In 1836, John traveled to Grand Detour, Illinois, to make a fresh start. He had married and nine young children to look after. John was smart and hard working and he easily found work as a blacksmith. There were lots of farmers in Illinois and John had to fix their plows. The new farmers in Illinois struggled to turn heavy, sticky prairie soil with cast iron plows designed for the light, sandy soil of Vermont. John thought about the steel needles he had seen in father's tailor shop. The needles stayed smooth and shiny because they were pulled through rough leather. John Deere came up with the idea for a plow that would work. The plow in his mind was polished and shiny and made of steel just like his father's tailoring needles. It was shaped so that it could scour itself as it cut furrows. In 1837, he created his plow using a broken saw blade.