40 Years Ago
Week of September 13, 1984
Honest and Dependable Forgers Help Revive Blacksmithing
As New Art Form
by Boris Weintraub
National Geographic News Service
David A. Ponsler, 23, of Jacksonville, Fla., watched carefully as Francis Whitaker, 77, a master blacksmith from Aspen, Colo., bent a piece of steel around a bar into a gentle curve.
“Work from the bottom up, not from the top down,” Whitaker told Ponsler. “You do it easier that way.”
All day, day after day, Whitaker had little bits of guidance for Ponsler and about a dozen fellow smiths chosen to participate in Whitaker’s master class. The common thread to all the advice was a basic message he offered Ponsler: “Don’t rush it. Take your time.
There is no way a blacksmith can hurry. There are few ways to speed up the process. That is one of the charms of blacksmithing as practiced here at the conference of the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America.
Whether a smith is making an item as simple as a coat hook, or as complex as the huge gates under construction by Whitaker’s class and destined for the National Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis, it is slow, painstaking work, done primarily by hand.
The common wisdom is that blacksmithing is dying out, that there is no more a need for hand-forged work in these days of automated farms and the post-industrial economy, where robots and machines can mass-produce items in no time. The evidence of the conference suggests that the common wisdom is wrong. Blacksmithing is surging back.
Some 700 persons attended the conference, most of them working smiths. They came from at least 36 states, from seven Canadian provinces, and from England, France, Germany, Israel, and Czechoslovakia.
They were varied in experience, from the youthful crowd that packed demonstrations on basic forging techniques to masters like Whitaker, who has been a smith for 62 years, and England’s Anthony Robinson, who recently designed and crafted a mammoth set of stainless steel gates for the Great Hall of Winchester.
They ranged from old-time country smiths like Jud Nelson, 73, of Sugar Valley, Ga., showing in his bib overalls how to make wagon wheels and fireplace pokers, to Dorothy Stiegle of Rochester, Wash., one of a handful of women smiths, who attended the films, lectures, demonstrations, and discussions with her 10-month-old daughter.
They included Joseph Polocz, 63, of Philadelphia, Pa., whose Hungarian father had been a blacksmith but who turned away from the family trade as a youth “because it was bloody hard work.” About 10 years ago, he saw a young smith at work, thought, “My God, I can do this with my eyes closed,” and has been smithing as a hobby ever since.
A survey of the American association’s membership earlier this year disclosed that more than half did their smithing purely for enjoyment.
Most of the rest earned at least part of their income by selling their work and 202 of the 1,500 participants in the survey worked at it full time.
The growth in numbers has led to the formation of many local and regional groups: The Blacksmiths Guild of the Potomac, Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil, Blacksmiths of Missouri, and the like. There also has been a spurt in blacksmithing books, and courses on techniques are offered at some universities.
What is the appeal of this venerable craft? Many attending the conference echoed Whitaker, who said, “It’s turning away from mass produced junk, toward something creative.”
Whitaker should know. At age 15, he began to study with Samuel Yellin of Philadelphia, widely acknowledged to be the greatest 20th-century smith. Yellin’s workshop destroyed the ornamental iron market.
Now Whitaker, who worked for 35 years in Carmel, Calif., before moving to Aspen in 1962, is semi-retired. He has been teaching workshops for nine years, and says quality has improved “tremendously.”
60 Years Ago
Week of September 10, 1964
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
McClellan Nominated
To Oppose Lincoln
One of the strangest conventions in America’s history came to an end 100 years ago this week.
The Democratic National Convention had assembled August 29 in Chicago with the normal purpose of nominating a candidate to oppose Abraham Lincoln in the November election and to write the party’s platform. But behind the scenes of the convention, an almost incredible plot unfolded to overthrow the United States authority and to establish a Northwest Confederacy in what is now America’s Midwest.
The convention attracted a conglomeration of Northerners who opposed Lincoln’s war policies: Copperheads, who favored an end to war even if it meant recognition of Southern independence; Constitutionalists who saw their freedoms eroding under Lincoln’s war measures; men who opposed emancipation of the slaves, and members of the secret “Sons of Liberty” who had hatched up the scheme for a Northwestern Confederacy.
Into this group came one Thomas H. Hines, a Confederate captain who dropped in from Canada in civilian clothes with 60 fellow Confederates. Secretly Hines conferred with leaders of the “Sons of Liberty” and listened eagerly to stories of thousands of Northerners who, it was said, would rise against the Lincoln government if they could.
Hines’ plan was to organize some sort of Copperhead army, set Confederate prisoners free from the prison camps around Chicago, add them to his army and go to war against the United States.
There was one big flaw in the plan: Hines was dead serious about it, but the “Sons of Liberty” apparently meant to do no more than talk about it. As time passed, Hines found the Copperheads eager conversationalists, but when it came time to put up or shut up, the Copperheads shut up.
Hines finally asked for only 500 Copperheads with which to start, and even they were not forthcoming. Finally, he slipped away into oblivion, and the plan fell apart.
But the Copperheads won one victory at the convention. Clement Vallandigham, the Ohio Copperhead who had been expelled from the United States earlier in the war, wangled a position on the party’s platform committee and rammed through a resolution that was fraught with controversy. The war, it declared, was a failure and should be terminated immediately.
From there, the convention settled down to the nomination, and it went as predicted. George B. McClellan, the handsome young general whom Lincoln had cashiered after two years of fighting, was nominated for the Presidency. He was a conventional Democrat—not a Copperhead by any means—and he had the support of thousands of soldiers who had served under him. Ohio Congressman George H. Pendleton was nominated for Vice President.
And thereupon, the Copperhead movement collapsed. McClellan, in accepting the nomination on September 8, immediately disclaimed the “peace plan” of the platform. As a man who had fought in dozens of battles, he could not, for the life of him, accept his party’s inference that the fighting had been in vain.
And hardly had the convention ended when the North was filled with talk of victory: victory at Atlanta, victory at Mobile Bay, and coming up, victories in Virginia.
Next week: Sheridan wins in the Shenandoah Valley.
70 Years Ago
Week of September 9, 1954
SPECIAL
‘SPELUNKER’ EDITION
National
Speleological Society
Holds 5th Annual
Labor Day Reunion
In Franklin
One hundred forty-nine members of the National Speoleological Society, wearing miner’s hats with carbide lamps and clay covered dungarees, converged on Franklin last Friday to spend a weekend of frolicking, caving and telling tall tales.
The occasion was the fifth annual Labor Day reunion of the society, which is composed of people interested in exploring caves for fun and for scientific purposes. As explained by G. Alexander Robertson, a city engineer of Richmond, Va., the Labor Day reunion is held for the purpose of getting acquainted and having fun. Business matters are reserved for the National Convention which was held this year at Pittsburgh.
According to Mr. Robertson, who conceived the idea of having a Labor Day reunion, the society has been meeting at Davis in past years. But because of the lack of hotel facilities there, and because of the fine hotel, motel and restaurant facilities that Franklin now provides, and also because of the numerous caves in Pendleton County, the reunion was changed to Franklin this year.
“Spelunkers” as members of NSS are sometimes called, began arriving in Franklin Friday afternoon. Headquarters for the reunion was at Dahmer’s Motel where they registered with Mrs. G. Alexander Robertson, who served as registrar for the occasion. By Sunday morning 149 had registered representing ten states and the District of Columbia.
One of the main features of the reunion was an old-fashioned hayride on large flat bed trucks in the recreation area in the Smoke Hole.
Other highlights included banquets at Dahmer’s Restaurant on both Saturday and Sunday nights. Following the Saturday night banquet many of the group attended the Lawn Party sponsored by the Franklin Volunteer Fire Company and took part in the cake walk.
As the “spelunkers” were preparing to leave Monday morning many of them expressed a desire to return to Franklin for their Labor Day reunion again next year.
Caving Is Both
Sport and Science
Franklin residents who noticed a large number of men and women around Dahmer’s Restaurant and Motel the past weekend dressed in dungarees and hard hats needn’t have been alarmed. It was just the National Speleological Society celebrating its fifth annual Labor Day caving weekend.
The National Speleological Society was founded in 1939 in the District of Columbia and its largest convention of members is still in that area.
Cavers say they like Franklin as a gathering point. They hope the local residents like them. And they want to do all they can to keep the friendliest of relations with cave owners and others living in this area.
EDITORIAL
Thanks to
Mother Nature – – –
For many years the people of Pendleton County have been wondering what they could do to improve local business. There has been much wishful thinking and idle talk about getting some industry to establish a small plant or factory here, one that would give employment to one or two hundred people. Such a plant would be a great stimulus to the economy of the county. But although we have a sizable number of high class laborers, ample quantities of good fresh water, and an ever improving system of highways—all of which are essential to modern factories—no effective, organized effort has been made to secure new industry.
A small factory would be a great asset to the county and we should increase our efforts to secure one. But that is not the only answer to our needs. Slowly and quietly there has been growing in Pendleton County a system of motels, hotels and restaurants of outstanding quality. Should we pause to give a thought we would be surprised at the number of first class hostelries that we have among us; and our many restaurants are constantly drawing complimentary remarks and return visits for their excellent cuisine.
Along with our fine motels, hotels and restaurants, Pendleton County is blessed with unsurpassed natural beauty. We have long been proud of such wonders as the Seneca Rocks, Germany Valley, the Smoke Holes, Seneca Caverns and Reddish Knob, but we have often failed to notice the color wonderland in which we live when the leaves turn golden brown in the fall, or the impressive signs of life when the fields and mountains are wearing their rich green mantles in the spring.
Another type of attraction which nature has provided for us and to which we have been wholly oblivious for these many years are the halls of beauty and enchantment which lie beneath the surface of our hills and mountains. Aside from the one commercial cavern in the county our numerous other caves are seldom given a thought. How many of us knew that Pendleton County had as many as 48 listed caves before reading this issue of the Times? And yet, for many years they have been drawing visitors for hundreds of miles.
Economically speaking a new factory would be a fine thing for Pendleton County, but we have right under our noses, a source of wealth that no factory could match. We now have the facilities to accommodate tourists and even to handle conventions, and thanks to Mother Nature, we have the scenery and attractions to bring them to us. Let’s be kind to them and we shall profit by it.
