It amazes me that in my parent's lifetime these crawlers were considered state of the art. Earliest mention hereabouts of a dozer, my father & his brother in the early 1950s worked for Bellows Falls Ice Company. An old company went from ice harvesting to logging when refrigerators took over. They had two Caterpillar D7, one old, one new. Dad was in charge of the new one, his brother the old.
I've never been south of Connecticut. I have the sense deep cellar holes are less common in the south. No frost heaving to worry about. Near every stick built house here has a full cellar. Early cellars with foundation walls of irregularly shaped stones weren't very deep. Taller you build a stone foundation, less stable. Marble industry here, & slate or granite nearby, made tall foundation walls practical. Probably averaged 5' below natural grade. If dug by hand, it must have taken half the building season to dig. Later, with concrete 7' depth was more average. While I wasn't born by then, I guess bulldozers were more commonly used.Best can remember of Grandmother and Grandfather's old brownie photos(Gone to Nephew) were men with wheelbarrows, shovels and rakes did all landscape work around houses. ONCE in a great while a Mule with a drag bucket or small drag chisel harrow was photo'd.
Known as a Fresno or Fresno Scraper-Those were still common in the 60's, I think you canONCE in a great while a Mule with a drag bucket or small drag chisel harrow was photo'd.
It took a person that was very skiled and patient but it was light years ahead of what they had before.I am loading #2 iron right now it takes a good half hour to load a ton with my stuff i would like to get a 7 ton loaded today. I cant scoop it up i have to throw about every thing in the bucket. I think my brother is coming tomorrow he thinks he can load me with his machine in a hour. Maybe he can but he has $59000.00 more in his machine than i do in mine.The three earliest backhoes I know of in my area, I don't know the exact years:
George Connors had a 3/4 swing hydraulic excavator mounted on a military 10 tired truck.
Austin Rumney bought new a Hop To Digger, a trailer mechanism he towed behind a two cylinder green John Deere dozer. He had a big contract to install guard rails on state highways. His digger has no bucket cylinder. I wonder if it never did, or if it failed somehow.
EC Crosby & Sons, local farm store had a 1940 M tractor with trip bucket loader, & a pipe framed backhoe. It passed around through various Crosby family members until I asked to buy it C. 1979. He immediately sold it for $1000. to a local.
All three of these machines are still around. I don't remember any of these being very effective as diggers.