The year now should be January 28, 1888, Alonzo Saltsman was about 40 years old, he was the man who had the money to finance this potato digger so that the Saltsmans could go right ahead and mass produce this digger. January 28, 1988 on a cold bitter winter night Alonzo Saltsman lived on the Cross Roads up by where John & Richard Reinhart live. Alonzo got on the Erie Railroad track and started walking up the track, it was bitter cold, apparently he had his head covered, well the train came, blew its whistle and Alonzo must not have heard it and the train hit him and killed him. They had a funeral, and at that funeral on the buffet there was a lot of paper work on the Saltsmans potato digger. Well when the time came to go to the funeral or the cemetery not sure which way it was, there was a gentlemen that said he had a headache didn't feel good he couldn't make it, and if course back then in January it was bitter cold so you might not have wanted to go to the cemetery now I'm not trying to point a finger at any body on this, But if you listen to the rest of my story this is what happens. Sometime after they came back from the funeral they started talking about the potato digger, they had lost the guy who was going to do the financing of it, and a lot of the paper work came up missing. The next thing that happened was the Keelers were somewhat related to the Saltsman, well the Keller went ahead and made a potato digger almost identical to the Saltsmans Digger that Ray Jr. had up at his place, it has the ball shift lever, the wheels are the same height, same width across, most parts the big bell gear will fit, the shifting lever will fit so many of the parts will fit. It says on the cover of the potato digger, the Keeler potato digger a patented applied for. Well remember a while back I stated that a patent is good for 17 years and this is 1888 so how could they apply for one. I was told they couldn't apply for it and couldn't apply for it and couldn't get it anyhow. The term Patent Pending, or patent applied for are used by Manufactures or seller of an article to inform the public that the application for patent on that article is on file, the law imposes a fine on those who use the term falsely. Apparently the Keelers had a fair amount of money, I think the potato digger that they made is a a drop better than the Saltsmans, I think they didn't have to do much just improve here and there. The parts that get the potatoes here on this Keeler digger are very thin, probably if they were any sharper than they were, they would make good potato chips right out in the field. I have an original Keener potato digger, I bought it. I do have it on display, if Ray gets his potato digger done it will show that the one Ray has and this one is just another improvement of the Saltsman potato digger.I hope Ray has a lot of luck in rebuilding his Saltsman digger as 2 of the West Creek boys put his Saltsman digger in the road as a Halloween joke. Well a car hit it, it wasn't very good for the car or the digger.
In World War 2 there was a large scrap drive and cast iron, tin, grease, anything that could be used over went to the scrap yard. The good thing is the parts he needs Keeler or Boss parts can be used as the parts are almost the same.
Another thing about the Keeler digger, apparently they sold it to the Boss Digger, they moved the cutter or the notion for knocking potatoes out vertical the Keener digger that they made I don't know how many years they made it maybe not more than two, they were still in such a big hurry to build this thing to get it out on the market, that they never moved that wheel down, it still stood up vertical exactly like the Saltsman digger. I have several pictures here of the Boss potato digger, they were a little dangerous apparently yet according to a Saltsman digger wouldn't do quite like what the Boss digger did, you would have to hang a board on the handles to keep stones and stuff from hitting you in the shins. The Boss potato digger is on display at the Cohocton museum. The next potato digger after that would be a Boss potato digger made in Leroy, this had a little different shifter on it, same wheels same parts, same castings, if you will take a good look at these items so that you know I'm not trying to tell a false tale. I am under the understanding that the digger was made in 1895 now these dates and times sometimes need to be corrected as I find out that any of the things in this story are not the truth it will be changed we do not want anything in here but the truth. The potato digger of this style is where we go, I understand that around 1900 they invented the elevator digger which did away with this family type digger that was made. Going back to the digger that I rebuilt I took it to the Avoca Centential Parade, I took second place in the parade, I received a twenty five dollar check and that made it pretty nice. I took the digger to the Bath Fair and had it on display at the Fair, there was a seven dollar fee for showing it at the Fair, I won first prize with it and got a Grand Prize of eight dollars back, well one dollar profit. The Potato Festival in Wayland, New York has been going on for a while now, and thought they might want to see a Saltsman Potato Digger there because of being one of the first potato diggers. They really greeted it very well I think they loved to have it there, I received a lot of nice remarks, a newspaper reporter came and talked to me on the last day, it was raining hard and we sure didn't get much talking in but it was in the paper, The Genesee Valley Paper, there was a real nice write up on the digger, they wrote that I put 3/4 inch oak on it, that was a mistake, but not bad it was still a good write up. A few weeks after that article, while it was at the Bath Fair they took a picture of it. They put an article in the paper with a picture and the article that was wrote in Dansville was almost identical to the article in the Bath paper. The Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport New York now has this potato digger on loan. The model, the patent model is down there on loan, how long it will stay there I don't know,I would like to see Cohocton have this digger up there in there Farm Museum and I think it would be great. I just turned the page and realized I have a picture in my book of the potato digger on the trailer during the Bicentennial Parade, a copy of the twenty five dollar check I was issued, I have a picture of the digger at the Bath Fair, it shows a blue ribbon on it and I have a copy of the Blue Ribbon. Also I do have a check for eight dollars that I won at the Fair. As we work our way through the story of the potato digger and we get up to Buffalo and find out more patent numbers on it then the story can go on. I will try to find out why or if there is other patent on the earliest potato diggers that Saltsman made not just the one in 1887. I can't believe that they would take it to the Bath Fair without having a patent on it.It is now September 1996. The winter of 1995, the snow load was so the roof on the Farm Museum in Cohocton caved in and they are not going to repair it so I will try to find a new home for the potato digger as now there are three of them.
I took the Saltsman digger, the Keeler digger and the Boss LeRoy to the Bath Fair. I got 1st prize for the Saltsman and 2nd for the Boss. It cost $11.00 to display them. I got a check back for $13.00. Well $2.00 is better than nothing.
I took them up to the Potato Festival in Wayland. To my surprise some of the older people didn't know what they were. I was asked if it was a bean puller. Some said it was a real treat to see 3 of them in a roll, I'm in hopes to have 2 more. This will make 5 of them. This will help tell the story as it is.
That is the end of my story at this time, no I don't think there is every any end to this story I will continue more on the story as I find out more on this potato digger.

Thank you for reading.
A special thank you to Ray Saltsman Jr. for answering all the questions I had and the work on digging out all those parts and if someone were to ask who the potato digger belonged to I would have to say it belongs to the whole Saltsman Family. Rose Thorsen gave me a lot of help on information, she has the original diploma that was given to Erwin Saltsman at the Bath Fair. I have made lots of copies just in case anything happens to the orignal diploma. For now this story comes to a close as told by Harry Saltsman, if for any reason in the future I have told a fib about anything in this story I hope that someone will correct it and tell what really transpired that is the most important thing to us Saltsmans is to know that everything I have told is the truth. Thank you once again for listening to me.

Sincerely,

Harry Saltsman