RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – He’s one of Vermont’s most famous native sons, but don’t go looking for any plaques, monuments or statues of John Deere in his birthplace. You won’t find any.

Now, a group of people is working to change that. The blacksmith-turned-farm equipment pioneer, who was born in Rutland in 1804 but only lived here until he was 2, has precious little named after him in his home state, apart from the yellow-and-green tractors and plows that bear his name.

In Canon Park in Middlebury, there’s a plaque to Deere that was erected in 1969. “Some people have said that we ought to have something here, some kind of sign that John Deere was born here, but we don’t,” said Jim Davidson, a member of the Rutland Historical Society, which has a copy of “John Deere’s Company: A History of Deere & Company and its times” that was donated by a Deere descendant in 1990.

A group wants to build a bicycle and pedestrian pathway and name it after Deere, and has asked the company to contribute $120,000 of the $1.2 million cost. So far, the request has been rejected.

Mike Taranovich, whose father owned a John Deere dealership in Proctor, was told by the John Deere Foundation that the request was denied because the company’s charitable efforts are already spread too thin. “I can’t explain it. It made it to the CEO’s desk but it was turned down,” said Taranovich, who works in Manchester, N.H., for Nortrax, a John Deere subsidiary that sells forestry and construction equipment. “What they were concerned over is that there are so many factories and plants in the country with communities that they support and there’s only so many dollars to go around,” he said.

Deere, who grew up in Middlebury and opened his first blacksmith’s shop in Hancock, left Vermont in 1836. He moved to Grand Detour, Ill.

Deere & Co. headquarters is located in Moline, Ill.

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