Saving a 1918 Holt WWI Tractor & Other Teenage Equipment Adventures

Stuck at home from school during the pandemic, brothers Silas and Eli Christenbury focused on learning a new skill.

They began creating animated videos.

Then one day, their father set them the task of cleaning out the family pond. They used a 1945 Cat D7 dozer, one of the many vintage Caterpillars their father and grandfather have collected over the years.

The lightbulb went off, and since then, the teens have been chronicling their adventures with vintage equipment in YouTube videos. Their recent video of saving a 1918 Holt 10-ton military crawler tractor built for World War I has garnered the most viewers on their SEFilms YouTube channel, so far totaling 43,000.

“My dad and my grandfather, ever since I was little, they've always been interested in antique equipment and always had a collection of tractors,” says Eli, who is 16 and a junior in high school. “So I've always found an interest in learning how to run them and the history of them and just how they work.”

“We want to help educate ourselves and others through our experiences on old iron because it's something different,” adds Silas, who is 19 and a sophomore at N.C. State University majoring in civil engineering. “It's something you don't see every day, and it can teach you a lot about the people and places around you today and in the past.”

Rescuing a 1918 Holt

The 1918 Holt as it was first seen by its rescuers.SEFilmsThe 106-year-old Holt crawler tractor had been sitting in a barn east of Greensboro, North Carolina, for decades. Covered in dirt and rust, the 10-ton 1918 Holt is a rare articulating tractor and was designed for moving heavy artillery for the U.S. Army during World War I.

According to its ID plate, the Holt was No. 1,843 when it was produced. Today, all its armor is gone. But the magneto and carburetor are still in place, as well as the clutches and other key components. It could run again with some work.

“They had known about the tractor for quite a while,” Eli says of his father and grandfather. “They had never been able to get their hands on it. But finally the guy who owned it wanted to sell it.”

No. 1,843 is etched into the top right side of the Holt's ID plate.SEFilmsSo Eli set out with his father, Erik Christenbury, and grandfather Ed Christenbury to rescue the old Holt for a friend who had bought it. Erik owns ChrisCo Machinery, which specializes in machinery hauling, parts and services. Both Erik and his father are collectors of vintage Cat equipment, inspired by Erik's grandfather who bought a new D2 dozer in 1940, which the family still has on their farm in Liberty, North Carolina.

“I didn't really know what to expect,” Eli says of the old Holt. “I just kind of expected something that maybe didn't work or was in a bunch of different pieces that had been shoved in the back of the barn. But in my opinion, it was in really good condition from what I was expecting.”

In the video, Eli’s youthful enthusiasm for the project is immediately apparent. He and the rescuers quickly learn that getting the old crawler from shed to trailer won’t be easy.

The 89-year-old owner explains that it’s probably still stuck in reverse from when he backed it into the barn. They aren’t sure how long ago that was, but the rescuers estimate it's been there 30 or 40 years.

The owner’s father had acquired it long ago as a trade-in when he owned an Allis-Chalmers dealership. His son had kept it through the years in case he ever needed its winch to pull out his Cat D8 if it ever got stuck. The D8 never got stuck, so he never used the Holt.

After wrestling with the gear stick to try to shift it into neutral, the rescuers give up. They decide to use brute pulling force to get the tracks moving and haul the tractor onto the trailer. With doubled-up chains and 30,000 pound-force, the tractor gradually makes it up the trailer incline and into place.

Mission accomplished, it heads to its new home.

On the road to a new homeSEFilms“I've always liked to have to figure out how to recover something, how to get it to work or how to get it from point A to B, and problem-solve,” Eli says. “I enjoyed doing it. And I enjoyed helping Dad and just watching him and everybody else to try and figure out how to get it out of the barn and onto the trailer.”

The next step will be to help the new owner get the old Holt running.

Only about 2,000 of the 10-ton models were produced, with many sent to France during the war. Some made their way into civilian use after the fighting. The specialized, heavy-duty articulated track design was not needed for civilian tractors and did not make its way into products of the later merged Holt-Best company to be known as Caterpillar.  

“There's a lot of history, just the age of it,” Eli says. “There was a limited number made, and there's just not a lot of them in the U.S., at least that are known to exist. So it's always been just a special piece of equipment.”

To watch the Holt rescue operation, check out SEFilms' video below:

1945 Cat D7 vs. Dirty Pond

As fourth-generation equipment lovers, Eli and Silas have spent their lives around vintage machines. Their father, who has amassed an extensive collection, has encouraged them to get out in the field and learn how to operate them, passing down the family legacy.

That led them to clear out the family pond with a 1945 Cat D7. The video ranks second after the Holt rescue on their YouTube channel, with 26,000 views.

Father and sons slogged through thick, wet mud to reshape the pond that had become filled with algae.

Eli, left, and Silas Christenbury with 1945 Cat D7. The brothers established SEFilms and video their adventures with vintage equipment.SEFilmsThe brothers hope their videos will show other young people about equipment and help educate them on the history of how work was done in years past.

“This is something that I don't do every day, but for other people, this was something they did every day,” Silas says. “So getting to experience that, that's pretty cool. It gives you a different perspective on life and what all these people's lives were like, as well.”

He notes that there has been a shifting focus on the need to fill positions in the trades.

“We need to teach people and get people interested in more traditional jobs,” he says. “If we can grow this channel in tandem with interest in more traditional blue-collar jobs, that might marry well and kind of feed off each other a little bit.”

Noting that many of their viewers are of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, the brothers would also like to see more young people attracted to the equipment and the work.

“I've always kind of seen ourselves as lucky, especially the way that our parents and grandparents have raised us in this world of equipment,” Eli says.

“It'd be exciting to see what it would be like if more people our age, and especially our generation, knew more about this and had more interest, especially the outside world away from electronics.”

To watch the family pond clearing episode, check out SEFilms' video below: