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Source: NMHS Newsletter Nov 1995John Deere Comes to North Manchester
by Rex Reahard
Jay asked me to tell you about the Reahards and the John
Deere business in North Manchester, and the many changes
that have taken place in farming in the time we were in
business from 1936 to 1957. This period of time was when
horse power farming was rapidly changing to power
farming and John Deere became a household name in the
farming industry.
First, I want to introduce you to the Reahard family and
then tell how they got involved with John Deere. But
before I go any further, I want to answer a question
I've been asked many times: "Who is Catherine Reahard
whose tombstone is on the Historical Society's Memorial
Wall in the Halderman Cemetery?" Catherine Bair was the
first wife of John F. Reahard who came to young North
Manchester in 1838 - a pioneer! They were married in
1851 and had five children. Their oldest son was
Franklin, my grandfather.
As I start my story, I want to call your attention to
two adages in this story; namely, l. Sometimes it isn't
what you know but who you know to get ahead, and 2. what
goes around comes around. I'm sure they are familiar to
you, so see if you can pick them out in this story.When John F. Reahard came to No. Manchester in 1838 he
was ten years old. He took jobs with men and moved
freight (the Movers) from Lagro to the new town of No.
Manchester. Over a period of time he was able to save
enough money to buy a team and wagon of his own. By 1860
he was able to buy a farm 1/2 mile west of the Bolivar
bridge where he, his wife Catherine and their five
children (four boys and a girl) started farming.
Catherine died in 1867 and John F. later married Sarah
Lautzenhiser. From that marriage three children were
born. John F. died in 1914 at the age of 86.
Our story now continues with my grandfather, Franklin
Reahard. He was born in 1853 and in 1874 he married
Ellen Cripe. They had three children, one of whom was
Dan Reahard. Ellen died in 1882 and in 1883 Franklin
married Sarah Royer. From this marriage there were four
children, my father being the second born. After his
first marriage, Franklin started farming where the
Highland Hills Golf course is now on Highway 15. Because
of the hilly land, he sold that farm and purchased the
one just south of it.
In June of 1896 tragedy struck. Franklin Reahard hitched
his team of horses to a wagon loaded with produce to be
taken to Wabash. At the time there was no bridge across
the river. One either had to ford the river or travel
three miles to the east to the Rey bridge. While in
Wabash, the weather was fine, however in the north east
a heavy rain had fallen which caused to river to rise
very fast. Coming home quite late in the day, he was not
aware of this and in attempting to again ford the river,
he was swept away and drowned. My father was eight years
old at the time.
After my grandfather Franklin died, my grandmother,
Sarah decided to sell the farm and she bought a house
and moved her family to Roann. My father, Russell (Rick)
got jobs working for farmers in the area and clerking at
the Baber General Store in Roann. Two very important
things happened while clerking at the General Store
which changed his life. First was when he met a man by
the name of Charles Moreland who on occasion stopped at
the store to sell items of Hardware. One of those items
was the John Deere Walking Plow, another was the John
Deere Two Horse Riding One Row Corn Cultivator. There
was also a John Deere gas engine used to pump water.
This was the introduction of John Deere items to this
area.
The second was that this is where he met my mother when
she came in one day to make a purchase. Soon love
dominated the scene and they were married December 25,
1911 and moved to a farm south of Akron, Indiana where
my father not only farmed but found time to attend an
auctioneering school at Bluffton, Ind. My sister,
brother and I were all born in Akron.
In 1928 my father learned that an IHC dealer in Peru
needed a salesman and he applied and was hired for the
job. In 1934 Dad learned that the North Manchester IHC
dealer had died and his son-in-law was running the
business and needed an experienced salesman. With Dad's
previous experience he was immediately hired when he
applied.
It is customary for farm machinery salesmen to go to the
state fair and look at the new equipment the companies
are introducing to the farmers for the next year. In
1934 while walking through the John Deere machinery
display, Dad happened to see his old friend, Charlie
Moreland who, 25 years before called on the Baber
General Store in Roann. In that period of time, Charlie
had been promoted to Vice-President and General Manager
of the John Deere Plow Co. in charge of the Indiana and
Kentucky areas. After the small talk and catching up on
the past, Charley got serious and asked Dad to start a
John Deere dealership in North Manchester. So when he
came home, he discussed it with the family and the
family approved it.
So John Deere came to North Manchester. We started the
business in 1934 where ONE WORLD HANDCRAFTS is now.
Our first inventory was a John Deere "A" tractor on
steel wheels and a John Deere "B" tractor on lug wheels.
Incidentally, these tractors had only two cylinders. We
also got a two bottom plow and a one bottom plow. The
two bottom was pulled behind the JD "A" and the one
bottom behind the JD "B".
This inventory also included a 7 foot disc harrow, a
three section drag harrow, a three section spring tooth
harrow and two 999 corn planters. A few repair parts
were also added to this inventory. If we needed anything
else, we could drive to Ft. Wayne to the John Deere
Warehouse.
The first year we sold three tractors - a JD "B" and two
JD "A"s - steel wheels, of course. Tractors with rubber
tires were unheard of until 1938 when Sears sold a
rubber tired tractor in this area called a GRAHAM
BRADLEY. This tractor, ordinarily on steel wheels, would
pull a 2-bottom plow, but with rubber tires, it could
pull a 3-bottom plow. By 1940 all tractors had rubber
tires unless it was a special order.
Business was slow the first three years, but
auctioneering was good. There was no competition for
auctioneers in the Manchester area except for Hank Auker
at South Whitley. When Dad had a farm sale, he could
pick up a lot of prospects for farm machinery sales from
the bidders. Later, he would call on them and many times
make a sale. However, they usually had something to
trade in and that something would likely be a horse
drawn item. The most difficult trade-in to handle and
deal with was livestock - horses, cows, pigs and
sometimes sheep. My uncle, John Reahard, dad's brother,
who had a farm 2 1/2 miles southwest of Laketon, was a
livestock dealer and would take them or help sell them.
The Liberty Mills sale barn was very active at that time
and much of the livestock was sold there. Farming up to
the l940's was much like it is today in the Amish areas.
Most of the machinery that we sold was shipped by rail
in box cars which we had to unload and warehouse until
sold. Most of the farm equipment came in bundles wired
together. We had to cut the wires, lay out the pieces,
get out the set-up book and assemble each item.
In the early 40's horse drawn equipment was rapidly
changing to tractor drawn equipment. John Deere came out
with streamlined tractors on rubber tires and with
electric starters and even lights. They had a complete
line of equipment by now from buying out smaller
companies such as VAN BRUNT GRAIN DRILLS, MANSUR CORN
PLANTERS, DAINE HAY TOOLS, LETZ FEED GRINDERS, DEERING
GRAIN BINDERS, etc. They also added combines and corn
pickers.
In the l930's and the mid 40's the average farm in the
N. Manchester area was 80 acres. If someone owned 160
acres, he was a big farmer. When WW II came, the farm
equipment dealers were rationed. The Reahard Implement
Co. was no exception. I remember getting a letter from
the U.S. government stating "There will be no more steel
allotted for Hammer Mills since enough hammers have
already been produced." What a joke! Farmers use hammer
mills to grind feed -- not to produce Hammers to pound
nails. Also in 1942 a ceiling price was put on certain
farm equipment such as tractors, combines, corn pickers
and hay balers. These items were becoming scarce because
of rationing and they were bringing such high prices at
auctions that only the wealthy farmers could buy them.
This presented big problems for auctioneers, including
my dad. For example: If an auctioneer is selling a
tractor with a ceiling price of $600 (set by O.P.A.) and
several bidders are willing to give the $600, who gets
the tractor? Some one suggested putting the names in a
hat and letting them draw for it. The auctioneers tried
that, but the state of Indiana -- back then -- said this
was gambling, which was illegal.
So, the auctioneers got together and solved their
problem. They would put an item that had no ceiling
price such as a bale of hay or straw or even a straw hat
in some cases and let the tractor bidders bid on the
other item (the bale of hay, for example) and the one
who bid the most got the tractor. A bale of hay in this
situation could bring several hundred dollars. I
remember my dad coming home and telling about selling a
straw hat for $350.00. An auctioneer in the Plymouth
Area defied the O.P.A and their ceiling price system. He
spent a year in jail and paid a $1000. fine.
During the war the farm equipment business was slow, but
you could notice one thing that the horse drawn
equipment was either traded or set aside for power
equipment. By this time the Reahard Implement Co. had
made three moves since starting business. In 1938 we
moved from downtown to the building now housing the
Spyker Spreader Warehouse which is next to the Julia
Felgar Real Estate office on West Main Street. In 1942
we bought a building at the corner of Main and First
Street from the Percy Bunker estate.
Over the years John Deere has made many changes in its
equipment and one early change in particular that I
remember -- mostly for its advertisements - was the John
Deere "H" tractor which came out in 1939. It pulled a
one bottom 16" plow or a two bottom 12" plow and you
could cultivate two rows of corn. Its advertising went
like this: it costs the price of a load of bread or 11
cents to plow an acre of ground and the price of a 3
cent postage stamp to cultivate an acre of corn."
Wouldn't we like to go back to those days?
In the early 50's farm machinery began to get bigger.
John Deere came out with tractors that pulled four and
five bottom plows; self propelled combines with 10' and
18' headers (that's how wide a swath it could cut)
bigger grain drills; bigger disks; bigger planters, etc.
In the early 50's John Deere management changed also. My
father's old friend Charley Moreland was given an early
retirement; the warehouse in Ft. Wayne was closed and
everything was moved to Indianapolis. New and younger
men took over and the new management wanted the Dealers
to carry more parts and employ a parts manager. They
wanted a full time salesman as well as two mechanics in
the shop. They made a survey of our sales area and then
told us what we should stock. At first it was a
suggestion, but as time passed, the suggestions became
stronger and they began shipping equipment to us that we
had not ordered. This caused quite a discussion at the
monthly dealer meetings and a profitable dealership was
no longer profitable. Incidentally, John Deere stock
went from $16 to $32 in a two year time span.
In the spring of 1954 John Deere invited one person from
each dealership to come to the tractor factory at
Waterloo, Iowa to see the future tractors and equipment.
My Dad being the senior member of the company made the
trip. When he got back he said he couldn't believe what
he saw --mainly tractors as big as locomotives, pulling
equipment as wide as a highway around a field. He said
these machines weren't ready for market yet, but they
would be ready in four to five years. These are the big
tractors and combines we see today on the farms.
In the fall of 1954 the John Deere area salesman (the
blockman to us) stopped by as he usually did, only this
time he asked us if we would be willing to close our
store in No. Manchester and open one in Wabash. The main
office was moving the dealerships to the county seats
with one dealer to a county. In other words, they were
getting ready for the big equipment about to come. After
some discussion with the blockman, my father said,
"We'll think about it". Over the coming weeks, I could
tell that Dad was very discouraged and depressed. None
of us wanted to go to Wabash. The only thing left was to
sell the business, for the folks to retire and for me to
find employment elsewhere.
On March 23, 1955, my father died from a stroke. He was
67 at the time. In order to settle the estate, the
family decided to close the store. The process was
started, and in 1957 it was completed. The Reahard
Implement Company closed its doors. As for myself, I
became a teacher at Lagro High School and at Northfield
High School where I remained until I retired in l980.
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