March of Progress
Diggers like Hoover's TRANSFORMED POTATO HARVEST
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Left: Isaac Hoover, inventor of the Hoover digger and countless other devices, with his wife, Hannah. (Photos courtesy of Milan Historical Museum.)
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Necessity is the mother of invention. Never was
that more true than with the invention of the potato digger. Before
the advent of mechanized diggers, a farmer could only harvest as
many potatoes as he could dig by hand. With a mechanized digger -
like the one invented by Isaac Hoover - he could harvest hundreds
of bushels a day. Hoover's wasn't the first mechanized potato
harvester (that invention dates to the late 1860s) but it was one
of the most popular early units.
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Isaac Woolverton Hoover was born in 1845 in Groton Township,
Erie County, Ohio, the eldest son of John and Elizabeth Hoover. In
1851, following John Hoover's return from the California gold rush,
the Hoover family settled on a 115-acre farm in Oxford Township,
Erie County, Ohio. There, Isaac gained valuable skills from his
father, a stone mason and farmer. In 1866, Isaac married Hannah
Jane Beare and together they had three children. After moving
several times, Isaac and his family established their permanent
home on a large farm in Avery (just south of Sandusky), Ohio, in
1875.
Digging and designing
Hoover, a farmer, initially focused his energies on the potato
crop. For a number of years, his farm produced the largest potato
harvest in the county. But after years of tediously harvesting
potatoes by hand, Hoover began to envision a mechanical potato
digger. During the winter of 1884-1885, he designed and constructed
his first digger and used it to harvest his 1885 crop.
Foreseeing the potential of his invention, he submitted a patent
application in March 1885. The patent (No. 318,254) was granted May
19, 1885. According to Hoover's patent application, the digger had
"mechanisms for digging or removing the tubers from the ground,
sifting and separating them from the earth, stones, weeds, and
stalks, and delivering them at the rear of the machine, on one
side, into a receptacle or upon the ground to be gathered up; the
weeds are then discharged from the machine on the opposite side
from the delivery of the potatoes."
The ground-powered potato digger was pulled by a team of horses,
thus exerting force over the ground. As the cleated wheels rotated,
they powered the machinery. The digger could harvest up to 500
bushels - a full 8 acres - of potatoes per day. Hoover's invention
was so popular among his friends and neighbors that he produced 10
more diggers during the winter of 1885-1886.
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