Tag Archives: farmers

Searching for the “Chicken of Tomorrow”

Farming Ancestors, ,

As part of my presentation for the course “Not Just Farmers” at GRIP, I’ll be talking about inventions and ingenuity in agriculture over the years. Inventions and enhancements made the life of the farmer easier, improving labor conditions as well as yields of crops and animal products.

Prior to World War II, chickens were mostly bred for large eggs and large numbers of eggs. This was helpful during the Great Depression because farmers could get a protein source without sacrificing the hen. However, after WWII, chickens began being bred more for meat production, larger breasts, and better tasting meat. Howard C. Pierce worked as the “Poultry Research Director” for A&P Food Stores started the “Chicken of Tomorrow” contest, organized by the USDA and backed by A&P, aimed at breeding a better chicken.1

Indeed, there were advertisements and articles about the contest.2 The contest was seeking a “bird with a broader body and meatier drumsticks” with the ideal chicken having been determined by “months of research by leading poultry scientists and geneticists.” The prize would be a $5,000 cash award to the “poultryman who succeeds in producing the nearest equivalent to the ‘Chicken of Tomorrow'” specifications, within three years.

The Van Tress Hatchery of Maryville, California, was named the winner of the contest in June 1948. They developed a Cornish-New Hampshire crossbreed.3

The selective breeding boosted poultry yields that benefited the farmer’s sales and the food supply. Innovations and improvements have been a key part of agricultural life that we will discuss in the course.

1. Maryn McKenna, Big Chicken (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Partners, 2017), 150-151.↩

2. Here is one example of an article seeing the “Chicken of Tomorrow” (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-alexander-city-outlook-poultry-leade/145311611/)↩

3. Here is one of many articles that announced the winner (https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram-chicken-of-tom/145312527/)↩

Grist Mills

Farming Ancestors, , ,

My ancestor, William Long, was killed in a terrible grist mill accident at Gilboa, Putnam County, Ohio in 1861. The newspaper reported that his clothing got tangled in the belts and he was drug into the machinery, breaking every bone in his body.1

I will be talking about grist mills and this incident in my lecture on “Historical Side Hustles” in the “Not Just Farmers” course that this taking place at GRIP (virtual) in June. As part of the lecture, we are going to watch this video I found on how grist mills worked and thought I’d share it.

This video makes the grist mill look quite slow. However, grist mills were not just used for making flour. They also utilized the water-powered shafts to spin grinding wheels designed to sharpen tools. That’s what William was up to when he got caught in the machinery. He had gone to the mill “for the purpose of grinding his scythe; and while arranging the belt to the grindstone, his clothing was caught by another belt, and he was whirled around the shaft, which was making about ninety revolutions a minute…”

I then started looking at who owned the grist mill in Gilboa, where it was located, whether it was operated by water or not, and I came across an entry in the Putnam county history that stated that the first gristmill in Gilboa was opened by Elisha Stout in 1837.2 Gilboa is located on the Blanchard River, which also runs into Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio, where William Long lived.

Rereading the news article about William’s death, there is a section of the print that is hard to read, but now makes sense… “He went into Stout’s mill…” The news article print is faded:

Two lessons here… First, check YouTube for short videos on how things worked to better understand what our ancestors were doing and seeing everyday. Second, as you learn more, go back an reread the materials you’ve already collected. New information will pop out at you, and old information will make sense that didn’t before.

And a third, don’t wear loose-fitting clothing when working around fast-spinning belts. It can result in a “sad accident.”

1. “Sad Accidents” William Long obituary, Hancock (Findlay, Ohio) Courier, 23 August 1861, p. 3, col. 1.↩

2. George D. Kinder, History of Putnam County,Ohio: Its Peoples, Industries, and Institutions, (Indianapolis, Indiana: B. F. Bowen, 1915), p. 116; available on Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/historyofputnamc01kind.↩

Not Just Farmers…Ranchers Too!

Farming Ancestors, , , , ,

One of the topics I’ll be teaching in our “Not Just Farmers” course at GRIP Genealogy Institute is on ranching. both cattle and sheep. We really want to cover as many agricultural pursuits as possible, and ranching and farming are interconnected.

One topic I’ll be discussing is “Texas Fever,” and unlike “gold fever” “Texas Fever” was a bad thing.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 28 August 1855

“Texas Fever,” or “Texian Fever” as the above article called it, sometimes also called “Spanish Fever” was a disease that Texas cattle carried. They thought the disease was tick-borne and spread in southern cattle because the weather was not cold enough to kill the ticks or disease. The cattle would carry this disease on the long cattle drives to the north. Reports in newspapers in towns all along the famous cattle drive trails reported on this disease. The Texas cattle seemed to be immune to it but when they intermingled with other breeds in the north, the northern cattle died from it, causing farmers and ranchers to lose thousands of dollars in their businesses and livelihoods.

The problem was so harmful to northern herds that vigilante groups took action on their own until laws were passed to stop the importation of Texas cattle. A law was passed in Missouri 1855 that made it illegal to bring diseased cattle into the state with a penalty of a fine and killing of the cattle.1 In 1861, another Missouri law was passed attempting to control Texas Fever. The law appointed “three competent and discreet persons”  in each township to serve as cattle inspectors with the power to “examine all Texas, Mexican, or Indian stock” driven into the township. They could order the owner to removed the cattle and if the owner did not comply, they could call the sheriff to kill the cattle.2

Cattle tick fever is still a problem. “The pathogens that cause Texas cattle fever are transmitted from infected to non-infected cattle by two closely related tick species known as ‘cattle fever ticks.’ There are no vaccines or drugs available to prevent or cure Texas cattle fever.”3

1. Revised Statutes of Missouri, 1855, Volume 2 (Jefferson City, Missouri: 1856), 1104. ↩
2. Laws of the State of Missouri Passed at the Regular Session of the 21st General Assembly (Jefferson City, Missouri: 1861), 26. ↩
3. See “Eradicating Cattle Fever Ticks” from Texas A&M.]↩

Blogging has Taken a Backseat to Farming

Farming Ancestors, , , , , ,

Hello friends. You may have noticed (or maybe not) that my blog went a bit silent there for a bit. That’s because I’ve been in writing overdrive preparing for my newest course “Not Just Farmers: Records, Relationships, and the Reality of Their Lives” that will occur at the NGS GRIP Genealogy Institute (formerly the Genealogical Institute of Pittsburgh), virtually, June 23-28., 2024. Registration is now open. Of course, I’m not the only instructor. I am being joined by Cyndi Ingle and Paula Stuart-Warren as well.

I get tired of hearing genealogists of all kinds say “oh my ancestors weren’t that _____ (interesting, important, etc.) because they were ‘just farmers.'” There is a commonly held belief that they did not lead interesting or important lives, and that they just didn’t leave many records. So, this course is designed to defy all of those misconceptions. There is nothing more important than providing food and other necessary supplies to your family and community.

The focus of our course is on North American farming and agricultural ancestors and their families. The course will dispel the myth that our ancestors are “just farmers” without a rich and documented life. Farmers have often been dismissed by the assumption that there is not much to find or to learn about their lives and the issues they faced. The variety of records–often underused or undiscovered–give depth and breadth to the lives of our ancestors. Understanding the history of farming and learning about the unique records of the people, products, and land, will give a deeper picture of what hearty families we descend from. Students will build an “agricultural profile” for their farming ancestors by the end of the week. This profile can help to craft a robust background of their “just farmer” ancestors.

My Grandpa Karl Miller on His Tractor

The full breakdown of the courses and who will be teaching those can be seen on the GRIP website. My topics include:

  • Inventions and Ingenuity: Advancement in Farming Over Time
  • Get Along, Little Doggy! The Agricultural Contributions of Ranches
  • Historical Side-Hustles: Other Income Streams of Our Farming Ancestors
  • Farming Outside the Law: Squatters, Tax-Evaders, and Bootleggers
  • Female Farmers: Women’s Issues in Agricultural Families
  • Taking Care of the Farmers: Social Programs Benefitting Our Farming Ancestors
  • A Case Study – Building Your Ancestor’s Agricultural Profile

I am going to share tidbits that I’ve been writing and collecting for this course on my blog over the next several months. So, break out your bibbed-overalls and work boots, and hang on to the tractor’s steering wheel and let’s go for a hay ride through farming lives and their records. (Did I get enough farming metaphors in there?)