Jethro Wood, Inventor of the Modern Plow. / A Brief Account of His Life, Services, and Trials; Together with Facts Subsequent to his Death, and Incident to His Great Invention

by Frank Gilbert

“On arriving at Albany he found himself not a moment too soon. The case had an immediate hearing, and after three days’ trial the Circuit Court decided unequivocally that the plow now in general use over the country was unlike any other which had been produced; that the improvements which rendered it so effective were due to Jethro Wood, and that all manufacturers must pay his heirs for the privilege of making it.

“This was a great triumph; but it was now the late autumn of 1845, and the last grant of the patent had little more than a year to run. Wood again repaired to Washington to apply for a new extension, but the excitements of so long a contest had been too much for him. Just as he had recommenced his efforts they were forever ended. While talking with one of his friends, he suddenly fell dead from heart disease, and the patent expired without renewal.

“The last male heir to the invention was no more. On settling the estate, it was found that while not a vestige remained of the large fortune owned by Jethro Wood when he began his career, less than five hundred and fifty dollars had ever been received from his invention.

“The after history of the case is a brief one. Four daughters of Jethro Wood alone remained to represent the family. In the winter of 1848 the two younger sisters went to Washington to petition Congress that a bill might be passed for their relief, in view of the inestimable services of their father to the agricultural interests of the country. Webster declared that he regarded their father as a ‘public benefactor,’ and gave them his most efficient aid; Clay warmly espoused their cause, and the venerable John Quincy Adams, with his trembling hand—then so enfeebled by age that he rarely used the pen—wrote them kind notes, heartily sympathizing with them. On one memorable day, while they were in the House gallery, Mr. Adams, at his desk on the floor, wrote them briefly in relation to their case. A few minutes later he was struck with the fatal attack under which he exclaimed, ‘This is the last of earth; I am content,’ and was borne dying to the Speaker’s room. The tremulous lines, the last his hand ever traced, were found on his desk and delivered to Miss Wood.

“A bill providing that in these four heirs should rest for seven years the exclusive right of making and vending the improvements in the construction of the cast-iron plow; and that twenty-five cents on each plow might be exacted from all who manufactured it, passed the Senate unanimously. But Washington already swarmed with plow manufacturers. The city of Pittsburgh alone sent five to look after their interests. Money was freely used, and the members of the House Committee who were to report on the bill were assured that during the 28 years of the patent, Wood’s family had reaped immense wealth, and wished to keep up a monopoly. The two quiet ladies, fresh from the retirement of a Quaker home, where they had learned little of the world, were even accused of attempting to secure its extention through bribery. It was the wolf charging the lamb with roiling the water. So ignorant were they of such means, that, though the Chairman of the Committee plainly told the younger lady in a few words of private conversation that a very few thousand dollars would give her a favorable verdict, she did not understand the suggestion till after an unfavorable report was presented, and the bill killed in the House.

“When they were about to leave Washington, some friendly members of Congress advised them to deposit the valuable documents which had been used in their suit, including the letter from Thomas Jefferson to Jethro Wood, in the archives of the House, where they could only be withdrawn on the motion of some member. They did so, and left them for some years uncalled for. When at last they applied for them they could not be found. Nor from that time to the present has any trace of them been discovered by any of the family. Thus perished the last vestige of proof relating to this ill-fated invention.”

This is a fair and candid statement, one fully sustained by unimpeachable documentary evidence. Especially by the somewhat voluminous pamphlet entitled “Documents relating to the improvements of Jethro Wood in the Construction of the Plough.” A careful examination of the testimony therein embodied, and of the Congressional Reports on the subject, warrant the foregoing statements.

It is not strange that in an early annual report of the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, that official should have remarked with some bitterness that “Although Wood was one of the greatest benefactors to mankind by this admirable invention, he never received, for all his thought, anxiety and expense, a sum of money sufficient to defray the expenses of his decent burial.” The time long since passed forever to seek pecuniary indemnity; but a debt of gratitude never outlaws, and it is due to the great inventor that his countrymen should gratefully cherish his memory. Every year adds to the debt we all owe him. As the area of cultivation widens, the obligation deepens. Already America is the foremost nation of all the earth in the production of wheat and provisions, the latter being in reality corn in meat form. In exchange for our food supplies, the United States is draining Europe of its gold at an enormous rate, and the fundamental element in the production of American wealth, is our great implement of tillage. American prosperity is the monumental glory of Jethro Wood and his plow.