the Two most important people

There were two important people in town in olden tymes,  The Clergyman, be it Priest or Minister who took care of your ever lasting soul, and the Blacksmith, who took care of everything else. From horseshoes to plows, from axes to knives, the Blacksmith made everything. 

My Grandfather was a Smith in his early years, in later life he built a forge in his work shop, he made it out of red brick. he made a lot of wrought iron items, the railings in the back of my house are one example.he was long done with the days of using a bellows for air and built a electric blower to take it's place. He also had a small forge with a hand cranked blower. I can still remember the smell of the shop, the wood working side smelled of sawdust and wood smoke, (wood fired furnace), the metal working side smelled of hot metal, rust, coal and hot oil.

I can say the shop was a warm place once you got the kindling and wood lit in the stove, it hovered in the 70's and 80's in the winter, but no matter how warm the shop was, once the forge was up and running, sitting there watching the steel turn red, hammered into shape, reheated, re hammered, walking away from that area always left you feeling chilled as the wood stove was no match for that forge.

Here are some tools used by Blacksmiths...

The Anvil:

the Bellows:

there are still places to see Black-smiths, mostly museums, in this area you have Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, and The Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.