• 1895 photograph of Oscar H. Will taken by I.U. Doust, Syracuse, N.Y. Oscar was raised on a farm south of Syracuse at Pompey, N.Y. (State Historical Society of North Dakota 0029-001).
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Seed Corn to Shelterbelts
Will's Pioneer Brand helped settle the Northern Plains – and remains a popular ephemera collectible
By Oscar H. Will III and Erin C. Will
The Pioneer Brand today is universally associated with Pioneer Hybrids International, a DuPont company headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. However, that trademark was first associated with a Bismarck, Dakota Territory, seed and nursery business created in the early 1880s by Oscar H. Will. Will's Pioneer Brand seed served farmers and gardeners around the world for more than 75 years, reaching customers through a colorful, informative and now collectible annual mail-order catalog. The value of that trademark was such that its sale to Pioneer Hybrids proved it to be one of the largest assets of Oscar H. Will & Co. in the late 1950s.
Oscar and his son, George F. Will, introduced important agricultural varieties of corn and beans, in addition to hardy and fast-maturing vegetables for northern gardens. It wasn't all about seeds, however, as the company also introduced many hardy trees and shrubs, including the Russian olive in 1906, and supplied millions of trees to the windswept region. Although the company was voluntarily liquidated in 1959, its legacy lives.
Heirloom seed suppliers continue to offer many of the company's corn and vegetable seeds, and dry bean enthusiasts select Will's Great Northern by the tons at grocery stores nationwide. Scholars discuss the significance of the company's impact on modern agriculture in the north, including a recent report that credits Will's Northwestern Dent corn with providing at least 5 percent of the genetic background of all modern corn hybrids in the U.S. And people interested in early American commercial art – especially related to agriculture – collect ephemera from the once thriving company.
Cataloging history
Within just a few years, the company's name was changed to Oscar H. Will & Co. to reflect a brief partnership, and shortly after, the moniker “Pioneer Seed House of the Northwest” appeared on catalog covers along with the registered trademark “Will's Pioneer Brand.” By the early 1900s, the catalog had grown in size and circulation, reaching as far as Russia, South Africa and Colombia. The larger catalog featured a color cover and was more agriculturally oriented, focusing especially on field corn, and later hybrid field corn. At its peak, Will & Co.'s catalog grew to more than 80 pages and had a circulation of about half a million.
Will & Co.'s catalogs chronicled early corn variety development and hybridization in the northern plains, and the agricultural contributions of Native American farmers who successfully worked that land long before European contact. Oscar and his son, George, were keenly aware of the skill of Native farmers in both seed selection and growing practices, and much of the company's ongoing success was the direct result of gifts of seed from Native American friends. For example, Will & Co.'s most famous introduction, the Great Northern bean, was selected from a leather pouch of seed given to Oscar in 1883 by Son of Star (Son of a Star in some references), a Hidatsa man living at the Ft. Berthold Reservation.
Although Oscar was generous in crediting his Native American friends for their gifts of seed, most of his early catalog covers were fairly traditional for the time, adorned with fantastical floral or vegetable still-life images. This was not the case later in the company's history, as George became more influential, taking control of the company on his father's death in 1917. George was a passionate student of the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa people, all of who farmed along the upper reaches of the Missouri River before Oscar arrived in the territory.
The cover of the 1911 catalog was the first to formally celebrate the Native American connection. Two panels commemorated the 1882 gift of “Squaw” corn to Oscar by Native American farmers as the basis for then modern varieties. Oscar developed two important and long-lasting varieties of field corn known as Dakota White Flint and Gehu Flint from that initial gift of multi-colored corn; both were still listed in the 1959 catalog.
In 1913, Will & Co.'s catalog cover featured a spray of flowers alongside a picture of the statue of Sakakawea on the grounds of the North Dakota State Capitol. The cover of the 1919 catalog featured a painting of a Native American woman cultivating corn with a hoe fashioned from a bison shoulder blade – the caption referred to her as a “Pioneer Agriculturist.” Field corn varieties such as Will & Co.'s Gehu Yellow Flint, Will's Dakota White Flint, Northwestern Dent, Pioneer White Dent and Square Deal Dent were also featured on the 1919 cover. By this time, the company offered a “Pioneer Indian Collection” of garden seed that included, among other items, Mandan Squash, a couple varieties of Native American corn, and Native American beans. Later catalogs would identify some of the varieties in the collection as Arikara Yellow bean, Hidatsa red bean, and Mandan sweet corn, to name a few.
Throughout the 1920s to the company's closing, most catalog cover images were painted by regionally known artist, poet and George's good friend, Clell G. Gannon. The covers often illustrated aspects of Native American agriculture or ritual, affirming George's genuine interest in Native American farming and culture. For example, the image on the cover of the 1937 catalog depicts a Mandan Corn Priest blessing seed corn before planting, while the cover on the 1941 catalog shows Scattered Corn, a Mandan woman, hand-shelling ear corn into a woven basket.