Jesse Frye's Gang Plow

Jesse Frye (1818-1887) was a framer and an inventor noted for the invention of the Jesse Frye Gang Plow. There were several versions of the plow: 2-gang, 3-gang, 4-gang, and 6-gang, the 6-gang plow covering a width of 102 inches in a single pass. This invention was widely popular with farmers and at the time was viewed as an important innovation in reducing the labor involved in preparing fields. Drawings of the plow that accompanied the patent application are pictured above. The patent was granted 31 March 1857.

Jesse Frye was an eighth generation descendant of Nicholas Holt. He married Susannah Manning Abbott (1810-1898) who was a sixth generation descendant of George Abbott and Hannah Chandler. Jesse and Susannah were in New York, Kentucky, and Illinois. The marriage broke up sometime after 1850. Jesse was later in New York and Boston and married for his second wife Hannah L. M. Brown, a native of England previously married to Thomas Ward. Jesse died in Boston in 1887. Susannah Abbott Frye died in Moline, Illinois in 1898. Hannah Brown Frye died in Manhattan in 1912.

Sources:

"Jesse Frye's Gang Plow" in Emery's Journal of Agriculture, Chicago, I July 1858, p 3

U. S. Patents US16912A; accessed through Google Patents