The Steam Plow in America
Pursued for Decades, the Quest for a Workable Steam Plow was Ultimately Abandoned with the Successful Development of the Steam Traction Engine
March/April 2003
Jack C. Norbeck
Bill Speiden and his oxen team pulling an Oliver walking plow
contrast Willis Abel's 40-120 HP Peerless Z-3 pulling a 20
bottom John Deere plow at the Steam and Gas Pasture Party,
Somerset, Va., August 2002. Photo by Jack C. Norbeck.
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By the mid-1800s, the prospect of a steam-powered plow had
created more than a little excitement in agricultural, industrial
and social circles. The power of steam was self-evident, and it
seemed clear that the person who successfully harnessed and
combined the power of steam with the utility of the plow would
fundamentally alter the agricultural landscape.
As early as 1833, Edmund C. Bellinger, Barnwell, S.C., sketched
out a plan for a cable operated steam plow very similar in approach
to the steam-powered cable plows that became popular in England and
Germany toward the end of the 19th century. In 1855 Obed Hussey,
better known for his reaper design patented in 1833, demonstrated
his own steam plow. Hussey worked on the design of his plow for at
least a few years, but failed to bring it to market. Richard
Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling Gun, worked on the development
of a successful steam plow, receiving a patent in 1857 for a
steam-powered plow that was to be pulled by a team of oxen.
WILLS ABLE 'S 20-BOTTOM JOHN DEERE PLOWS THAT HIS 40-120 HP
Z-3 PEERLESS PLOWED WITH AT THE STEAM AND GAS PASTURE PARTY,
SOMERSET, VA., AUGUST 2002.
In 1858 Joseph W. Fawkes of Lancaster County, Pa., exhibited his
steam plow in Illinois, first in Decatur and then at the state fair
in Centralia. His efforts met with at least some level of success,
and the following year Fawkes returned to Illinois with a new
model, the Lancaster. He went to Moline, Ill., bought eight John
Deere plows, bolted them together and used them in his winning
demonstration in Chicago against James Waters of Detroit and John
Van Doren of Chicago in the famous Illinois State Agricultural
Society contest of 1859.
That same year, President Abraham Lincoln addressed the
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society at the Wisconsin State Fair in
Milwaukee, Wis.. Lincoln talked about the steam plow, about what he
thought it I should be like and the impact on American agriculture
that would follow its development. In an oft-quoted speech, Lincoln
told the assembled crowd that, 'The successful application of
steam-power to farm work is a desideratum - especially a steam
plow. It is not enough that a machine operated by steam will really
plow. To be successful, it must, all things considered, plow better
than can be done by animal power. It must do all the work as well,
and cheaper, or more rapidly, so as to get through more perfectly
in season; or in some way afford an advantage over plowing with
animals, else it is no success.'
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