Blacksmith shop

“ The clothing and living were the outcome of the farm. Most of the ordinary implements and requirements for both were procured at home. The neighbouring blacksmith made the axes, logging-chains and tools. He ironed the waggons and sleighs, and received his pay from the cellar and barn. Almost every farmer had his work-bench and carpenter's tools, which he could handle to advantage, as well as a shoemaker's bench; and during the long evenings of the fall and winter would devote some of his time to mending boots or repairing harness. Sometimes the old log-house was turned into a blacksmith shop. ”

“ Several men, hearing the commotion at the blacksmith shop, had come in from the neighboring fields, and they were standing around, looking from Clancy to Nick, and trying to get the true inwardness of the affair from the blacksmith. ”

“ Spindles [Pg 22] for the original Bivingsville mill are said to have been made in a blacksmith shop. [38] "Much machinery for the early cotton mills was made by the local blacksmiths. They were important men in the community and often grew prosperous." [39] In those days the blacksmith was a more skillful mechanic than in these, but the machinery they produced must have been crude even for that period. ”

“ The carpenter was delighted with it, and showed it, with a good deal of exultation, to his five companions; every man of whom came the next day to the shop and wanted one just like it. They did not understand all the blacksmith's notions about tempering and mixing the metals, but they saw at a glance that the head and the handle were so united that there never was likely to be any divorce between them. ”

“ The higher portion—which in the view is the portion nearest the observer—forms the Stocking Shop, as it is called; that is the shop where the stocks are made for the muskets, and fitted to the locks and barrels. The lower portion is the Blacksmith's Shop. The Blacksmith's Shop is filled with small forges, at which the parts of the lock are forged. Beyond the Blacksmith's Shop, and in a line with it, and forming, together with the Stocking Shop and the Blacksmith's Shop, the northern side of the square, are several dwelling-houses, occupied as the quarters of certain officers of the Armory. ”

“ Then the blacksmith-shop, under Guy Walker, was a most complete and up-to-date affair, and there young lads were always being taught to make horseshoes, and to shoe horses, and do all the necessary mending of wheels and axles and other ironwork used on a plantation.{14} The big flats and lighters needed to harvest the immense rice-crops were all made in the carpenter’s shop, also the flood-gates necessary to let the water on and off the fields. ”

“ The blacksmith shop is a former quarry, as are many of the homes of the humbler and poorer, their people having taken up their habitations in the same manner as the hermit crab—in the shell of a former owner. On the other side is the village, looking like an old-fashioned jewel in a rough setting, while farther along, on the outskirts of the town, are the fields of cabbages and beets. You must be very careful in wandering over 186these stretches of growing vegetation, for at any moment you may come to a hole like a rabbit burrow almost concealed by the grass. ”

“ Near the Mill House half a mile below it began to hurry, and always I had the stir of the rapids in me.
Feet accustomed to the pace of the plow were going into town. The clink of an anvil broke the silence. I had often watched the great blacksmith as he worked. That clinking indicated the flow of his thought and the strength of his convictions. Words fell between hammer-strokes, and were often as hot as the beaten metal.
The shop of B. Crocket & Son, whither I was bound, stood on a narrow byway bordered with small wooden buildings. ”

“ Like the majority of blacksmith's shops at country cross-roads, it was a low, narrow shed, filled with dust and rubbish, with old wheels and new single-trees, broken plows and dilapidated wagons awaiting repairs, and at the rear of the shop stood a smaller shed, where an old gray horse quietly ate his corn and fodder, waiting to carry the master to his home, two miles distant, as soon as the sun had set beyond the neighboring mountain. ”

“ He was always very bluff and genial and he seemed to suit these boisterous, breezy surroundings. He laughed now at the joke on himself.
“I thought I was being so smart to ship our two-seated buggy out here to save money. But the blasted thing’s no danged good without a brake! After we have dinner, which is all ready at the boarding house, we’ll drive to a blacksmith shop and get it fixed up. Then we’ll go see the mine.”
So that’s what we did. We drove to the blacksmith shop of John R. Morgan, a Welshman who told my father-in-law he had settled in Wisconsin when he first came over from Wales. ”

“ She takes her place by the window as if perfectly at home.
Blacksmith and horse are old friends who understand each other well. The man has won the animal’s confidence by the care he has taken to fit the shoes comfortably. Though a plain, rough fellow, he is of a kindly nature and knows his business thoroughly. The shop is a quaint little place such as one finds in English villages. The thick masonry of the walls shows how old the building is; the floor is paved with large blocks of stone. Between the anvil and the forge there is only space enough for the horse to stand. ”

“ He lived like any labourer, occupying himself sometimes as a carpenter, sometimes as a blacksmith; indeed, he made a blacksmith's shop of the library, one of the most noble rooms in Britain, containing thousands of valuable books which again and again he applied for permission to sell, but this privilege was never granted to him. I find on coming into the property that my uncle quite persistently evaded the law, and depleted this superb collection, book by book, surreptitiously through dealers in London. ”

“ Still, I am not yet sure that he was right; for all my life, when I am honest with myself, I cannot help the thought that I have been a good deal of a blacksmith, after all.
Just beyond was the wagon-shop, where they made such nice long shavings, and where we used to go and play “I spy,” or “High spy,” as we boys called the game. The benches, wagons, and piles of lumber, and the garret overhead, furnished the best possible places for us to hide.
Then came the shoe-shop, where my father took us to get our winter boots, which he paid for by trading flour saved up from his tolls. ”

“ Old Christian sprung the calks on the horn of the anvil, and returned the shoe. The hunchback thrust his hand between the calks, raised the shoe and squinted along its surface to see if it were entirely level. Then he nodded his head.
The blacksmith went over to the wall, and began to take down a paper box. The hunchback saw him and turned under the horse. "We can't risk a store nail," he said. "You 'll have to make 'em."
For the first time the man spoke. "No iron," he answered.
Ump arose and began to look over the shop. Presently he found an old scythe blade and threw it to the smith. ”

“ Suffice it to say that in the making of a horseshoe all of the blacksmith’s basic tools come into use: forge, anvil, tongs, and vise. Some attention to each of these in turn will help to round out an understanding of the workings of the smithy.
Forge. The blacksmith’s forge, which he sometimes calls his fire, is the most important feature of his shop. ”

“ Occasionally a blacksmith’s shop, a paint room, or a livery stable, lower or meaner and more contracted than their neighbors, look as if they never got ripe, but had shrivelled and dropped off before their time. ”

“ The elder brother rode to the king's court just as he had said he would; and as time went on he won great honor there and was made one of the king's counselors.
And the younger brother built himself a blacksmith's shop by the side of a road and worked there merrily from early morn till the stars shone at night. He was called the Mighty Blacksmith because of his strength, and the Honest Blacksmith because he charged no more than his work was worth, and the [17] Master Blacksmith because no other smith in the countryside could shoe a horse so well and speedily as he. ”

“ Some of the shop-keepers are in front of their stores, standing about under the verandahs which cover the pathway, and lazily enjoying a pipe. At the upper end of the town the blacksmith is busily at work shoeing some farmer's horses, in front of the blazing smithy fire. Five or six diggers come slouching along, just from their work, in their mud-bespattered trowsers and their shirt sleeves, a pick or spade over their shoulders, and a tin "billy" in their hands. But for the occasional rattle [Pg 93] of a cart or buggy down the street, the town would be lapped in quiet. ”

“ They have set up blacksmith shops in the churches. All other work is at a standstill. You must have seen Duplay's carpenters making the stocks when you came by. Jewelers are making the locks; there are forges in all the public places. ”

“ How proud were the young amateur blacksmiths when the kind-hearted owner of the shop gave them liberty to heat and pound a bit of nail-rod, to mend a skate or a sled-runner, or sharpen a pronged fish- spear! Still happier were they, when, at night, with his sons and nephew, they were allowed to huddle on the forge, sitting on the bottoms of old buckets or boxes, and watching the fire, from the paly blue border of flame in the edge of the damp charcoal, to the reddening, glowing column that shot with an arrowy stream of sparks up the wide-throated chimney. ”

“ Harrison had not yet found a purchaser for his smithy, and he continued to work there, as the machine shop he had started to build was not ready for operations. It might seem queer for a man with ten thousand dollars to be working at the forge, like a common blacksmith, but Mr. ”

“ The Romans were not skilled in the working of iron, although well conversant with the manufacture of bronze objects.
Remains of iron hasps, escutcheons, window grilles, candlesticks, folding chairs, &c., have been found in France and in England, of the Romano-Gaulish and British periods, that have a great similarity of style, and, indeed, up to the fifteenth century the style and design of iron work in both countries were pretty much alike.
The most interesting examples of the blacksmith’s art of the Middle Ages—in England especially—are the hinges to the church doors. ”

“ Some of my readers may, perhaps, remember that English blacksmiths are equally independent of lucifer matches, flint and steel, and other recognised modes of fire-raising. They place a small piece of soft iron on the anvil, together with some charcoal-dust, and hammer it furiously. The result is that enough heat is evolved to light the charcoal, and so to enable the blacksmith to set to work. ”

“ It is not very easy to tell you much about the way in which the Blacksmith makes the great variety of articles which his trade furnishes, for there is no business the success of which depends more upon personal skill. As the trade of the Smith, or at all events the worker in metal, is one of the most ancient, and existed in times when there were few tools,—as, in fact, it is the Smith who has to make tools,—so at the present day, he has to depend chiefly on his own ability in the use of the hammer and a few other simple instruments to fashion the articles that come out of his workshop. ”

“ Along the fronts of the shops and hanging on ropes which stretch across the street, are shining brasses and pieces of inlaid woodwork and cloths of the most gorgeous orient hues; but the rear of these same shops is usually wrapped in impenetrable gloom. Sometimes there is visible only a square black hole surrounded by a frame of gaudy silks. When you pass a blacksmith’s forge, with shadowy figures moving among the sparks at the back of the inky darkness, it seems like a glimpse into inferno. ”

“ Past the forge, whence the cheery chink, chink of the blacksmith's hammer came mingled with the refrain of a stirring melody from a good bass voice; under the spreading yew-trees of the churchyard, and out through the lych-gate to the old mill, where the great wheel was turning slowly round, its dripping blades gleaming bright in the sunshine; up the steep path through the little hazel-wood, scrambling over the ladder-like stile into the narrow lane that ran ever uphill towards the mountains, which loomed before them, rugged in outline, and shaded in a mist of purple blue. ”

“ These trades offer few opportunities for employment to boys of native birth. Somewhat similar conditions exist in the blacksmithing trade. Changed methods of production have largely done away with the old-time blacksmith, who survives only in horse-shoeing and repair shops. ”

“ There he was, forty years ago, in a small village of the State of New York; no railroad yet, and even the Erie Canal many miles distant. He was the village blacksmith, his establishment consisting of himself and a boy to blow the bellows.
He was a good deal troubled with his hammers. Sometimes the heads would fly off. If the metal was too soft, the hammer would spread out and wear away; if it was too hard, it would split.
At that time blacksmiths made their own hammers, and he knew very little about mixing ores so as to produce the toughest iron. ”

“ The same will happen to mill-work, or any other machinery, if the necessary precautions are neglected. It is no uncommon practice with a blacksmith to use a plate of iron as an extemporaneous tinder-box; for it may be hammered on an anvil till it becomes red hot, and will fire a match of brimstone. ”