Moses Franklin Rittenhouse (Born 1846 in Vineland Station

Vineland, Ontario

The village of Vineland is an unincorporated community within the Town of Lincoln in the Niagara Peninsula in the province of Ontario, Canada.-Agriculture:...

) was a Canadian-American

Canadian-American

A Canadian American is someone who was born or someone who grew up in Canada then moved to the United States. The term is particularly apt when applied or self-applied to people with strong ties to Canada, such as those who have lived a significant portion of their lives in, or were educated in,...

 businessman and philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

 who made his fortune in the lumber

Lumber

Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....

 business in Chicago after moving there in 1864.

Philanthropy

Rittenhouse's success in business allowed him to bestow upon his fellow citizens many other generous gifts which include a school, a recreation hall, and the resources necessary to create a library in Lincoln. Today, the Vineland branch of the Lincoln Public Library is named in his honour to reflect his long association with the library in Lincoln.

Agriculture

He helped to establish the Vineland Research Station for research on growing tender fruit. His donation of land resulted in decades of useful horticultural research that has benefited many in and around the Niagara Peninsula.

Continuing the proud association Rittenhouse had established with the local fruit industry, his nephew, Moses K. Rittenhouse began building orchard sprayer

Sprayer

A sprayer is a device used to spray a liquid.In agriculture, a sprayer is a piece of equipment that spray nozzles to apply herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers to agricultural crops...

s from his barn in Jordan Station, soon after in 1914 establishing the company M. K. Rittenhouse. Today, Rittenhouse still provides spraying equipment and agricultural tools to local farmers, and there is scarcely a farm in the Niagara Region that does not, or has not in the past used a Rittenhouse sprayer.