8-wheel wagon still rolling along

By Lana Robertson

April 03, 2009 09:39 pm

— When my husband Vannie and I visited Bob and Becky Shope’s farm in New Salisbury, Ind., we expected to see horses, including his Belgians. We never expected to see any wagons.
But nestled in the weeds behind one of Bob’s barns was an oddity. It was a big old wagon, heavily-built, complete with rotting wood, rusty metal and — whoa — eight wheels with spokes sturdy looking enough to haul elephants.
Eight wheels?
Turns out Bob had purchased the old wagon on E-bay. The seller, from Alabama, told him it was a Lindsey Eight-Wheel Log Wagon.
I had never heard of such a thing.
Back home on my computer, a search for “eight wheel log wagons” launched me straight into a page of American history I never knew existed. On the web site www.samlindsey.com, I discovered we had seen one of the wagons that revolutionized the logging industry in the early half of the 1900s.
Wow.
Built by Mississippi lumberman John Lindsey to haul logs to his sawmills, the wagons worked so well, he decided to market them. The Lindsey Log Wagon Company was born. Lindsey patented his invention on Jan. 3, 1899. After his sawmill and wagon works in Sandersville, Miss., burned down, he moved his business to nearby Laurel. He and his brother, S.W. Lindsey, ran the successful business together. By 1901, it was the biggest single employer in the state, with 120 people. They even exported wagons to Belize, in Central America. Logging there was big business, as it was in Mississippi at that time.
Even today, people in Laurel hold the Lindsey Eight-Wheel Log Wagon and the Lindsey family in high esteem.
Eight wheels hauled heavy loads over soft ground better than four, which tended to bog down. Though designed to be pulled by four to 12 teams of oxen, teams of six or eight mules or horses were also used. Later, some of the wagons were modified and hooked to bulldozers or tractors.
The U.S. military in France also used Lindsey log wagons during World War I, for hauling heavy armor and equipment. After the Armistice, the company received an Award of Merit from the U.S. War Department for “distinguished service; the loyalty, energy and efficiency in the performance of war work by which Lindsey Wagon Company aided materially in obtaining victory for the arms of the United States of America in war with the Imperial German Government, and the Imperial and Royal Austrian-Hungarian Government.”
Quite an honor.
In September 2005, Bob, who operates a not-for-profit rescue center for horses, decided he didn’t want to go to the expense of restoring the wagon. He consigned it to the Southern Indiana Draft Horse Sale at Dinky's sale barn. There it was purchased by David Knepp, an Amish man from rural Loogootee. He paid $800 for it.
Knepp has logged with horses since 1988 and run a logging crew since 1992, so was naturally interested in anything connected with the logging business. Knepp Logging is a family business, with sons Nathan, Joseph and Eldon helping out. There is also one employee, Kevin Marner. Dave’s wife Naomi watches out for the whole bunch.
“It was unusual,” Knepp said of the massive old log wagon.
He wasn’t the only one who noticed it that day.
“I could have made a profit on it before I walked away from the sale,” he noted. But Knepp had decided to restore it.
He asked a friend, Dale Keyes of rural Rosedale, Ind., to tackle the job. A skilled, seasoned woodworker, Keyes knew it would be a challenge.
“I’d never worked on a wagon before,” he admitted. This would be different than anything he’d ever done.
Working in his spare time – and painstakingly particular – it took Keyes well over 18 months to complete the task. Even with the help of several good friends.
Anything that turned out less than Keyes expected became a “do-over.”
He started on the hardest part, the wheels, using a large band saw to cut them out.
“Dave brought me the hubs, we rebuilt them first,” Keyes said. “They were all original….a lot of them were rotten, one had the spokes broke out of it.”
The spokes were made, then the felloes.
White oak, furnished by Knepp, was used for the wheels and most of the body. The original axles – only one of which was salvageable – were hickory, as are the new ones. Knepp had new steel rims rolled for the 32-inch wheels.
It was a big job. The wagon is 29 feet, 3 inches long from tip of the tongue to the back.
Although the Lindsey Wagon plant closed in 1964, Sam Lindsey III of Saint Marys, Ga., great-great nephew of founder John Lindsey, says there are still a few of his family’s wagons around today, in addition to Knepp’s. Some are owned by collectors, some in museums. The Lindsey family furnished one, on a 99-year-lease, to the Mississippi Agricultural Museum in Jackson, Miss.
There’s one in the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover, Ark., and the City of Laurel, Miss., has one that’s now being restored by Bobby Hancock of Sandersville, Miss. The Laurel Machine and Foundary – which did the foundry work for the Lindsey Wagon Company, also made one for that city’s centennial in 1982. And Jessie Sandford of Seminary, Miss., who collects and pulls antique tractors, has two Lindseys that were restored several years ago.
No doubt, there are others residing in fields and barns, mostly in the South. Consider yourself lucky if you find one.
Sam Lindsey, when considering the value of such wagons, said it’s difficult to put a price on them.
“They’re a collector’s item or a museum piece,” he noted.
Knepp plans to demonstrate his beautifully restored Lindsey Eight-Wheel Log Wagon, being pulled by eight Belgian horses, at the 2009 Horse Progress Days, July 3-4, near Odon.
It will be quite a show. Scads of horse-drawn equipment, draft animals, seminars, vendors, clinics and demonstrations can be enjoyed during the event. Not to mention lots of locally grown produce, and lots of that good Amish food.
The event will be in the heart of Amish country on the Marvin Graber farm, 9450 E. CR 800 N, just off the Odon-Cannelburg Road south of Odon.

Lana Robertson is a freelance writer from Carlisle, Ind. She formerly worked as a writer at the Linton (Ind.) Daily Citizen and has many friends in Daviess County’s Amish settlement.

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