Farming was a laborious job before the invention of the plow. In Shelby County, as the pioneers began clearing the land for farming, those men found ways to increase the effectiveness of clearing land for crops. Initially plows were wood, often little more than a forked stick. Later metal tips were added to the wood to allow it to last a little longer. Farmers broke sod and cultivated the American prairies using horse-and oxen-drawn moldboard plows.
Young Daniel Toy worked his way on foot, with his family from New Jersey to Mansfield, Ohio to Brandt, Ohio, then on to Troy, Ohio. Along the way, Daniel worked on his skills with metal work and making wagons for the Mexican War and constructing an early form of iron plow. Having learned the plow building trade in his travels, he went into business with Colonel William Swain for two years in Troy. Daniel purchased part of a load of steel which was being transported along the National Road (U.S. 40) to the John Deere plow shop in Illinois. When the shipper returned along the road two months later Daniel Toy had fashioned five new steel plows. Before his arrival in Sidney around 1848, Daniel Toy laid claim to being the first person to make a steel plow in the country.
Steel Plows were destined to revolutionize agriculture because it made tilling the fields much easier. History records that John Deere was the first to invent a steel plow, but undoubtedly Daniel Toy made one of the first.
The arrival of the Toy family in Sidney, along with Christian Kingseed plow works, gave the town its first small industry. Toy set up his first shop on West Avenue in the first courthouse built in Sidney. The building was moved from Ohio Avenue over to West Avenue and repurposed as was often the case in those days. Many early plows were formed here that put area farmers on the cutting edge of agriculture beginning in the early 1850s. The Toy plows were instrumental in constructing the roadbeds for the C.H.&D. railroad beginning in the 1850s.
G.G. Haslup also worked in the iron and steel foundry business. Daniel Toy and Christian Kingseed sold their shop to John Heiser, and Mr. Toy entered a partnership with G.G. Haslup. Toy married Mary White Haslup, thus uniting the Toy and Haslup families in one of Sidney’s first great business unions. Toy and Haslup also manufactured a sulky plow invented by Benjamin Slusser.
William Minor Toy, Daniel’s son, placed a newspaper advertisement in the 1880s calling on customers to bring their plows in to be repaired by his father.
Notoriety of the Sidney plow makers such as Toy, Kingseed and Heiser soon spread to adjoining states. Sales outside Ohio were brisk. A Peoria, Illinois businessman wrote a letter to a Sidney resident in 1912, telling of a finely made 1868 steel plow made in Sidney, Ohio. The talents of Daniel Toy were passed down to his son William Minor Toy. W.M. Toy was the head of the W.M. Toy & Company. Sutton’s History of Shelby County reported that by 1881 this business was making up to 300 plows annually at its South Main Avenue location.
Innovation of the plow had a huge impact on agriculture.