Talk:King road drag

Patent?

David "Ward" King definitely had a patent on the King Road Drag. I'll have to run it down, but I do have a copy of that patent. I'll post an image of it with this article in the near future. I have been trying not to add too much personal information about him in this article, since I plan to do a separate full length article on him personally sometime soon. I have a ton of information about him. Ward was born and reared in Springfield, Ohio. This city boy and man, from a very wealthy family, only became the "Missouri farmer" as an adult and after he married. Springfieldohio (talk)18:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for all your work on this. This is fun. I bet you thought nobody would join in when you did your work! My interest is that I'm from the Maitland area. U.S. patents are available on google (see the links I just added). I did various searches on alternates of his name as well as Holt County and couldn't find an original patent. I was also surprised there was no patent. But there's a cited source saying he didn't have the patent. Thanks again. We may be the only two people on the planet who know about this article! ;-) Americasroof (talk) 20:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

After further search into the drag I see that the 1907 patent I mention as an improvement is actually King's original patent (which was also discussed in a USDA bulletin, I will adjust the article again). Thanks. Americasroof (talk) 21:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

22:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC) It was hard to fit, but I did add the drawing that accompanied the patent. The patent itself was nearly illegible. My interest in him is from the Springfield, Ohio end. David Ward King was the nephew of Rev. Luther Alexander Gotwald, about whom I did another article beginning to end with some formating and typo correction help from others. D. Ward King was the son of Robert Quigley King of Springfield, Rev. Gotwald's brother in law. That article even tells where "Ward" came from. Robert Quigley King's namesake, Robert Quigley of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania was the maternal uncle of Captain Samuel Brady and Maj. General Hugh Brady. I have been contributing to the articles on them as well. I created a stub article on the Middle Spring Presbyterian Church, which Ward's grandfather and namesake David King attended as a child -- as did Samuel and Hugh Brady. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Springfieldohio (talk • contribs) 22:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again! In the for what it's worth King's property abuts our family farm so this is especially fun. If you start an article on him, I can probably fill it in with some stuff I have on him from the Maitland history. BTW you should sign your name four ~ at the end of your posts (rather than three at the beginning). Thanks again! Americasroof (talk) 02:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Springfieldohio (talk) 17:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC) I certainly believe that he had problems with his neighbors. Like most, if not all, the rest of his family, he was a very self righetous guy. The fact someone rigged his buggy so a board would hit him over the head when he started out tells something about how some people felt about him. It was not everyone who had to check to see his whether his buggy was bobby trapped every time he started out. Anyway, I have way more photos and way more information than I will ever be able to put in that article. I still haven't decided just which photos to use. I will keep plugging away at it and, of course, your contributions are more than welcome.

Springfieldohio (talk) 17:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I see you live happily in the blue grass. I have photos of his farm and of downtown Maitland in those days, which don't belong in this article. I have been saving them for the other article. However, I could upload them now and give you their file names, if you have some use for them.

I'll see if I can get this signature thing right this time. Springfieldohio (talk) 03:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The David Ward King article is now posted in bare bones form. Feel free to add to it. I have a lot to add as I have time. I don't think the search feature will find a new article. However, you can probably find it by the link on my contribution history.

Springfieldohio (talk) 16:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Holy Cow! What an article! I didn't think it was possible to find that level of detail. I will have to reread the Maitland history book "Blue Grass Mecca" for additional info. My great-grandfather and he were not the best of friends. They had a "spite fence" with a devil's lane between them (parallel fences with a lane in between). The succeeding generations of course were not so antagonistic. The farms are still in respective family ownership. I would be interested in any photos you might have. Maitland is such a tiny town in the middle of nowhere (any where I'm supposed to be buried) so it's been fun talking about this. Thanks again. Americasroof (talk) 16:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I have an "embarassment of wealth" of photos. I have far too many to use in this article and I am not sure how some will look on the internet, since many are shot at a distance. But, I will be posting the better ones over the coming days to see how they look and figure out where they fit. If you are interested, one contribution you could make is to photograph the farm and downtown Maitland as they appear today and post those photos. That would make an interesting comparison to the photos that I will be posting that show the farm and Maitland in D. Ward King's day.

Springfieldohio (talk) 18:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Holy Cow! Where did you as an Ohio resident come up with all those photos of Maitland?! That photo of the road drag in downtown Maitland is incredible. I will alert the historical society folks. They no doubt will be bowled over by it. I pulled out the copy of the Blue-Grass Mecca which has the history of the town and a lot on King. However it appears that you already have its main biography which is a reprint of "Tribute to Pioneer" by Colvin C. Bowfield. There are some poems to the road drag so I will probably include some lines shortly. I live in New York City and will snap some photos when I visit probably in October. Going through the Blue-Grass book I see mention that a the Skidmore-Maitland Road by his farm (and ours) was jogged to protect one of his trees. Kind of an interesting trivia for somebody who knows the road. Thanks again!

Images

You seem to be a lot better at working with these pages than I am. So, maybe you can help me with this. I uploaded three pages of one of his promotional brochures that I scanned. I scanned it at a very high resolution to make sure I got a good copy of it. However, now that those pages are uploaded only a portion of the page prints out. The page size is obviously too big. The Upload Page says it is possible to work with an external editor to work on uploaded pages, but does not say how to do it. Can you either edit those three pages directly to make them so they print out at the right size (8.5x11) or tell me how to do it?

Springfieldohio (talk) 17:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I see you figured out how to get it work on wikipedia. Once it's posted if folks want to read it more clearly they download it and manipulate with an photo editing software. Again many thanks! Americasroof (talk) 13:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It drives me nuts that I can't print out those brochures directly from the article (the only way to see what they say), but I guess I'll just leave it alone for now. With my low skill level in Wikipedia editing, I am afraid to mess with it. And, you are right. Anyone who wants to print those out badly enough can do it with a little effort.

I would like to mention the "D. Ward Memorial Tree" in the article, but I have no information as to what happened to it. Since it was in bad shape when the Cameron article was written, I assume it is no longer there. If so, do you know when it came down? Is the jog in the road still there? Is it visible anywhere in that photo of his farm I posted?

I think your report of the "Devil's Lane" between the two farms is fascinating. The farm journal of his brother, Leffler is full of a long standing and extremely bitter fight he had with his neighbor. His grandchildren attribute it to the very self righteous city slicker showing up on a large land holding that his father had just given him and maybe thinking he was just a tad better than they were. It would add a lot to the article if you could write a few sentences describing that dispute. I think it would fit in well right after the description of how some hated him for his Prohibition activities. The best stuff in bios always comes from family members. If you are comfortable doing so, it would add a lot to even name your great grandfather by name in the report. Anyway, reporting some of the negatives about a person would make the article sound more neutral and less like a eulogy.

Thanks

Springfieldohio (talk) 11:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)