Buckeye
Traction Ditcher by
Alan Borer
Most
northwest Ohioans know that our home was once an impenetrable, dangerous
swamp. The Black Swamp stretched from
Sandusky toward the Indiana line, with its deepest parts running parallel to
the Maumee River and stretching south toward Findlay. Settlement of the swamp lands lagged to least
20 years behind the rest of Ohio. Two
hundred years later, with the exception of a couple of nature preserves west of
Toledo, the swamp is gone without a trace.
That is the story of why the area, especially Wood County,
is flat and crisscrossed by mile upon mile of ditch. To drain the Black Swamp, and create usable
land for farms and, later, industry, the state of Ohio had to lower the water
table. In a swamp, the water table is at
the surface. It was necessary to lower
the water table by ten feet or more to avoid surface water and in effect fix
the water table several miles below the surface.
Like any modern construction project, the state bid out
the gargantuan effort of digging ditches surrounding every square mile of
swampland. Like every state-financed
construction project, the money gushing out of Columbus was an impetus for
economic development. Ditch diggers,
mostly foreign born, had to be hired.
Workers had to be fed, clothed, and sheltered, however poorly. Ditchers died at high rates from malaria;
money was needed to purchase quinine, doctors’ fees, and hospitals, however
primitive. And a steady stream of tools
and machines were needed, growing larger and more complex as the project became
more sophisticated.
The Buckeye Traction Ditcher Company was one of the companies
that profited by the desire to drain the swamp.
Located in Findlay near the southern edge of the swamplands, Buckeye
Traction provided huge machines that replaced the Irish and German hand-diggers
after the Civil War. By using steam
power to dig ditches and finally break the Black Swamp’s stranglehold on the
area, the company thrived by applying local industry to a local problem. But an industry built on solving a finite
problem has a finite life, unless it could change with the times. Buckeye Traction faced this hurdle when the
swamp was gone.
Buckeye Traction and its ditching machines were the
brainchild of a Bowling Green mechanic named James B. Hill. Hill, a machinist, patented his first ditcher
in 1894. Moving to Deshler, Carey, and
finally Findlay by 1902, Hill built ditchers in all three locations. The Findlay foundry of Van Buren, Heck and
Marvin produced the machines, changing its name to Buckeye Steam Traction in
1906. Keeping abreast of changes, steam
was replaced by gasoline in 1908, and diesel in the 1920s, as the motive power.
Instead of a shovel or vertical
digger, the Buckeye ditchers utilized a huge digging wheel:
The
revolutionary design of the ditcher digging wheel had neither an axle nor
spokes, enabling the machine to dig a deeper trench that was uniform in size
and grade.. . .. Buckeye Traction Ditcher Company grew into the largest tile
ditching and construction trenching company in the world and remained so for
over fifty years.. . . . The steam-driven ditcher cut in a single motion along a
consistent gradient and was operated by two laborers. These machines replaced
slow and costly hand labor.
One of the machines, number 88, can still be seen at the
Hancock Historical Museum in Findlay.[i] The machines sold in Ontario, as well as
Africa. To train foreign users, Buckeye sent skilled engineers to teach the
machine’s use.
About 700
Buckeye Ditchers were sold before 1910.
In the years after, a total of 2000 were built by the firm. Sales declined as the swamp was drained, but
this is not to suggest that the company is gone. Just as the Black Swamp temporarily reappears
in the puddles left by a sudden, heavy rainfall, Buckeye Traction Ditcher
survives in smaller forms.
The firm has
since switched ownership several times, including Garwood and Sergeant
Industries. The company discontinued production in Findlay in 1973, although
Ohio Locomotive Crane Company of Bucyrus is manufacturing a version of the
machine. Buckeye's product line is still being marketed today by H & S
Company, an agricultural drainage equipment dealer in Celina, Ohio.
And
what happened to inventor James B. Hill?
In 1908 Hill moved to Raceland, Louisiana,
where as a farmer he developed seed corn, known as Hill's White Cob and Yellow
Dent, which was sold in many parts of the United States and South America. He
also continued development work on components of the modern tank and on
equipment used in draining swamplands in Louisiana.
While living the remainder of his life in
Louisiana, on his death in 1945 he was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in
Findlay.[ii]
So the next time you drive through Wood and Hancock
counties, remember that this is a totally man-made landscape. For better or worse, the change was made by
men using Buckeye Steam Traction Ditchers.
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