Part 2

John Brush was the earliest Williamsburg smith whose name is known today. He was primarily a gunsmith and armorer, but may have done blacksmithing too. He bought two lots in the shadow of the Governor's Palace in 1717, and the modest home he built there (later enlarged by Thomas Everard) still stands on Palace Green. So far as surviving records have revealed, he was followed by no more than fourteen individuals over the next three-quarters of a century who worked iron and steel in one or more of the smithy crafts: blacksmith, gunsmith, locksmith, cutler, nailmaker, and farrier.

Only fourteen. Even granting the possibility that some blacksmiths never left their name or mark in a written record, this seems remarkably few for so long a period in one of Virginia's chief towns. The small number can probably be taken as another indication that most of the colony's smiths--like eighty to ninety percent of its population--lived and worked in the country.

Surviving advertisements, invoices, and inventories of Williamsburg blacksmiths suggest that the work they did was of a somewhat different nature from that of the rural smith. The following extracts from account books of James Anderson and Thomas Pate indicate something of the urban variety:

1771 Mr. Henry Morse Dr to James Anderson Jan 22 To Cleaning 3 guns @ 3/ 1 9 0 March 22 To Cleaning 3 Do @ 3/ 0 9 0 August 28 To plating Chair Shafts ? ? 3 To mendg a spring 0 2 6 1772 May 25 To a New tumbler pr lock 0 2 6 June 3 To Mending Bridle Bitt 0 0 7½ 7 To Mending a Chair 0 2 6 July 30 To Altering a spring 0 3 9 To Do 2 bolts 0 1 3 May 18 To feeding 2 horses 20 days @ 4/ 4 0 0 To laing axletree pr Chair 0 15 0 To 3 Tiar Nails @ 1½d 0 0 4½ To pr Clamps pr Wheels 0 2 6 July 5 To 2 gallons oats 0 1 3 Decmb 7 To a key pr lock 2/6 mendg lock 1/3 0 3 9 .... 1774 Jany 18 To a Nutt for Chair 0 0 7½ Augt 22 To 8 Dog Nails 8d Cleang a Gun 2/6 0 3 2 1775 May 17 To a Key for a lock 0 2 6 Work done for the Capitol By James Anderson 1773 May 24 To Cleaning a Stove 1 0 0 July 26 To 4 Bars prs Statue 2 4 5 Octr 3 To 3 Bars prl Doors @ 2/6 0 7 6 To 4 Do @ 5/ . 20 mendg a hinge 2/6 1 2 6 4 To Eight hooks @ 7½ 0 5 0 15 To 2 Keys prs locks @ 3/9 0 7 6 To a Box prs do 0 1 6 1773 Country Dr Apr 25 To half a Year Salary as Armourer to the Magazine £10 1760 Collo Custis Estate to Thos Pate Dr. Feb. 11 To lenthening a Chain and mending a Bed pin for £0 3 0 Cart To altering a Sett of Clamps Do 0 2 6 19 To Pointing a Plough 0 2 6 22 To Making a Screw key for the mill 0 2 6 23 To Mending 2 Keys for Locks 0 2 6 27 To Making 2 Bed pins and 2 Linch pins for Cart 0 6 3 To making Cleavey and Pin Do 0 3 9 To making Iron work for a Ox yoke 0 5 0 March 5 To Making a Ox Chain 0 10 6 To making Iron Work for a Ox Yoke 0 3 9 11 To Altering 3 Mill Hoops 0 3 9 April 4 To mending a Lock and Key 0 2 0 26 To Altring a Mill Spindle 0 5 0 May 1 To Pointing a fluke hoe 0 2 6 2 To Making 2 Wedges for the Mill 0 2 6 7 To Mending a Sane 0 1 3 30 To Pointing a fluke hoe 0 2 6 June 3 To Dressing 3 mill Peaks and Lengthening a crane 0 5 0 30 To Pointing a fluke hoe 0 2 6 July 5 To Making a Hoope for Mill 10 pounds 0 7 8 To making 2 Wedges Do 0 2 6 11 To mending a Broad Ax 0 1 3 24 To mending a Key for a Lock 0 0 7½ Novm 17 To making a box for a whip saw 0 3 9 1761 Feb. 3 To making 2 peed pins for Small Cart 0 2 6 9 To Mending a Lock 0 1 3

It will be noticed that Pate made or repaired several items "for the mill." No doubt this was the windmill shown on the "Frenchman's Map" of 1782 as standing on or near Custis's property to the south of town. The millwright, the wheelwright, the coachmaker, and the shipwright all depended heavily on the blacksmith to produce essential parts of their respective products. The builder of houses, too, could do little without the nails and the tools that came from the local smithy.

However, when the "public hospital, for persons of insane and disordered minds" was built in Williamsburg in 1771, the removable iron gratings and padlocks to be installed at all the windows were imported from England. For this large specialty job, even James Anderson, the town's foremost smith, was passed over. Similarly, wrought-iron gates and balconies on the public buildings of Williamsburg appear to have been ordered from England. The Capitol was to have "on each Side ... an Iron Balcony upon the first Floor," and the assembly explicitly empowered the overseers in charge of building both the first Capitol and the Governor's Palace to send to England for ironwork, glass, and other materials necessary.

Likewise, the elaborate gates at Westover plantation were made for William Byrd II in England. A "Set of Iron Palisades and Gates curiously wrought," sold as part of a prize cargo in Norfolk in 1748, probably came from France. When the House of Burgesses in 1768 commissioned a statue of the beloved Governor Botetourt, the sculptor, Richard Hayward of London, was also to provide the iron railing that surrounded the base of the statue when it was set up in the portico of the Capitol. One reason for importing ironwork for these large jobs may have been that local smiths were not equipped to handle them; more likely, the importation was politically wise since manufacturing in the colonies was discouraged by the British government.

_TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES_

The bills and accounts quoted a few pages back, and others, give ample evidence that most colonial smiths could read and write--although their spelling (like George Washington's) might have a way of its own. At least one Williamsburg blacksmith, Hugh Orr, seems to have been quite a reader; at his death in 1764 he left a library of about forty books. But neither he nor any other colonial smith sat down to write out and illustrate a description of the work he did and how he did it.

This is not intended to be a how-to-do-it manual either. A few pages of text and pictures can hardly substitute for the apprenticeship of as much as seven years through which a blacksmith gained mastery of his craft. Only the close daily supervision of an expert and years of practice will enable a smith to know when the eye of his fire is large enough--but not too large ... when the forced draft of his bellows has made the fire hot enough--but not too hot ... when his iron is red enough--but not too red ... when his hammer blows fall heavily enough--but not too heavily to accomplish the particular job at hand.

Readers unfamiliar with the processes and products of a smithy are likely to be strangers also to many of the smith's tools--which makes for something of a problem in trying to describe them. For this and other reasons it seems wise to start with what may be the most familiar items today.

_Nails._ In the early years of the Jamestown colony land was plentiful and nails were scarce. They, like every other object of iron--except the "little chissels" mentioned by Captain John Smith--had to be brought over from England. When the soil of their tobacco fields was worn out, planters simply took up, cleared, and planted new land farther west. Sometimes they set fire to buildings on the abandoned land in order to salvage the nails for re-use, a practice that was forbidden by law in 1644.

However, nails were not difficult to make if one had a supply of wrought-iron rods and a few tools. Frontier farmers--which in eighteenth-century Virginia meant those living one or two hundred miles to the west of Williamsburg--sometimes spent winter days in nailmaking. The fireplace served as forge, and even the younger members of the family could wield tongs, hammers, and cold chisel or man the vise.

Where there was a blacksmith, as we have already seen, he--or more likely his apprentice--made the nails. James Anderson estimated that eight boys could turn out twenty-five thousand nails in a week. Isaac Zane, who had an ironworks in the neighborhood of Winchester, owned "17 nailors tools great & small" and "2 nailors anvills." The smith probably started with iron several feet long, about one-quarter-inch in width and the same thickness, produced in a slitting mill. His first procedure was to draw them down--and here we come to the first terminological stumbling block. Drawing down (or drawing out or beating out) is the smith's phrase for thinning and lengthening a piece of metal by heating and hammering it. The contrary process of thickening--by hammering on the end of a rod--is called upsetting and is the technique used in making the head of the nail. Before he did that, though, the smith, having drawn down the rod to the proper thickness for the nails to be made, cut them to the desired length. Most likely he did this on a hardie, which is like a chisel held with the point upward in the square hardie hole of the anvil.

_Horseshoes._ Hugh Jones in 1724 wrote that horseshoes were "seldom used in the lower part of the country, where there are few stones." It is true that the soil of tidewater Virginia tends to be sandy and free of stones, so that horses could and did go unshod much of the time. Yet there is ample evidence--some of which we have seen in the accounts excerpted above--that blacksmiths and farriers worked in the Williamsburg area at making and mounting horseshoes.

A smith who made, fitted, and applied shoes to horses, mules, and oxen was properly called a farrier. The trade demands knowledge and skill in handling iron, and also knowledge and skill in handling the animals being shod. Because of his close familiarity with these animals, his "horse sense," so to speak, the farrier often served the function of veterinarian too. More often, however, it was the blacksmith who also served as farrier.

Horseshoes were made from bar iron, and they were normally custom made to fit not just a particular horse, but a particular one of his feet. Each shoe of a set of four will differ in one or more respects--size, shape, or weight--from its fellows, and each set may differ from others depending on the type of horse involved--draft, riding, carriage, etc.--and the condition of surface on which the shoes are to be used--ice, mud, stone, etc. In addition, special shoes can correct defects in gait, guard against lameness, and the like. To describe how a smith made all of these possible variations is no part of this booklet. 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. It consists of a square hearth, usually raised about two and one-half feet and made of brick, with a bellows at the side or back to blow the fire, a hood or hovel above to carry smoke and fumes away, and a trough or tub of water close by in which to quench the iron or cool the tongs.

The fire itself, of coal rather than charcoal, is always small and concentrated, a few inches across in the center of a hearth that may be four or five feet square. Around it lies unburnt fuel that the smith can handily bring closer when needed. With his slice--a long-handled, light-weight shovel--his fire-hook--a similarly long-handled rake--and his washer--a bunch of twigs to flick water around the fire--he carefully manages the size and depth of the fire. With the bellows he regulates its intensity.

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. These he 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.

_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:

_Annealing_ is 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.

_Brazing_ joins 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 hardening_ is the process of hardening the outer surfaces of iron or steel, while leaving the core soft and therefore tougher. According to Joseph Moxon's _Mechanick 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.

_Tempering_ is 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 {...}

_Laying_ was 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.

_Welding_ two 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.

_THE ESSENTIAL CRAFT_

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.

_THE BLACKSMITHS OF WILLIAMSBURG_

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 mortgage on 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."