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From Slave’s Son to Agricultural Inventor: The History of My Great-Great-Great Uncle
William Chester Ruth, of Gap, played an instrumental role in shaping agriculture.
William Chester Ruth was the seventh surviving child of Samuel and Maria Louisa Ruth. Prior to the Civil War, Samuel was a slave in South Carolina. Moving to Ercildoun, PA when they were 15, Samuel and Maria owned a small family farm and raised 10 children. William was born in 1882.
Early in life, William, going by his middle name Chester, had a fondness for disassembling things. It wasn’t uncommon to see him break something apart and have his father walk in with parts everywhere. He was fascinated by machines and was always trying to discover how they worked. He was always wondering what could be done with them. So much so, that one of his first pieces was a wagon jack that he created from a bicycle tire pump. Although the device strained under pressure and ended up striking Chester in the head, it never stopped him from discovering more that could be done with machines.
By the time he was 12, Chester had learned blacksmithing from Samuel and later opened up his own shop called Ruth’s Ironworks Shop. Always a trailblazer, he was the only African American in the area to have his own manufacturing business. Working…
