IIRC, they came up with two solutions. One was
to haul a few run-of-the-mill push mowers behind,

Thinking about it, I realize I must have liked mowing a lot less
than building mowers...

I have had two sets of pull-behind reel mowers on my homemade
tractor (another long story...) I made one from 3 conventional
powered reel mowers. They had a ratchet clutch so that powering the
reel (original setup) powered the wheels. I needed to go back to
having the wheels power the reels, and I found that reversing
the two ratchet clutches right-to-left reversed the action.

So: THAT one can be done...

Later I traded an engine for three commercial golf-course pull
behind reel mowers. Ran that for 10 years.

Got a new house with a lot of rough grass-weeds that didn't mow
with reel mowers. Put 3 typical person-pushed rotary mowers
ganged behind the old tractor. Cut most stuff fine. The 3 mower
engines plus the tractor gave it a sort of Ford TriMotor
(Another long story ending up in the Smithsonian) acoustic
signature.

You can do it if you're willing to weld and hack a little.

Jeez.. I hadn't remembered some of this stuff for years...
--
Regards, Terry King ...In The Woods In Vermont

The one who Dies With The Most Parts LOSES!! What do you need?