John Samuel Rowell

John Samuel Rowell (April 1, 1825 – October 23, 1907) was a noted agricultural inventor and pioneer manufacturer. Born in Springwater, New York, and living his adult life in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, he held more than 40 patents for farm machinery and agricultural implement improvements, including the patent on the cultivator tooth. He is the great grandfather of Theodore H. Rowell, noted Minnesota pharmaceutical inventor and entrepreneur.

JS Rowell in the 1870s.

Early life

At the age of 15, he went to work for his brother George Rowell in Goshen, Indiana, who owned a plow foundry and blacksmith's shop, and learned the trade of plow making. John saved his money and at the age of 18, traded his earthly possessions for plow castings, borrowed some carpenters tools and axes, went into the timber, and by himself, chopped down the trees, hewed and scored the sills and framework and constructed his first foundry and factory. He then began turning out cast iron plows from his new foundry. The endeavors of an 18 year old to build a foundry created some interest in the surrounding countryside. He conducted this business for about 3 years and saved $1,500.00.

The JS Rowell factory in the late 1800s.

The JS Rowell Manufacturing Company

In 1855, he purchased a small building and foundry for $400 on Mill Street, later named Rowell Street, in Beaver Dam, Wisc., which he used to make plows to sell to the local trade. Upon purchasing, he moved his family to the small apartment upstairs. He was obsessed with the idea of improving the old methods of soil cultivation. His inventive genius and perseverance enabled him to make his dreams become a reality and become a benefactor to mankind. In 1860 he built and patented the first successful "broad case seeder" ever put on the market. In 1861, he built a combination seeder-cultivator with a "Slip Tooth" to prevent breakage when hitting rocks while cultivating, which he patented, and this was to guarantee his success. He incorporated the compan in 1880 with $100,000 in capital stock. By this time, he was receiving royalties from numerous companies in the seeder cultivator industry including the Van Brunt Seeder Manufactory in Horicon, Wisconsin which was later purchased in 1912 by John Deere. Rowell also invented the "Force Feed" for grain drills, harrows, hay rakes, fanning mills, and Tiger Threshing machines. Sales of these machines were through out the midwest, Canada, Germany, South America, Russia, to which many Rowell Tiger Threshers were sold , and South Africa. He has built up one of the largest manufactories of the state, and gained for himself a comfortable fortune, with the factory's value of the output at a quarter of a million dollars annually, with more than 200 employees.

The JS Rowell employees about 1869.

Rowell was vigillent in defending his patents, even fighting patent infringements all the way to the US Supreme Court. In Rowell v. Lindsey, 113 US 97 (1885) [1], JS and his brother Ira filed with the court to restrain the infringement of reissued letters patent No. 2,909, dated March 31, 1868, one of only 5 or 6 patent cases ever heard by the court. The court found that the defendants had not used every element of the Rowell Patent and therefore dismissed the plaintiff's case.

Politics

JS Rowell served as Mayor of the city of Beaver Dam for 2 terms first in 1868 and later in 1886, and as alderman for 2 terms. He also had an unsuccessful run for the Republican candidate for US House of Representatives around 1880.

Career and Accomplishments

The name John S. Rowell, founder and president of the J. S. Rowell Manufacturing Company, makers of the Tiger Seeders and Grain Drills, hay rakes, and cultivators, should occupy a high place in the list of inventors of practical agricultural implements. Like a number of men of his time, he achieved success in the agrucultural implement world with no opportunity other than those produced by his own efforts. He was also one of the 1881 incorporators and a Director of the Beaver Dam Cotton Mills, as a founding incorporator and director of the Beaver Dam Malleable Iron Works, Beaver Dam Electric Light Company, and President of the Old National Bank in Beaver Dam from 1896 until his death in 1907.

On the occasion of Rowell’s death, the Mayor or Beaver Dam M.J. Jacobs proclaimed, “For over sixty years [Rowell] has been an upright, enterprising, industrious, patriotic, public spirited and continuous resident of our city, and at all times prominently identified with its industrial development and business life. Furthermore, Mayor Jacobs requested “…that all business places, manufacturing concerns, and official places of business be closed during the afternoon of his funeral on Wednesday, October 23, 1907 from 1 until 4:30 o’clock, and that the city flag during all of said be displayed at half mast, and that all our citizens who can conveniently do so, attend the funeral of one of the most worthy and esteemed citizens who has ever resided in our midst.”

Patents

• Improvements in Water Wheels, No. 23,611 dated April 12, 1859
• Improvement in Seeding Machines, No. 36,672 dated October 14, 1862;
• Improvement in Cultivators, No. 56,102 dated July 3, 1866
• New and Improved Cultivator, No. 2,909 dated March 31, 1868
• Cultivator Tooth, No. 232,850 dated October 5, 1880;
• Cultivator Tooth, No. 10,076 dated April 4, 1882;
• Seeder or Cultivator Tooth, No. 256,922 dated April 25, 1882.

References

• Dodge County Citizen, October 23, 1907
• 100th Anniversary, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, 1941
• The History of Dodge County Wisconsin, Western Historical Company, 1880, Pg 594
• Men of Progress. Wisconsin. MILWAUKEE: The Evening Wisconsin Company. 1897. Pg 154-155.
• Rowell v. Lindsey, 113 US 97 (1885) [2]
• Dodge County Citizen, Oct. 23, 1907, Page 1.