In 1905, a Connersville man named Eddy R. Brookbank came up with a device that might have-could have changed the face of American agriculture. But, it didn’t.
Brookbank, who wasn’t living in Connersville at the time, had patented a device he called the Equipoise Cultivator. Built by the Buechner Manufacturing Co. of Battle Creek, Michigan, the device hit the market around 1909 and was in demand for a short period of time.
A newspaper article out of Battle Creek described it as “a new farm tool in the line of sulky or wheel cultivator that bids fair to out-rival anything heretofore made in its line.”
Good news so far. “Through the peculiar construction of this cultivator, the shovels will always enter the soil, regardless of its condition, and will cultivate the soil at an even depth whether shallow or deep. Aside from these features, which have never before been introduced in a riding cultivator, the shovel gange are forward of the operator so that the corn, etc., is in full view and also the weight is entirely removed from the necks of the horses.”
Brookbank received a patent for the Equipoise in May 1906 and set about marketing the machine across several states. In what appears to have been a plan he made up as he went along, Brookbank was usually on hand to demonstrate, explain, and … of course, sell.
The term “equipoise” wasn’t uncommon in those days, though we seldom hear it today. It generally means, balanced in the middle. The word was described to explain how a telephone arm could be handy in an office. “Works like the human arm,” one ad claimed in a 1906 Washington Post.
Brookbank worked the county fairs in Liberty, Brookville and Connersville to sell his cultivator and there’s evidence the machine was popular in the Plains states, chiefly Kansas and Oklahoma in the wheat fields, in 1910.
“Have you seen the new Equipoise Adjustable cultivator?” one agricultural paper asked in May 1910. “It is the most complete farming tool ever placed on the market.” It came with a guarantee. “You may use it until the first of June (about a month) and if not satisfied or won’t do the work, bring it in and get your paper. This is something entirely new, never was in this county before, some sold in the East last year.” (Cherokee, Okla., 4-29-1910).
By then, the cultivator was being made by a firm called Page Woven Wire Fence Co. of Adrian, Mich, though the Battle Creek firm of Buechner Manufacturing had been the original creator. Buechner was more commonly known for making hat racks and metal picture frames for beer advertising.
Brookbank tried several ploys to get the public interested in his cultivator, including giving free dinners to people who bought one during the Connersville Free Fair at Roberts Park in 1910.
A 1906 Connersville news story had predicted the “plows will allow Mr. Brookbank a substantial royalty.”
Turned out, that was not to be the case. In 1909, Brookbank was offering a money-back guarantee on the cultivator, but production had slowed to a crawl. He wasn’t sure he could deliver them before planting season.
In June 1911, a short story in the Brookville Democrat said this:
“Fifteen Equipoise Riding Cultivators will be offered for sale at public auction at the corner of Seventh and Main Streets. Sale will begin at 12 noon. I will offer for sale the livery barn and a good dwelling house. – Ferd Schneider, Agent.”
There’s no news about the product after that, though ads in the Connersville papers from 1912 still had the machine available for sale at Joe Moffett’s livery barn. “Some improvements have been made,” Moffett’s ad promised.
There’s no information on what killed the cultivator. It was possibly underfunded, or badly managed in the production phase. It may have been flawed or simply the victim of a better product from a larger, more reliable agriculture implements maker, such as McCormick or Allis-Chalmers. At least once, production fell far short of demand. A farmer needing equipment would have bought something else.
A horse-driven cultivator should have been useful well into the 1920s, though Brookbank’s invention was actively on the market for less than three years.
Brookbank was born in Jackson Township (near Everton) and was 78 when he died in 1947. He was buried in Dale Cemetery in Fayette County.
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