BlO—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, September 18,1982
Farewell Mr. Blacksmith
“Under the spreading chestnut
tree
the village smithy stands
the smith a mighty man is he
with large and sinewy hands. ’ ’
If you’ve ever had to memorize
this poem in school, you’ve pro
bably wondered just what it is a
blacksmith of yesteryear did
besides hammer metal over hot
coals.
Kids, just for you, we are
featuring the true story of a
genuine ol’time blacksmith.
The story will run several weeks,
so watch future issues for more
looks inside a blacksmith shop.
This story was written by Ralph
Ratcliff and was submitted by his
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Kids, it’s National Farm Safety Week, and it’s time to do your share.
You can help Mom and Dad observe this special week by obeying their
orders, reminding them to be safe, and by staying away from the
following potentially harmful fanning necessities. You’ll have to un
scramble them.
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Answers; matches, chemicals, fertilizer, wild animals, machinery, chain saws, silos.
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son Bruce Ratcliff of California.
Ratcliff tells us his father
graduated from Purdue in 1932 in
mechanical engineering, and
pioneered in the design of many
improvements ol today including
the chisel plow, deep tillage mold
board plow and the lay-over disk
plow.
Now on with the story:
1 think the blacksmith shop is an
integral part of United States
history. This is a review con
cerning some of my experiences,
observations and conclusions
during my blacksmith years in
Kingman, Indiana. The personal
concepts are more to give a clearer
perspective of the time than to
write an autobiography. In
safely measures
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relating this, the smith
(blacksmith), his shop and the
draft horse are inseparable.
In 1920, when 1 was 10 years old, 1
became a smith’s helper. Some of
my first work consisted of
preparing (dressing) the horses’
hooves to receive the shoe. This
consisted of cleaning, snipping,
rasping and shaping. Horses loved
this.
One day m the spring of 1922,
Charlie, the man i worked for had
more horses to be shod than he
could do that day. Rather than
have some people leave and come
back later, he asked me if 1 wanted
to try and shoe one horse’s hind
feet while he shod the teammate’s
front feet. It would have been easy
to decline but harder to tell Mama
1 was afraid to try. Before dark we
completed the work.
Walking home the one mile
through the fields that evening 1
realized I was a smith. Mama was
pleased but not surprised. We
three children, Ross, then 1, and
Doris, may have relied more on
Mama than did children who had
both parents; our father died the
day 1 was 20 months old. Ross was
the only one of us who had the
pleasure of remembering him.
It may have been a month before
1 shod ail fours on a horse. Charlie
had been giving me a big ad
vantage. It is much easier to shoe
the back than front feet of a horse.
You and the horse are in a bind
while shoeing a front foot. With the
back foot, it is free wheeling.
Charlie was so quiet he was
considered anti-social, never using
two words when one would suffice.
He would reduce a long speech to a
short sentence and always spoke in
a soft monotone, never raising his
voice. In teaching, he was a pan
tomime artist. He kept liniment.
16
medicated salve and an antiseptic
ior horses. Our customers
frequently made personal use of
these. Horses liked Charlie. So did
1.
Children were never permitted
to roam in a blacksmith shop. The
chances of getting hurt were too
great. One tune when Charlie
needed two more hands, 1 offered
to assist. What seemed like a
kindness was the beginning of a
career. He never did lure me or
discuss an agreement. We just
seemed to complement each other.
A blacksmith shop was always
tidy and clean. There was a place
for everything and everything was
in place. 'Hie bulk of a smith’s
work involved the forge. Hot iron
gets cold rather suddenly. The
smith could not waste tune
selecting or hunting for a tool. His
heat treating facilities consisted of
his forge and two wooden tubs. One
tub was filled with water, the other
with oil. Some steels were quen
ched in water and others in oil.
Among the first things I made in
the blacksmith shop were hor
seshoe nail finger rings and screw
drivers to be carried on a key ring.
The screw drivers were suggested
by my brother. The finger rings
are probably nearly as old as
horseshoe nails. Boys could select
their ring size from the assortment
1 had. Some of the rings were
tailored for a tew special girls.
This seemed to make good sense at
the tune. Mama wore the one 1
made for her for a few weeks just
to please me. When she passed
away at 90 in 1970 we found her
mg in a box among other things
she chose to keep. She had kept it
tor fifty years.
The last tune 1 saw my honored
friend and relative Dr. Eldo E.
Ewbank,' we were visiting with
some friends and he took from his
pocket tus key ring and keys and
called our attention to a slimy
screw driver on the key rmg and
remarked that little boy made it
for him nearly fifty years ago and
that he had probably used it a few
thousand tunes. Many things are
long remembered, and popular
among these are simple kind
nesses. On the basis that “You
have it made if you can count five
friends who would risk their lives
to save yours if the chance of
saving yours was equal to losing
their own.” Doc in my five as
long as he lived.
When 1 started working with
Charlie We did not have electricity
in our town, it was major im
provement when we acquired a
sickle sharpener and steel saw
powered with gas engines. Electric
power came to our town in the
early 1920’5. The pole truck used by
the construction people had two
horse power. A bay and a gray. We
shod them and repaired the
equipment for the construction
company.
The price for shoeing horses
regardless of shoe size was $4 for a
team, $2 for a single horse and $1
for the front feet only on one horse.
The work consisted of about 25%
each for shoeing draft horses,
setting steel tires on wagon wheels,
pointing plow-shares and
miscellaneous.
Setting tires consisted of
removing the tire from the run of
the wheel, heating a section of it
and reducing its circumference in
a tire bender (also called a
shrmker or upsetterj, then ex
panding the tire with heat and
placing it over the run and
shrinking it by applying water as
fast as possible. Pointing a
plowshare consisted of replacing
and shaping the point after it had
been worn away by plowing.
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