The Village Blacksmith(s)

When we moved from Garfield Heights, a modern suburb of Cleveland, to Bedford, a small town established when the Western Reserve was still the frontier, I was eleven-turning-twelve. I was accustomed to long rows of identical bungalows and colonials, organized when the area was developed on endless streets that stretched straight into the horizon. Bedford had grown up naturally, a street here and a street there, curving and weaving over hills and through valleys and around already constructed buildings. The Presidential Section, where our 1923 Georgian house occupied a small rise, was made up of streets called Washington, Lincoln, Adams, and Jefferson. The main road, we were told, had been sneakily named Woodrow, not for Woodrow Wilson, but for the great trees that lined it on either side. Nevertheless, the Wilson supporters had won, and it seems that they were not above rubbing it in afterwards!

History in Garfield Heights had consisted of grouchy homeowners muttering about the cheapskate developers who had removed and sold the topsoil before building, thus leaving completely infertile ground to try to grow grass and plants in. History in Bedford was the spring at the corner of our street that had supplied the local stagecoach inn with its fresh water and name, The Fountain House. History was the scrap chair legs in the coal room in our basement, which we were told the family burned in the fireplace to stay warm in the dearth of the Great Depression. History was the black and white photographs of 19th and early 20th century people that had fallen down into the cracks of our attic floor, and the tin soldier on a horse we found buried in the garden.

But it got better. In the local library, we found volumes of Bedford history, books we devoured, excited by the fact that these things had happened here, right on these streets and in these houses.

We no longer live in town, and our neighborhood is roughly the same age as Garfield Heights, both of them places built to house the multitudes of young GIs rushing home from WWII to marry and start families. But I still love to pick up a Bedford book and become lost in the past.

Just lately, I was studying Bedford Village Views for research purposes. In the process, I came across an article about the 1850 census. In that year, 1,853 people were living in the 25 square miles of Bedford Township, and part of the information taken was regarding their vocations.

In the grand old year of 1850, there were sixteen blacksmiths, nine shoemakers, six doctors, five wheelwrights, one tailor, and one hatter. Unnumbered, but present, were carpenters, cabinet makers (they made furniture), painters, stonecutters, coopers, and boatmen. Also, a shingle maker, a watch maker, a basket maker, a saddler, a preacher, and a silversmith. There were farmers and printers, bookkeepers and merchants, stonecutters and millers, and a stagecoach driver. If these occupations don't give you a storyteller's tingle, it sure does me!

But it also made me realize that historical fiction in general goes very light on one of the most important craftsmen in a 19th century town: the blacksmith. When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow devoted a whole poem to 'The Village Blacksmith', he gave us modern readers the impression that the blacksmith was a lone figure, lacking any competition; but in this little town of Bedford, about 17 miles from the burgeoning city of Cleveland and surrounded by farmland, no less than sixteen blacksmiths swung a hammer in the service of its citizens! The ringing clang of their hammers and the roar of the fire in the forge would have echoed all over the village from sixteen different locations.

​So, why don't we read (and write) more about blacksmiths, if there were so many? I'm not sure, to be honest, unless we blame our gentle, well-intentioned friend H. W. Longfellow! In modern times, blacksmiths are often cast as being of the 'rougher' class of blue-collar worker, but blacksmithing was something everyone needed, and the heavy labor aspect does not seem to have hurt them in social standing, considering how well they would have fared in a horse-drawn world with no plastic or rubber. Since everything was either wood or metal, they would have been in high demand and their services were well-repaid. In Kate Douglas Wiggin's 1903 novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, the title character's best friend is the daughter of a blacksmith, and we are given a peek into what the financial position of this very necessary gentleman would have been when Rebecca informs a new acquaintance,
"My friend who is holding the horse at the gate is the daughter of a very rich blacksmith, and doesn't need any money. "
And, indeed, the wealthy Emma Jane never lacks for clothes, toys, or even tuition for higher education, and no one snubs her or her family for her father's vocation. For that matter, Longfellow's blacksmith seems to be in extremely good standing, appearing each Sunday in church where his daughter sings in the choir, not likely a position open for a lower-class worker.

M. A. Johnston was one of the Bedford blacksmiths, with his shop situated near Main Street. His daily ledgers from 1887 to 1893 are housed by the local historical society. In them, we find the multitude of work he completed for various people in the town. Accounts for one J. J. Kenyon shows that in just August and September of 1887 alone, Blacksmith Johnston set at least seven horseshoes for Mr. Kenyon - one shoe for $0.40, and two for $0.75, with a setting cost of $0.20 each! Dr. Hubbard not only bought many horseshoes and had them set, but also had the blacksmith repair his buggy twice in 1888, adding up to $6.00. Mrs. Clark certainly kept her horses well shod, and the blacksmith repaired her cultivator and her cutter sleigh, too, along with 'tinkering' of various types.

The records continue. He repairs knives, drag teeth for harrows, tires, buggies, pole irons, and hayracks; he fixes broken plows and springs. And while this blacksmith seemed to focus on outdoor implements and horseshoes, we know that blacksmiths of the day, perhaps some of the other fifteen in the town, would also have created and repaired indoor items such as grilles and railings, light fixtures, cooking utensils, and furniture.

Perhaps therein lies the answer to the mystery: we don't drive horse-drawn vehicles, and we don't own a lot of metal that a blacksmith could make or repair. Going to any historical site that hosts a blacksmith shop doesn't help much, since they mostly forge novelties and souvenirs. It certainly doesn't give the impression that this was a very important, very necessary member of the community. And yet if you step into a museum or preserved home or building, it is full of metalwork done by a man with a hammer and a forge.

​Well, I already had a blacksmith story or two planned, but I think you can expect to see even more of them now! And, thanks to the Bedford census of 1850, I've been able to add a few other new vocations to my list of possible historical characters. Another win for local history!