The Most Important Job In The World - The Blacksmith

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?

Channel: Townsends

Views: 217,774

Keywords: 18th century, 18th century cooking, 19th century, history, jas townsend and son, jon townsend, reenacting, townsends

Id: zV3tCqYQWQk

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023