Remembering the Rude Brothers

Read about a little-known manufacturer of farm implements and the mark it left on the history of early American agriculture.

By Sam Moore
Published on March 17, 2022
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An advertisement for the Indiana five-hoe, one-horse grain drill from the 1883 Rude catalog.

Not long ago, I had an email from a gentleman that asked, “Do you know anything about the Jewel horse-drawn wheat drill 5-hole?”

Rude Bros. Mfg. Co., Liberty, Indiana, made the Indiana brand grain drills, one of which was the 5-hole Jewel model. If planted after corn, wheat or barley needed to be sown in the fall before the corn was typically harvested. That was the reason for the 3- and 5-row walk-behind drills that were popular during the late 19th century and well into the 20th. At one time, farmers walked between the corn rows and sowed seed by hand – not an easy task. In fact, in 1878, a Freedom Home, Kentucky, farmer named Frank Lee wrote to the Rude brothers in a testimonial, “Gents: I am much better pleased with the drill than I expected to be. I have hired it to a couple of neighbors and they are perfectly delighted with it. It saved me more than half my expenses (and) putting corn in wheat is no longer a dread.”

A Rude Bros. ad from 1911 tell us that the firm was established in 1865 while in the Union County, Indiana, public library there is a brief history of Rude Bros. that dates from around the turn of the 20th century.

The history states that “three young men whose genius for mechanics was applied to the repair and construction of simple farm implements” began in an 18- by 24-foot building on a farm 3-1/2 miles northwest of Liberty. The “three young men” were brothers John R., Squire B., and George W. Rude.

The history went on: “Success with these early simple farm implements stimulated their ambition to attempt greater things and the united efforts of these three young men originated one of Liberty’s leading enterprises, commonly known as Rudes’ Shop.”

In 1869, the brothers’ success led them to move their enterprise to a “small frame building” on the edge of Liberty, where it was still located at the time of writing this history. We learn that “the original shop had no steam power and the only machine used was a hand drill, which all parts were put together with the hand-powered drawing knife and hand plane. The first machine made was a one-horse wheat drill on which Letters Patent were granted by the U.S. Patent Office in 1866. Steam power was installed in 1875 and with the advent of this, they began to make implements of a higher order.”

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