My Genealogy Hound

HYDE & MARTINS, plow manufacturers; Bloomington. There are, probably, but few of the successful merchants and manufacturers of the city of Bloomington, who are equal in energy, enterprise and a clear conception of the wants of the public, to the firm of Hyde & Martins, manufacturers of the Centennial and Victor Plows, and dealers in agricultural implements. They have been in business in their present line only since January, 1877, and have already established, by good management and the superiority of their plows, a fine business. Their plows, especially, deserve more than a passing mention. Being something entirely new, yet the advantages of it are so very plain that the only wonder is that plows have not been constructed in this manner ever since they have been so universally used. The principal advantages gained are lightness of draft and a peculiar shaping of the standard, so that it is almost impossible to choke it in loose straw, rank weeds or cornstalks. Mr. V. M. Hyde, the senior member of the firm, is a native of New York; he came West first in 1863, locating in Bloomington, where, for five years, he was engaged as salesman, cashier and book-keeper in the dry-goods trade. In 1868, he removed to Detroit, Mich., and engaged in the manufacture of druggists’ sundries, on Larned street, and wholesale crockery, glassware, etc., on Woodward Avenue. This business he was engaged in until 1873, when he returned to Bloomington, and engaged with the Bloomington Paper and Bag Co., as traveling salesman, which position he held until 1877, when he, in company with Mr. Martins, engaged in his present line of business. He is possessed of the energy, ability and experience to carry most any business through successfully. Mr. C. C. Martins, the junior member of the firm, is a native of Prussia. In 1869, when he was 15 years old, he came to the United States. He first located in Belleville, near St. Louis, where he remained about one year. In 1870, he came to Bloomington, and engaged in the manufacture of carriages; this he followed until he engaged in the manufacture of plows, which he has since followed. Before leaving his native country, he had acquired a good education and had begun to learn his trade. He is a thoroughly mechanical genius. The patenting of and construction of their plows being of his invention, two men could hardly be found to carry on the business to better advantage than himself and Mr. Hyde; both being so well adapted to their separate departments of the work. Should no misfortune befall them, they will yet rank among the large plow manufacturers of the West.