This is an excerpt from the E. R. Kuck biography of his great-grandfather, the Reverend F. H. W. Kuckherman. The entire biography is available on our website. (Click to read) After Rev. Kuckherman’s retirement from the ministry in 1890 he reverted back to using the name Henry Kuck, which he had used from the time he came here from Germany until his ordination into the ministry.
The New Idea
There was to be still another project to command Mr. Kuck’s attention and interest at this time. This venture concerned the idea of building a manure spreader. The account of this project as told this author by his father was as follows: Late in the fall of 1900 Mr. Kuck was visited at his home by two strangers who said they wanted the opportunity of knowing him personally. During the course of their conversation they dropped a bit of gossip that was to electrify his keen sense of mental observation. They said that they had heard that there was a man living at Maria Stein, Ohio, who had the feather-brained of building a manure spreader.
After these gentlemen had concluded their visit, Mr. Kuck immediately and enthusiastically addressed his grandson (my father) with the query, “Did you hear the part of their conversation about a man in Maria Stein who is working on the idea of building a manure spreader? What a wonderful new idea such a venture would represent. Can you imagine what such an invention would mean to every farmer in reducing his work load for the hardest, meanest, and most time-consuming task of all, that of disposing of his accumulated manure?” Instead of loading the manure on a wagon, unloading it in convenient piles on the field, then spreading it before the ground can be plowed – such an invention could accomplish the feat in a single operation. Certainly such an idea should not be the subject of gossip – it must be encouraged”.
Two days later Mr. Kuck left early in the morning to travel by horse and buggy to Maria Stein – approximately sixteen miles distant – to investigate the source of the gossip he had heard. Upon reaching the little village he soon met a Mr. Oppenheim who proudly confessed the fact that he was indeed working on such an idea. All that transpired at this original meeting can only be conjectured. Apparently the meeting was cordial and mutually satisfactory.
After this first meeting, as many as a dozen trips were made by Mr. Kuck to Maria Stein for the purpose of noting the progress being made with the building of the manure spreader and probably to talk with his newly found friend about the project. Concerning this venture, a single entry appears in his personal Journal as follows:
April 5, 1901 – paid to J. Oppenheim $150.00 for manure wagon. This notation does not elaborate as to whether this transaction represented a loan or payment for the first spreader to be built. It was almost two years from that date that Mr. Kuck was officially notified that the manure spreader was ready for delivery, complete with neck yoke and double trees. This was in April 1903, and my father left early the next morning, walking behind a span of horses, for Maria Stein. Upon arriving in the village, he hitched the team to the spreader wagon and, after receiving some last minute instructions regarding its operation, proceeded homeward with this “New Idea” spreader wagon.
On the following day this new invention was to receive its first trial run. Information concerning its delivery to the farm had quickly sifted through the community so that a crowd of several hundred farmers had assembled to watch the demonstration. Unfortunately, the spreader wagon had been ambitiously overloaded so that after about a third of the load had been successfully spread the chain web broke, making it necessary to unload the rest of the load by hand. On the following day, several mechanics arrived from Maria Stein to repair the break, after which the first manure spreader operated successfully for many years.
So ended this episode concerning Mr. Kuck’s interest in the development of the idea of a manure spreader. All that transpired during the various meetings between Mr. Kuck and the inventor – Mr. Oppenheim – is, of course, not known. It may be assumed, however, that the name “New Idea” as applied to the new invention, a name which was adopted by the company which was to further develop and promote it, came about at the suggestion of Mr. Kuck himself.
