John Deere

John Deere was born on February 7, 1804, in Rutland, Vermont, to William Rinold Deere and Sarah Yates. His father disappeared when John was four years old, presumed drowned on a voyage to England, and he was raised in modest circumstances in Middlebury, Vermont. At seventeen, he apprenticed as a blacksmith under Benjamin Lawrence, completing four years of apprenticeship before working as a journeyman craftsman in several Vermont towns. By the early 1830s, mounting debts and limited opportunity in New England prompted his decision to move west to Illinois, where he arrived in Grand Detour in 1836 and established the blacksmith shop that would eventually become one of America's greatest industrial enterprises.

John Deere (1804-1886) was an American blacksmith, inventor, and manufacturer whose invention of the self-scouring steel plow in 1837 transformed prairie agriculture and launched one of the most enduring companies in American industrial history. A perfectionist craftsman who insisted that every product bearing his name be made of the highest available quality materials, Deere established the brand identity of quality and reliability that has remained central to John Deere's competitive positioning for nearly two centuries. He served as president of Deere & Company from its formal incorporation in 1868 until 1886, when his son Charles assumed the presidency. Deere was also a civic leader in Moline, Illinois, serving as mayor from 1873 to 1875. He died on May 17, 1886, in Moline, having lived long enough to see the company he founded grow into the most important agricultural equipment manufacturer in North America. His famous dictum—that he would never put his name on a product that didn't have the best that was in it—remains a guiding principle in Deere & Company's operational culture today.