 As you can see by looking at the six examples in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, cultivators came in a variety of shapes and sizes. You might group them into a number of different categories: one-row and two-row, tongued and tongueless, walking and riding, shovel and disc. If you venture out to Railroad Town at the museum, you might even notice a double-shovel, a predecessor to the cultivator, near one of the old cabins.

Early 20th Century One-row Walking Cultivator

 Although there are no clear identifying marks on this implement, this one-row walking cultivator may have been made by the Moline Plow Company of Moline, Illinois.  As with the other cultivators in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this tool played an important role in the crop growing process. If a farmer did not cultivate between the rows of crops, the weeds and other unwanted plants could overwhelm the crop plants. Those unwanted plants would consume nutrients and potentially smother the crop plants, especially early in the growing season.
 Farmers typically cultivated their fields three to five times, depending on weather, soil, conditions, and the persistence of unwanted plants. Many cultivators were built to pass over crops that were about a foot-and-a-half tall, giving those crop plants a great opportunity to thrive when the unwanted plants were no longer being dug up.
 As you can see by looking at the six examples in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, cultivators came in a variety of shapes and sizes. You might group them into a number of different categories: one-row and two-row, tongued and tongueless, walking and riding, shovel and disc. If you venture out to Railroad Town at the museum, you might even notice a double-shovel, a predecessor to the cultivator, near one of the old cabins.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century One-row Walking Cultivator

 Although there are no clear identifying marks, this one-row walking cultivator may have been assembled by Deere & Company in Moline, Illinois. The only potential identifying marks are a star next to the words "malleable iron" on several individual parts to this implement. These malleable iron parts may have been formed by the Union Malleable Iron Company, a supplier of many parts for John Deere implements. Founded in 1872 in East Moline, Illinois, the Union Malleable Iron Company moved into a new factory in nearby Moline, Illinois, sometime around the turn of the century. In 1911, Deere & Company acquired Union in a merger, allowing Union to make parts for other companies after it had met the needs of Deere.
 As with the other cultivators in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this tool played an important role in the crop growing process. If a farmer did not cultivate between the rows of crops, the weeds and other unwanted plants could overwhelm the crop plants. Those unwanted plants would consume nutrients and potentially smother the crop plants, especially early in the growing season.
 Farmers typically cultivated their fields three to five times, depending on weather, soil condition, and the persistence of unwanted plants. Many cultivators were built to pass over crops that were about a foot-and-a-half tall, giving those crop plants a great opportunity to thrive when the unwanted plants were no longer being dug up.
 As you can see by looking at the six examples in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, cultivators came in a variety of shapes and sizes. You might group them into a number of different categories: one-row and two-row, tongued and tongueless, walking and riding, shovel and disc. If you venture out to Railroad Town at the museum, you might even notice a double-shovel, a predecessor to the cultivator, near one of the old cabins.

Notes

A short narrative of the history of the Union Malleable Iron Company can be found here.

Early 20th Century Two-row Riding Cultivator

 Pulled by three horses, this riding cultivator was used to dig up unwanted plants and aerate the soil along both sides of two corn rows with each pass. As with the other cultivators in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this tool played an important role in the crop growing process. If a farmer did not cultivate between the rows of crops, the weeds and other unwanted plants could overwhelm the crop plants. Those unwanted plants would consume nutrients and potentially smother the crop plants, especially early in the growing season.
 Farmers typically cultivated their fields three to five times, depending on weather, soil, conditions, and the persistence of unwanted plants. Many cultivators were built to pass over crops that were about a foot-and-a-half tall, giving those crop plants a great opportunity to thrive when the unwanted plants were no longer being dug up.
 As you can see by looking at the six examples in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, cultivators came in a variety of shapes and sizes. You might group them into a number of different categories: one-row and two-row, tongued and tongueless, walking and riding, shovel and disc. If you venture out to Railroad Town at the museum, you might even notice a double-shovel, a predecessor to the cultivator, near one of the old cabins.