Heirloom organic gardening, along with vintage garden tools and equipment has been an interest of mine for many years. One particular piece of vintage garden equipment is the gravely tractor, a tractor that can be considered an heirloom in many instances. It is a piece of equipment that is commonly past down through generations.
Benjamin Franklin Gravely, a photographer by trade, decided that there had to be an easier way to prepare a garden than with a push cultivator. Putting his creative mind to work, and having a goal to build a tractor that would revolutionize gardening and lawn maintenance for the homeowner, Gravely manufactured a motor plow by attaching a hand-pushed plow to an auxiliary Indian motorcycle engine and driven by belts. This invention proved to be the prototype of what would become known as the Gravely Model D garden tractor, which he patented in 1916
Significant Dates in The History of Gravely®
- 1876: Benjamin Franklin Gravely was born in Henry
County, Va.
- 1915: Gravely builds the first motorized plow using a
push plow and the parts from an Indian® motorcycle.
- 1916: Gravely obtains a U.S.patent to build the
Gravely Motor Plow.
- 1922: Ben Gravely assembles Charleston
business investors and incorporates $200,000 worth of stock to start
the Gravely Motor Plow and Cultivator Company.
- 1922: The first Model D single-wheeled,
2.5-horsepower cultivator rolls off the factory floor in Dunbar.
- 1937: Gravely controller D. Ray Hall
purchases the company from Ben Gravely.
- 1941 to 1945: Limited Gravelys are sold on the home
front. Substantial
numbers are manufactured and shipped overseas, where they were used by
the U.S. Armed Forces.
- 1953: Benjamin Gravely dies at
age the of 76.
- 1960: Studebaker Packard Corp.
purchases the company from D. Ray Hall.
- 1967: Studebaker merges with Worthington
Corp. to become Studebaker-Worthington Corp.
- 1968: The last Gravely Tractor rolls off
the Dunbar factory floor. Gravely operations
move to Clemmons, N.C.
- 1970: Gravely is merged with Studebaker’s
Clarke Division to form Clarke-Gravely Corp.
- 1979: McGraw Edison purchases
Studebaker, including Clarke-Gravely Corp.
- 1982: Cooper Industries
purchases McGraw Edison and puts Gravely up for sale.
- 1982:Gravely is acquired by
Ariens Company of Brillion, Wis.
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