Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Grange, which became a powerful political force among western farmers.
Though he grew up in Boston, Kelley decided in his early twenties that he wanted to become a farmer. In 1849, he booked passage on a steamboat for St. Paul, Minnesota. Though the Minnesota area was dominated more by the Indian trade than farming, Kelley shrewdly saw that the future of the region lay in agriculture, and he proved to be a skilled and progressive farmer. Kelley gained local fame for boldly experimenting with new crops, installing an elaborate irrigation system, and buying one of the first mechanical reapers in the state. His attempts at scientific farming and a series of columns he wrote for national newspapers brought him national recognition—in 1864, he won a prestigious clerking position under the federal commissioner of agriculture in Washington, D.C.
While on a tour of southern farms in 1866, Kelley was struck by the warm reception he received from his fellow Masons in the South, despite the otherwise pervasive dislike of northerners left over from the Civil War. Determined to develop a national organization to unify farmers, he returned to Washington and gathered a group of like-minded friends. In 1867, these men became the founders of the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange.
