Inventor James B. Hill

As every 3rd grade student in Findlay can tell you, our town was once on the edge of the Great Black Swamp. In the early years our town struggled to remain afloat, literally, as logs were laid for roads only to sink in the mud and crops were planted only to drown before they started to grow. Our ancestors drained the watery disturbance, but we never really conquered it.

 Even today we have an excess of water on the ground and moisture in the air. Ditches and drainage pipes are important, and the early settlers knew that. In fact, the need of trenches to gather water lead to a revolutionary piece of farm machinery that ended up changing work around the world.

That important piece of equipment was ultimately known as the Buckeye Ditcher. It was invented by James B. Hill in 1893, a native of Bowling Green. As he was a farmer, Hill was fully aware of the problems created by the Black Swamp. Hill moved to Deshler, then Carey, and finally Van Buren, where the Ditcher got its name.

Every machine that was sold came with an engineer who would help set the Ditcher up and make sure the new owner knew how to use it. Once the width, depth and grade of the ditch were decided, the machine was placed on the land, ready to go. The back of the Ditcher contained a boiler that that required a man to constantly shovel coal in it. The coal would heat the water that would turn into steam, and it was the steam that would power the operation. Several small gears would turn, ultimately turning a giant wheel.

 It was that wheel, which contained steel buckets, that would dig into the ground. The dirt would fall onto a conveyor belt, and then be moved to the ground beside the new ditch. This would give a worker the space required to lay the tile that would carry the water away. One man would ride on the left side of the Ditcher to steer it.

Today the Buckeye Ditcher of our ancestors seems primitive, and even dangerous. There was no cover, so all the gears were exposed. Still, the Ditcher revolutionized agriculture. It was so good at its job that the Ditcher was used in Egypt to create an irrigation system along a stretch of the Nile River. The land there had been barren since before the time of Moses, but was usable after the Buckeye Ditcher came along. The Ditcher was also shipped to Venezuela, where the government thought a machine would be more practical and efficient then manpower.

From 1893-1973 the manufacturers of the Buckeye Ditcher worked hard to improve the machine by making it bigger and more efficient. The Ohio Locomotive Crane Company of Bucyrus now manufactures a version of the Ditcher, but its fame has been left to history. Of course, Hancock County no longer shares its space with the Black Swamp, but we still work against the water that threatens our crops, using many of the same ditches that were created by the Bucker Ditcher.

New Ditcher ready for work