Museum Features Old Hay Equipment

Museum Features Old Hay Equipment Joseph Dain took a lot of the work out of making hay. His company was so successful with their rakes, hay loaders and bale press that John Deere bought it. However, very few original Dain products still exist. Dave McEachren is a Dain Company historian and collects Dain sales literature. He does so in part because of the connection with Deere. Mainly, it’s because Dain grew up near McEachren’s on-farm museum with its 15,000 items related to Deere. “In the late 1800s, John Deere was essentially a tillage company and turned to outside entities to round out their line,” explains McEachren. “They looked at who had the best equipment lines and partnered with them. That was true of Van Brunt in drills and Dain with hay equipment. John Deere bought Dain in 1911.” McEachren has a few pieces of Dain equipment in his collection. A select few can be seen at the 1930’s Ag Museum in Quincy, Ill. The bulk of that collection consists of implements used with a 1936 Deere B. A few older pieces have slipped in over the years, according to Marvin Huber, son-in-law of museum founder Don McKinley. “We came across a 1902 wooden frame hay rake and sickle bar mower that were made by Dain, and also a couple of Dain corn cutters,” says Huber. “A friend of ours in Ottumwa, Iowa, has a Dain hay loader.” Other items made by Dain included sweep and power lift rakes, combination rakes and tedders, hay stackers and pump jacks, as well as the Handy Farm Mixer and hay presses later promoted under the John Deere name. One reason few implements survived was Dain’s use of wood, as in the hay rake frame. In his documentation of the hay rake, McKinley was impressed with the engineering. “The amount of wood is interesting, but the gearing is simply astounding,” says McKinley. “I’m sure that this 3-bar rake could go into the field today and throw up a windrow with the best rakes of today.” Dain didn’t stop with implements. After selling his company to Deere, he invented a 4-cyl., all-wheel, chain-drive tractor. In 1918, he manufactured 100 machines and sold them to Deere. The tractor had two forward speeds and two reverse speeds and could be shifted on the go. Although the East Moline factory where he built them later became John Deere Harvester Works, the company ultimately chose to move forward with the 2-cyl. Waterloo Boy. Like the rare Dain hay equipment, only two John Deere “Joe Dain” tractors are known to exist. One is owned and displayed by the Northern Illinois Steam Power Club in Sycamore, Ill. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dave McEachren, 4087 Olde Dr., Glencoe, Ontario, Canada N0L 1M0 (ph 519-931-1516; mceachrenfarms@aol.com) or 1930’s Ag Museum, 1435 Boy Scout Rd., Quincy, Ill. 62305 (ph 217-430-3036) or Northern Illinois Steam Power Club, 27707 Lukens Rd., Sycamore, Ill. 60178 (contact.nispc@gmail.com; www.sycamoresteamshow.com).

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