The blacksmith must be able to judge when his stock is hot enough, and he does it by eye, the right degree of heat for a particular operation being revealed by the color of the iron. Blood-red heat is called for when the iron is not to be reshaped but only the surface to be smoothed. Flame heat or white heat is necessary when the work is to be hammered to a different shape, drawn down, or upset. Sparkling heat or welding heat is used only for the delicate and highly skilled process of welding.
Anvil.This is hardly less important to the smith than the forge, as he does practically all of his work on it. The common smith’s anvil, made of cast or wrought iron, may weigh up to about three hundred pounds. It has had the same basic shape since ancient times, each of its features being functionally tried and perfected ages ago. The anvil’s upper surface, called the face, is flat, smooth, so hard that a file will not cut it, and made of cast steel welded to the wrought iron body. One end of the anvil is a cone-shaped projection called the horn (also called beak, bick, bickern, or pike), used to work curved or rounded pieces of iron such as rings, links, or shackles. Between the horn and the face of the anvil is a small square area called the table. Its surface is not as hard as that of the face, and the smith places on it any work he wants to cut with a cold chisel. Near the other end or heel of the anvil are two holes, one round, called the pritchel hole, and the other square, called the hardie hole. When the smith intends to punch a hole through a piece of metal, he positions it over the pritchel hole so that the punch will pass into the hole rather than strike the face of the anvil. The hardie hole (also called the swage hole) is designed to take the square shanks of a variety of special-purpose bottom tools—which make their impact on the underside of the work when the smith strikes it from above.
Tongs.Iron being a metal that transmits heat readily, the blacksmith often cannot hold the piece he is working on, even with a gloved hand. He needs tongs to do the holding, and because of the differing shape of different objects being worked, he needs a variety of tongs of different shapes and sizes. Thesehe ordinarily makes himself. John Brush of Williamsburg, for instance, owned “7 pair of Smiths Tongs.”
Hammers.It has already been said that the smith’s forge and anvil are among his essential tools. So is his hammer—or rather hammers, for he needs several of different shapes and weights, as well as a sledge or two.
A small selection of tools such as would be found in almost any blacksmith’s shop: fire tools, tongs, pincer, hammers, chisels, stamps, and stakes or hardies. From Diderot.
A small selection of tools such as would be found in almost any blacksmith’s shop: fire tools, tongs, pincer, hammers, chisels, stamps, and stakes or hardies. From Diderot.
Vises.Smiths’ vises are of two types, the large standing vise, used to hold iron for bending, riveting, filing, or polishing, and the small or hand vise to hold work of similar size. In both cases the work will have already undergone the major part of its forming on the anvil, and the vise comes into use almost solely for finishing operations.
Other tools that have particular uses may be no less important to the smith when he has occasion to use them. Among them may be mentioned drills, swages, swage blocks, hardies, stakes, punches, cold chisels, files, screw plates, flatter, fuller, header, and mandrel. It is recommended to the reader who wants to know the nature and uses of these and other tools in a smithy that he become an apprentice to the nearest blacksmith; there is no better way to learn.
Certainly no one can learn to anneal, braze, case-harden, temper, lay, and weld iron just by reading about it. But we can at least offer some definitions:
Annealingis the process of softening steel so that it can be worked by cutting tools. It is done by heating the piece in the fire to blood-red heat, then allowing it to cool slowly.
Brazingjoins together two or more pieces of metal by the use of a brass solder, called spelter. It is used when the pieces to be joined are too thin to be welded.
Case hardeningis the process of hardening the outer surfaces of iron or steel, while leaving the core soft and therefore tougher. According to Joseph Moxon’sMechanick Exercises(third edition published in London in 1703) it was to be accomplished as follows: Cover the iron all over with a cement made of powdered cow horn or hoof, coarse sea salt, stale urine or white wine vinegar, and clay, with more clay added to enclose the whole; when the clay has dried hard, put the whole lump in the fire and bring it to blood-red heat, no more; then take the iron out and quench it.
Temperingis the opposite of annealing, in that it slightly softens and toughens iron or steel. It is accomplished by bringing the object to the proper heat—which may differ according to the {...}
Layingwas one of the most frequent operations performed by colonial smiths. Such implements as axes, hoes, and plows usually had wooden handles and wrought-iron heads, with a strip of steel welded on to make the cutting edge or face. When the last become worn, the process of replacing it was called laying or steeling.
Weldingtwo pieces of iron is at the same time very simple in theory and very difficult in fact. At the proper heat the two pieces placed firmly face to face will—if the faces are clean—stick together without further ado. But accomplishing this feat requires great skill with the fire and great quickness with the hammer so that scale will not form on the surfaces to be welded. Normally the weld is hammered together on the anvil to refine the grain of the metal as it cools.
Another farrier’s shop, no doubt drawn on the spot with tools and equipment just as they were seen by the artist. From Diderot.
Another farrier’s shop, no doubt drawn on the spot with tools and equipment just as they were seen by the artist. From Diderot.
James Anderson was described earlier in these pages as Williamsburg’s foremost blacksmith during the years when his shop occupied a lot on Francis Street. Several of his ledger books are still in existence, some of them treasured possessions of Colonial Williamsburg. Among endless entries covering the laying of axes, hoes, plows, and colters, appear others that show the less routine aspects of Anderson’s daily work: mending a poker; making a nut for a bolt of a chair (probably a riding chair); dressing two mill picks; mending a lock; altering 40 window hooks; making a hasp and staple for a henhouse; providing handle, wedges, and ring for a scythe; fixing a new end to an oyster clamp; putting a handle on a “teakittle”; forging a well chain; making a “strike tier,” i.e., strakes for wagon wheel and nails to attach them; spindle for a wheel; prong for a dung fork; putting a hoop on a barrel; mending a coffee mill; 9 “fronts” and a rib for a griddle; 50 spikes; a pair of flatirons; mending and installing locks, keys, window bars, leg irons, and chains for the “lunatick hospital”; lengthening the bearer and adding a new middle foot to an andiron; “a Sett of Iron for a dressing table”; four breast plate buckles (for a harness); drilling a gun; mending an umbrella; “triming a horse feet”; making, mending, putting on, and taking off leg irons and hand cuffs for the jail.
Clearly everyone in town had to patronize the blacksmith sooner or later. He was, in a very real sense, a craftsman for all seasons.
This list includes only the men who were primarily blacksmiths or who clearly did blacksmithing along with their work in other iron crafts. The dates designate the years when they are known to have been in Williamsburg.
James Anderson, 1762-1798. Born in Gloucester County in 1740. Public armorer in Williamsburg from 1766, and supplier of arms to the Revolutionary forces of Virginia. His forge probably occupied the lot on Francis Street in Williamsburg next to the Barraud House. He employed a number of journeymen gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and nailers, and at one time had as many as nine apprentices. He and his shops were moved to Richmond along with other government agencies when that city became the seat of government in 1780; in 1793 he turned his Richmond shop over to his son and moved back to Williamsburg.
William Ashburn, 1774. Advertised in April of that year that he had opened shop near the Capitol in Williamsburg. May have been in town three years earlier, but little else is known of him.
John Bell, 1753-1776. Called himself both whitesmith and blacksmith. Served as public armorer from 1763 to 1766, when he moved to Portsmouth.
James Bird, 1740-1758. Established his shop “in the Market Square” on land leased from the trustees of the city of Williamsburg. Was lacking both as master and as businessman: an apprentice sued in court and obtained release from his indenture; pleading that the blacksmith “misused” him, and after his creditors foreclosed the mortgageon his property, Bird departed town “in low Circumstances.”
Robert Bond, 1761-1783. Learned blacksmithing as an apprentice in Yorktown. Bought large quantities of bar iron from Robert Carter. Worked for the state during the Revolution and got caught in a bureaucratic vise: when the British destroyed his bellows he could not, despite an order from the commissioner of war, obtain “any Lether With out the Money and i am in tylerly idle theay wont Let Me Draw any Provisions because i ant at Work and i Cant Doe anything With out my Bellus.”
John Brush, 1717-1726. Primarily a gunsmith; may also have engaged in the blacksmith’s trade. Thought to have been a protégé of Governor Spotswood because he did “work and reparations about the Governors House,” and built his home on the Palace Green nearby. Was keeper of the public arms and those of the governor; in 1723 petitioned the legislature (in vain) for an allowance “for his misfortune in being blown up and hurt in firing the Guns on his Majtys Birthday.”
Thomas Cowles, 1772-1775. He was a patient of Dr. John M. Galt, bought bar iron from Robert Carter, and repaired the arms of “Capt. Lynes Compy of Minute Men.” Nothing else is known of him.
John Draper, 1769-1789. Blacksmith, farrier, and veterinary, whose shop was on Duke of Gloucester Street and who lived on the corner of Francis and Waller streets “where the Old Play House lately stood.” During the Revolution he made guns, rented out riding chairs, rode express, repaired arms, and supplied nails and shot.
James, David, and William Geddy, 1736-about 1780. James Geddy, gunsmith, father of David and William (also of James Geddy, Jr., the silversmith), established his shop in Williamsburg sometime before 1736; he died in 1744. He and two of his sons did cutlery work, brass casting, and iron founding as well as gunsmithing; the sons also purveyed rupture bands and a vermifuge for horses, andoffered to cure “the most inveterate Pole-evils and Fistulas ... and all Diseases incident to Horses.” During the Revolution William was paid for repairing arms and casting ball; he died in 1784.
John Moody, 1776-1779. Smith and farrier, from Philadelphia by way of Norfolk, advertised his shop near the church in 1776. Was paid on several occasions for shoeing horses, but little more is known of him before his death in 1779.
Hugh Orr, 1738-1764. Captain Orr called himself both blacksmith and “hammer man,” and settled in Williamsburg by 1738. His house and smithy were on Duke of Gloucester Street. He may have acted as farrier, and either he or a slave trained to do so performed phlebotomy—bleeding. He served as armorer for the colony for three years and may have been an officer in the Williamsburg militia. He is buried in Bruton churchyard.
Thomas Pate, 1760-1814. Did blacksmith work for John Custis and Lord Botetourt among others, and repaired arms for Virginia troops during the Revolution. The location of his shop is not known, but his purchase of more than 3,000 pounds of bar iron from Robert Carter in 1773 alone indicates a lively trade.
William Willis(orWilless), 1768-1770. Came from Birmingham and opened his gunsmith and blacksmith shop “near the playhouse” and “below the Capitol,” but soon moved to Norfolk.
Alex W. Bealer,The Art of Blacksmithing. rev. ed. New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1976.
Garry Hogg,Hammer & Tongs: Blacksmithery Down the Ages. London, Hutchinson Co., 1964.
J. G. Holmstrom,Modern Blacksmithing and Horseshoeing. Chicago, F. J. Drake & Co., 1941.
John Jernberg,Forging: Manual of Practical Instruction in Hand Forging of Wrought Iron.... Chicago, American Technical Society, 1917.
William Allyn Richards,Forging of Iron and Steel. New York, D. Van Nostrand Co., 1915.
F. W. Robins,The Smith: The Traditions and Lore of an Ancient Craft. London, Rider and Co., 1953.
H. R. Bradley Smith,Blacksmiths’ and Farriers’ Tools at Shelburne Museum: A History of Their Development from Forge to Factory. Shelburne, Vt., Shelburne Museum, 1966.
Albert H. Sonn,Early American Wrought Iron. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928.
Aldren A. Watson,The Village Blacksmith. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1968.
The Blacksmith in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg, first published in 1971, is based largely on an unpublished monograph by Harold B. Gill, Jr., of the Colonial Williamsburg research staff. It has been prepared with the assistance of Thomas K. Ford, editor until 1976, Colonial Williamsburg Department of Publications.