The "New Holland Machine: A Company Named After A Town" Story

 Preface:  My story today was written from a special supplement that was part of a newspaper article titled Lancaster Farming.  It tells a very brief history of New Holland Machine Company which began 125 years ago.  The story took 12 pages of typesetting to describe the business, but I have reduced it to less than one in order to keep your interest.  If I eliminated parts of the history, I apologize, but I believe you will still get the basic story of one of the world's largest and best known agricultural companies.  A company that grew up right her in Lancaster County a few miles from where I am typing this story today.

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting in my lounge chair reading a supplement to Lancaster, Pennsylvania's LNP newspaper.  The supplement is titled "125 Years, New Holland."  In 2020, New Holland Company celebrated 125 years of farming, ranching and building industries.  It was in 1895 that Abram Zimmerman opened a modest machine shop in a horse barn on New Holland's North Railroad Avenue.  Abe's claim to fame was an improved hit-and-miss gasoline engine.  Engines that existed at the time could be damaged when the coolant water expanded and froze on cold winter nights.  He added a coolant tank that had an open-topped trapezoidal shape similar to a watering trough.  In his engine, the water expanded harmlessly upward as it froze.  He turned his machine shop into a company that incorporated in 1903 with Zimmerman as the CEO.  He produced feed mills and rock crushers.  New Holland Machine had been born, named after the town in which Zimmerman lived.  The company began making everything from lawn mowers and conveyor belts to concrete mixers.  The company struggled during the depression and when it appeared futile, a new management group was formed to take over.  The group was led by J. Henry Fisher who had assembled three young men to work with him at A.M. Dellinger Co., a machinery manufacturer in Lancaster.  One recruit was Irl Daffin who had grown up on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  At the age of 14 he became his town's barber.  Another recruit was Raymond "Bucky" Buckwalter who farmed in nearby Warwick Township and was one of the first people to offer automobile leasing in Lancaster county.  Bucky then recruited his boyhood friend George Delp who had grown up on a tobacco farm on what is now Delp Road in Manheim Township.  The team of Fisher, Buckwalter, Daffin and Delp managed to secure the funding to buy a major stake in the company and keep it going.  They finally decided they needed a hot new product to increase the company's fortunes.  At the same time, Edwin Nolt, a mechanical innovator, had developed a smoothly working baler, but didn't have the necessary funding to begin a business.  

The first baler Ed Nolt designed

He eventually hooked up with the New Holland group.  At the time, WWII was being fought and all metal was needed for troop machinery.  This meant that all other companies were in the same position as New Holland, but by the end of the war New Holland was one of the world's 10 largest farm equipment companies.  But, they needed money for expansion.  Another group known as Sperry, who had made gyroscopes and sights for military bombers had a farm man as one of their leaders.  Mr. Sperry was impressed with New Holland and they joined forces in 1947.  In the 1940s the company had the slogan of "First in Grassland Farming" and was selling, testing and building equipment across the Unite States.  In 1964 New Holland had sales of $100 million.  The company eventually expanded to Canada, Belgium, Brazil and Japan and now has operations in most of the countries in the world.  What was neat was that a world-wide company was being managed from a small community in a farming area in Lancaster county, PA.  

The baler assembly line in the 1950s.

All those guys have now died, but Sperry New Holland is still around.  In 1980 they had sales of $1 billion.  But a farm crisis arrived about the same time and Ford ended up purchasing Sperry New Holland which made it one of the three largest farm machinery businesses in the world; right here in New Holland!  Six year later they became a subsidiary of the Italian conglomerate Fiat.  The company now has 64 manufacturing plants, a dozen research and developmental centers, and a workforce of more than 65,000 people across the globe.  The company's technology is far more advanced that it was 125 years ago, but what hasn't changed is that the company is still in the little town of New Holland which has a population a bit over 5,000.  And, there is still plenty of farmland nearby to test whatever they may try to make.  Generation after generation of workers fill the plant which still holds an annual gathering for present and past employees.  Last year it drew over 1,000 people.  

The baler line as seen today.

Even after 125 years, New Holland continues to look to the future of farming.  16 acres of hemp grew near the plant this year on their research farm.  They are now studying alternate fuels to run their equipment.  At New Holland, nothing could be more traditional than innovation. And, what's neat is I drive through New Holland quite a few times every year and am still amazed that we have perhaps one of the largest farm machinery companies in the world a few miles from my house.  And, just in case you didn't know... Lancaster County is known as the "Garden Spot of America."  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.