Fortune Enough:
B.F. Avery company driven by one man's vision
By Jim Romeo
If you can succeed in introducing your plow, you will have fortune enough, but I don't believe you can!"
That's what B.F. Avery was once told about his plow-manufacturing venture. He would come to disprove the statement.
Understanding how this one plow company came into being can help a collector know and appreciate the state of the nation during the Agricultural Revolution, and how it has changed. In their day, plows were a means to more efficient production in an environment where farming was key to the nation's economic infrastructure.
on the newfound enthusiasm for tillage of the land. One such entrepreneur was B.F. Avery, the founder of one of the largest plow factories in the world.
The sixth of 15 children in his family, Benjamin Franklin Avery had access to both a formal education and full exposure to farm-work on land owned by his father, a member of Congress and large landholder in Aurora, N.Y.
Such labor, however, was distasteful to Benjamin, who begged permission to go to college. His petition was granted, on condition that his expenses be deducted from the $1,000 which would be given him on his coming of age, as was his father's custom. He accepted the condition and enrolled at Hamilton College, but at the end of his first year, transferred to Union College, where he earned a degree in 1822. At his father's suggestion, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in New York City.
Avery's mechanical inclinations and a curiosity about technology, however, soon pushed legal pursuits aside. His early farm experience convinced him that there was room for improvement in form and general construction of the plows then in use. Equipped with patterns, a small, portable foundry and a stake of $400, he started his first business venture in Clarksville, Mecklenburg County, Va. Joined by partner Caleb H. Richmond, a practical molder, Avery opened his first foundry in an 18'x20' pine-log building, covered with slabs split from pine logs.
The fledgling business started with one ton of metal. Averse to debt and credit, the partners were industrious and enthusiastic, lived frugally, and soon began to see success. When their land lease was not renewed, they moved their operation to Milton, N.C. After cancellation of yet another lease, they moved to Meadville, Va., where they bought land. Avery was the business manager, dabbling in some of the hands-on work; Richmond operated the foundry.
In 1842, on the death of his father, Avery sold his Virginia property and business to a younger brother, and returned to Aurora to settle his father's estate.