Benjamin Holt
103
Benjamin Holt
Production Technology
Born:
January 1,
1849, in
Concord,
New
Hampshire
Died:
December 5,
1920, in
Stockton,
California
T
HE word
bulldozer
brings to mind an off-
road piece of equipment with a large scraper
blade in front. A bulldozer moves easily over
rough terrain because it has a track-laying
system. The vehicle lays down its own track
to spread its weight over a large area, which
keeps it from getting stuck. Farmers used
the first successful track layer on 20-ton trac-
tors they operated on the soft, rich soil of
northern California. Benjamin Holt and his
three brothers built it in the course of try-
ing to make a maneuverable agricultural
power unit that had a large ground-contact
area. Holt developed a pair of crude wooden
crawlers and successfully tested the world’s
first practical track-laying tractor on Thanks-
giving Day in 1904.
Four Holt brothers were born into a Con-
cord, New Hampshire, family that had a
sawmill that processed hardwoods for
wagon construction. Concord’s popular
wagons and coaches, first made in 1813,
carried passengers and mail throughout the
entire New England area. Charles was the
oldest son, followed by William, Ames, and,
finally, Benjamin. The three older brothers
moved to the San Francisco area in 1864,
where they founded C. H. Holt and Co.,
which did business in hardwood, lumber,
and wagon materials. They primarily dealt
with structural applications such as axles,
wheels, and frames. They had hardwood
from their home state shipped west by cargo
ship, and they dried it in the arid climate
near Stockton, California. Benjamin stayed
in New Hampshire to handle that end of the
family business.
The Holt brothers soon organized the
Stockton Wheel Co., and in 1883 Benjamin
moved west to manage the company. The
factory had cost $65,000 to construct. For
power, it used a single 40-horsepower
Courtesy of the Caterpillar Tractor Co.
Corliss steam engine that had been manu-
factured in Providence, Rhode Island. All
its machinery was belt driven by the Corliss
engine. Production in the first year of op-
eration totaled 6,000 wagon wheels and
5,000 carriage bodies. Among their more
popular wheel sizes was a 10'-diameter
model. Redwood loggers used two of these,
connected by a strong 10' axle. The loggers
would fasten a large log to the axle and pull
it from the forest with a team of horses.
Many people who came to California
during the Gold Rush of 1848 did not, as
they had hoped, become instant million-
aires. Instead, they found livelihoods farm-
ing wheat fields in the northern part of the
state. Land was plentiful in the mid-1800s
and the huge farms required large numbers
of people and horses to harvest the crops.
One farm was 36,000 acres in size, and
104
Technology’s Past
California ranked sixth in wheat production
among the states.
Benjamin proved to be the most techni-
cally competent of the Holt brothers, and
he soon expanded the company into the
manufacture of farming equipment. He
bought patent rights to some equipment and
enlarged the factory to accommodate up to
300 employees. The company sold its first
huge combine, a combination harvester and
thresher, in 1886. It had a 14' cutting bar
and was pulled by 18 horses. The largest
combine the Holts built had a 50'-long cut-
ting bar. (A 20' cutting bar is now consid-
ered large.) Combines were expensive com-
binations of gears, belts, and shafts that re-
quired as many as 40 horses to operate.
Even a slight provocation, such as gear noise
or a bee sting, could cause a stampede that
damaged parts and required costly repairs.
That problem and the difficulty of control-
ling so many animals made obvious the
need for a more compact power source.
Holt built his first experimental steam-
powered tractor in 1890. It had a 24'-long
frame and developed 60 horsepower from
a single 11"-diameter, 12"-stroke piston.
Customers could order it equipped to burn
wood, coal, or oil as fuel. When loaded with
its 675 gallons of water, it weighed 48,000
pounds and rode on large metal wheels. In
spite of their weight and awkward size,
Holt’s tractors were popular because they
could harvest large fields for one-sixth the
cost of horse-drawn combines. Although
they were designed for farming use, forest-
ers bought them to haul redwood logs where
there were no roads. Holt claimed his stan-
dard engine could haul 40 to 50 tons at 3
mph, and at half the cost of using horses.
The tractors were extremely powerful and
useful, but they were so heavy they often
got stuck in the soft soil. Holt unsuccess-
fully tried to eliminate the problem by us-
ing large wheels. One tractor had wheels 7-
1/2' in diameter and 6' wide— resulting in a
46'-wide tractor. The tractor was expensive,
difficult to transport, and difficult to ma-
neuver in the field. Holt experimented with
multiple wheels until he decided to try a
track-laying technique.
The use of tracks on moving machinery
was not new at the time that Holt made his
first attempt. Well over 100 worldwide pat-
ents had already been issued. However, all
the designs were mechanical failures that
did not work well in the field. Since most of
the patents were British, Holt traveled to En-
gland in 1903 to investigate the courses of
their development. He used his knowledge
along with the company’s expertise in de-
sign, metallurgy, and testing to develop a
practical track layer. His 1904 crawler trac-
tor proved a success from the beginning, and
Holt soon introduced models under the
Caterpillar trademark. Company photogra-
pher Charles Clements had obser ved that
the tractor crawled like a caterpillar. Holt
responded, “Caterpillar it is. That’s the
name for it!” The first production Caterpil-
lars had a track frame on each side that
measured 30" high x 42" wide x 9' long. The
tracks were 3" x 4" redwood slats. Holt sold
his first steam-powered tractor crawlers for
$5,500.
Holt started developing gasoline-powered
tractors in 1906. Gasoline engines offered
the advantage of producing more power per
pound since they did not have the added
weight of the heavy boiler water needed for
steam engines. The first 40 hp gas-powered
models went into production in 1908. The
company sold 28 of them for use in build-
ing a 233-mile aqueduct to supply water to
the city of Los Angeles. The most popular
gas-powered tractor was the Model 75,
manufactured a few years later. It weighed
24,000 pounds and had a 75 hp engine.
The older Holt brothers realized that Ben-
jamin had insight into mechanical devices
Courtesy of the Caterpillar Tractor Co.
One of Holt’s original track-laying tractors working a field in
northern California
Benjamin Holt
105
that they lacked. By 1905, his brothers had
either died or left the area, and Benjamin
managed the factory by himself. His com-
pany became enormously profitable by
making tracked vehicles for farming, road
construction, and the military. Before the
outbreak of World War I, 2,000 Caterpillar
tractors were in service in more than 20
countries.
Holt was a quiet and unassuming man
who loved his work. He was happiest when
experimenting at the factory with whatever
mechanical problems faced him at the time.
He took out several patents. Holt’s factory
workers liked him, and he left a trust fund
for former employees who found themselves
in financial difficulties. He died in 1920, but
his wife lived until 1952 and ser ved as a re-
gent of the University of the Pacific for 25
years. In 1925, the Holt Co. merged with one
of its competitors, the C. L. Best Co., and
took the name Caterpillar Tractor Co.
One noteworthy modern vehicle that uses
the track-laying concept is the bulldozer. The
precise origin of the word
bulldozer
is ob-
scure and appears to be lost to history.
References and Resources
Benjamin Holt— The Story of the Caterpillar
Tractor
edited by Walter A. Payne, Uni-
versity of the Pacific, 1982.
Caterpillar— Century of Change
, Caterpillar
Tractor Co., 1984.
“Holt Caterpillar Tractor Designated Inter-
national Lankmark,” in
Mechanical Engi-
neering
, June 1981.
Information from Holt trade journals stored
at the Ford Archives, Dearborn, MI.
Holt’s original track-laying patent