Shortly before his arrival in
Sidney, Daniel Toy had laid claim to being the first person to make a steel plow in the
country. As related by his son, William Minor Toy, to a reporter in August 1927, his
father purchased part of a load of steel which was being transported along the National
Road (now U.S. 40) to John Deere's plow shop in Illinois. When the shipper returned along
the same road two months later, Daniel Toy had already fashioned five new steel plows.
Steel plows were destined to revolutionize agriculture because they made tilling the
fields much easier.An interesting historical footnote has developed over whether or not
the steel plow was invented by John Deere (as history now records) or Sidney's Daniel Toy.
The Shelby County Democrat obituary of Mr. Toy in 1903 concluded that "The
name of the man who made the first steel plow in the United States is a much disputed
question, but undoubtedly Mr. Toy made one of the first."
The arrival of the Toy family in Sidney, along with the Christian Kingseed plow works,
gave the town its first mini-industry. Toy set up his shop on West Avenue. in the old
courthouse building. Many early plows were formed here that put area farmers on the
cutting edge of agriculture beginning in the early 1850's. The Toy plows were instrumental
in constructing the roadbeds for the C. H. & D. railroad beginning in the 1850's.
Another early manufacturing family had arrived in Sidney by the 1860's. G. G. Haslup
also worked in the iron and steel foundry business. Daniel Toy and Christian Kingseed sold
their shop to John Heiser, and Mr. Toy entered into a partnership with G. G. Haslup. He
married Mary White Haslup, thus uniting the Toy and Haslup families in one of Sidney's
first great business unions. Toy and Haslup also manufactured a sulky plow invented by the
soon to be famous Benjamin Slusser.