It's hard to overestimate the importance of the blacksmith
in communities of the 18th century without the blacksmith and what he does life stops.
Without the blacksmith we don't have carriages we don't have ships. The carpenter doesn't have
tools the farmer doesn't have tools and without the blacksmith we don't have anything to cook
with basically we're back in the Stone Age. Imagine you are the person in the community
that without your labor no one can do their job that's the blacksmith in the 18th century.
What is blacksmithing? Moxin in 1703 gives us a definition in his book of
handiwork he says "smithing is an art by which an irregular lump of iron is
wrought into an intended shape". So this means that whether it's a tiny tack or a
giant anchor it's all done by the blacksmith and he starts off with a big hunk of iron.
Picture the day of the blacksmith this is not an easy job he's got to get up early and he's
building a hot and smoky fire with dirty coal he's got heavy tools like hammers dirty tongs
he's picking up iron and he's getting it as hot as possible and working it. And he does
this over and over again every single day. Who is the blacksmith in the 18th century?
It's the kind of job that you apprentice for. It takes a long time to train someone to be the
blacksmith because he's got to have a lot of different kinds of skills. He has to be able
to turn this lump of iron into any number of things. Again whether it's a screw or
an anchor or a very complicated kind of machine. He's an inventor he's also a mechanic he's like
a car mechanic he's always got his hands dirty. My name full name James Quint Tyree III, Jamie.
Blacksmith for 30 plus years now here in Limestone Tennessee born and raised most of my work goes for
replication work more than anything else copying the old work existing pieces. The tools that are
used in a modern shop for the most part are no different than the tools that were used during the
building of King Solomon's Temple even the Romans had forging hammers very large forging hammers to
forge out iron and they produced a lot of iron. The techniques of producing pieces are exactly
the same there's eight basic steps and that has not changed since the beginning of the Bronze
Age they're exactly the same still done exactly the same way to produce exactly the same results.
As a blacksmith you're going to start out at a very young age making very
very simple things like nails or s-hooks and you're going to build your own tools
as you go making hammers and tongs that's what the blacksmith does he
not only makes tools for other people but he makes his own tools. And you're going
to do this job as long as your body will take it and that might not be a long time.
You might think that because the blacksmith is in such high demand that he would be well off
but that isn't necessarily true it's a hot and dirty job and it doesn't pay that well
but there are specialist blacksmiths who make things like cutlery, guns,
and high-end decorative items. There are times when the work of the blacksmith is raised to the
level of art and it puts them in a whole different category a very sought after man. That being said
most blacksmiths are doing the grunt work they're doing the plow shears they're doing the chain
links they're doing the horseshoes and they're making these things over and over and over again.
When I was much younger I watched the blacksmith at work and boy they make it look easy I got out
a hunk of metal in the forge and I started working at my first knife it did not go as
planned. I learned very quickly that it takes a lot of work to be a good blacksmith. When we
want to understand the day-to-day life of the blacksmith we need to look at the day books the
diaries of the blacksmith himself or the people who use them. Matthew Patton's diary from the late
18th century is a perfect example he's a farmer he's also a surveyor and he goes to the blacksmith
many times throughout his diary getting things done. He has to have his plow minted he has to
have an ax repaired he has to have a chain made so he can hook his oxen his plow he's getting
specialty augers and drill bits made because he's a carpenter. Every time he goes to the blacksmith
he mentions where the metal came from this is very very important he says it was made with
my iron it was made with the blacksmith's iron I traded this iron. The blacksmith is working with a
very expensive commodity so where this metal comes from and exactly how much it weighs is very very
important to every one of these transactions. In the circumstance where his ax was broken the
eye was broken out of the ax sort of the back half he has it repaired and he gives the eye
to the blacksmith sort of like a tip because just that hunk of metal was worth something.
This is iron ore as it's come out of the ground this is added in to a furnace called a smelter
with charcoal which heats it up to a very high temperature and it actually separates somewhat
the iron from its iron ore it's not hot enough completely separated so you have so much of molten
silica which is a glass and it becomes a spongy mice this is called a bloom then from this stage
it would be taken to a tilt hammer used to as it was called very gently squeezed to consolidate
the iron and to drive out as much of the slag as possible and that's where the term wrought iron
come from it was the iron bloom was wrought or forged into usable material that would go to the
blacksmith then and then they had to forge it down to whatever size of material they needed.
So so far we've just been talking about iron and some of this iron was made in
North America in the 18th century there are iron works but a lot of is imported
probably most of it is imported and it's not just iron but there's also high grade
steel very expensive steel and there are times in Matthew Patton's diary where he
says "I brought so much iron and then I traded for so much very expensive steel".
The blacksmith is not only working in a city a town a village but he's also traveling on
any large ship you have a blacksmith and yes he has a forge he has an anvil he has spare
iron and coal also on expeditions like Lewis and Clark's travels to the West Coast they had three
blacksmiths along. They made knives tomahawks for trade with Native Americans they also fixed their
muskets and anything else that needed repaired. During the American Revolution the soldiers could
not do their job without the blacksmith backing them up. He was making sure their muskets worked
that the wagons could move that the cannons could move he was making surgical equipment. It's fair
to say without the work of the blacksmith we could not have won the Revolutionary War.
My favorite part about studying the blacksmith's art is that so many of the pieces still survive
today. Many of them are on the wall behind me we have these things we can touch them and feel
them and understand the man who made them. Many things from the 18th century still exist but
they haven't been used like these iron objects have been every single one of these things that
the blacksmith made they still have the marks of their use over all these years so it gives
us an entirely different feel than something like a piece of fabric or a piece of paper.
It's almost like you can feel the the creator the smith speaking through that material and its
connection from one smith to another because we instantly recognize processes or we can look at
at marks on it and instantly recognize what tool would have been used and then once you
figure out how they've done the piece and all that and you make your piece and then compare it to the
original you know and you say well I'm not not up to snuff with that smith yet or looky there
I created what he has created you know at least in some sense some small sense I'm maybe equal.
Here on the channel we've done blacksmithing and we've made some of the tools we've also
used tools that are hundreds of years old we've put our own marks on these tools they are part
of what we've done on the channel in a way our cabin is connected with those cabins made 200
and 300 years ago made with the same tools it's part of a line of History all connected together.
So what do you think is the blacksmith the most important job in the world?