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It All Started With a Steel Plow
Celebrating 175 years of commitment to those linked to the land
Our roots go back to 1837 and John Deere's one-man blacksmith shop. We're proud of this heritage and are excited about a future full of opportunities to help meet the world's growing need for food, shelter, and infrastructure.
We're celebrating all of this in 2012, our 175th anniversary, and we hope you'll join in.
The man behind the name In addition to being our company's founder and innovator of the self-scouring steel plow, John Deere was a father and active public servant.
He had nine children (Francis, Charles, Hiram, Jeannette, Ellen, Frances, Emma, Alice, and Mary) with his wife, Demarius Lamb. One year after Demarius died, he married her sister, Lucenia. He was an active abolitionist. He hand-delivered books and candles to local schools. Always the innovator, he cooled his Moline home using a large clay pipe that pulled cool air from the ground and circulated it through the house. Read the entire John Deere biography.
Do you have any John Deere bathing suits?
We get that question a lot. In fact, we have John Deere's bathing suit. Given to Deere & Company by William Hewitt, Deere family member and one-time president of the company, the suit probably dates to about 1870.
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The ultimate wedding gift
John Deere made this skillet as a wedding gift for a couple in Rochester, Vermont. It's one of very few items existing today known to have been made by John Deere.
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The Plow that Started it All
In 1837, John Deere was a typical blacksmith turning out hayforks, horseshoes, and other essentials for prairie life. Then one day, a broken steel sawmill blade gave him an opportunity.
Read more about John Deere's steel plow
Our Heritage of Values
Deere & Company is one of the world's most admired businesses - an achievement that's the result of 175 years of hard work and dedication. We work every day to uphold our founder's core values: integrity, quality, commitment and innovation. These are more than ideals we work toward. We live them. We breathe them. These values are the driving force in how we work, and are behind every product, service and opportunity we offer you.
Read more about our core values.
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