Take a Seat Man treasures cast-iron seats
SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — Chuck Dickey remembers watching the road in front of the family farm being paved when he was only 3 years old.
The 88-year-old not only remembers when Route 108 was paved, he can picture the specific equipment that was used and how the work was done. From that point on, he was fascinated with all things mechanical.
The interest led to his collection of cast-iron seats, numbering about 20. Most have been found in junk yards or scrap metal yards, having been used on tractors or the farm equipment that preceded them.
"We got our first tractor in 1927," said Dickey, explaining how as an 8-year-old he followed his dad around the farm asking a lot of questions about the mechanized equipment. Before then, his family used walk-behind, horse-drawn implements.
As soon as the new tractor was purchased, Dickey spent a lot of time on its cast-iron seat.
"I was raised on that," he said.
Most cast-iron seats were made for horse drawn implements from about 1850 through 1900, according to the Web site for the Cast Iron Seat Club.
The seat allowed farmers who formerly had to walk behind the machines to ride on them.
It was Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor of the reaper, who started the need for such seats, Dickey said.
"He's the one who realized the rider should be on the machine," he said.
The Cast Iron Seat Club has 550 members from around the world, including Bud Porter from Woodstock, Ill.Although Porter has more than 450 seats, he's seen collections as large as 2,000 seats. Seats can sell for between $100 and $3,000, he said.Each seat is designed "to hold you on there," according to Dickey, describing the shape of the seat that included a ridge in the back that kept the rider from sliding backward.With custom molding and carvings that included the name of the manufacturer, each seat is unique. Dickey has painted most of his red or black, but the original colors varied.According to the Web site, there are more than 2,200 different seats known and several collectors throughout the country.In the 1900s, many seats for farm equipment were made from pressed steel, something easier to mold and not as heavy as cast iron, Dickey said."They weren't as good as cast-iron seats," he said.Dickey went on to become a truck driver and owned Ambrosia Trucking, which later became Russell Truck Lines, with a friend of his.He also owns a 1915 Model T Ford that he still drives for fun.
