Benjamin Holt - Manufactured Tractors

Manufactured Tractors

Benjamin Holt arrived in California in 1883. The Holt brothers formed the Stockton Wheel Company to season woods in a way that would prepare them for use in the arid valleys of California and deserts of the West. They based their new venture in the warm Central Valley town of Stockton, California, where the climate was suitable for drying wooden wheels. They invested $65,000 into a factory equipped with the best machinery available. Stockton, about 90 miles (140 km) east of San Francisco, was accessible by sea-going ship and riverboat via the San Joaquin River. By 1883 the brothers had 25 men on the payroll in a three-story brick building and a one-story wood frame building in Stockton.

Benjamin was acknowledged by his family as an entrepreneurial and mechanical genius. Most of the surrounding fields were recovered from the delta of the San Joaquin River. Much of it was planted in wheat and Benjamin Holt produced his first horse-drawn "Link-Belt Combined Harvester." This machine used flexible chain belts rather than gears to transmit power from the ground wheels to the working mechanism, reducing breakage and down time. While manufacturing coach and wagon wheels and carriage bodies, Benjamin saw a need for mechanical Traction engines to replace horse-drawn machinery.

In 1890, Holt built his first experimental steam traction engine, nicknamed "Old Betsy". It developed 60 horsepower (45 kW) on a 24 feet (7.3 m)-long frame from a single 11 inches (280 mm)-diameter, 12 inches (300 mm)-stroke piston. It could burn wood, coal, or oil as fuel. Carrying 675 US gallons (2,560 l; 562 imp gal) of water, it weighed 48,000 pounds (22,000 kg) and rode on huge metal wheels. Holt’s tractors could harvest large fields for one-sixth the cost of a horse-drawn combine. Foresters soon adapted them to haul Redwood logs out of road-less forests.

In 1892 the Holts manufactured a steam-driven tractor capable of hauling 50 short tons (45 t) of freight at 3 miles per hour (4.8 km/h). Up to this time animal power was used to haul goods, so the tractor was a huge innovation. Benjamin Holt became president that year and the company was incorporated as the Holt Manufacturing Company.

One of his next innovations was to produce a side-hill harvester. He added two separate wooden frames which allowed the drive wheels to be raised or lowered independent of each other. This allowed the combine to operate on slopes as steep as 30 degrees while the threshing machine remained horizontally. However, the machine was 36 feet (11 m) wide and required 20 or more horses or mules to pull it.

Benjamin's brother Ames Frank Holt died on October 7, 1889. In 1890, Benjamin married Anne Brown, daughter of Stockton pioneer Benjamin Eseck Brown and Lucy May Dean. Within five years, his two older brothers also died. William Harrison Holt died on February 15, 1904 and Charles Henry Holt died on July 8, 1905, leaving Benjamin in charge. Benjamin and Anne had five children: Alfred, William Knox, Anne, Edison Ames, and Benjamin Dean. William followed his father into the business as an adult.

While over 100 related patents for crawler-type tractor treads had already been issued worldwide, all failed to work in the field. The center of innovation was in England, and in 1903 Holt traveled to England to learn more about ongoing development, though all those he saw failed field tests. Benjamin returned to Stockton and utilizing his knowledge and his company metallurgical capabilities he became the first to design and manufacture a practical continuous tracks for use in tractors. On November 24, 1904, in the fields around Stockton, California, he successfully demonstrated the first successful track-type tractor.