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Henry Jenkins Gray Blacksmith Shop
The timber framed structure approximately 12 1/2 x 15 1/2 feet with an eight feet addition, making it about 12 x 24 feet. In size, shape, materials, tool marks, and construction techniques it is atypical and remarkable 19th century farm utility building. There is on-site physical evidence that it may have been built over the foundation of a earlier building with a different orientation. Henry Jenkins Gray may have built the shop in or around 1834. as a place in which to carry out some of his various woodworking projects. In that year he seems to have purchased more than his normal annual supply of lumber, in addition to 4,000 roof shingles. The machine-cut nails, reciprocating saw marks, and overall design and construction of the shop are all consistent with a circa 1830s construction date. The shop received an addition sometime before 1840, when gray had forge built in it and began to blacksmith.
As previously mentioned, in the late 1830s Henry Jenkins Gray decided to set up a forge in this little shop on his farm and practice limited blacksmithing. We do not know what prompted him to do so. Perhaps he saw it as a way to better maintain his own farm equipment and make hardware for the ox yokes, logging sleds, and other farm implements he made for sale. Perhaps he hoped to thus save money, or even increase his income by blacksmithing for his neighbors as well. It may have been envisioned as a convenience for himself and neighbors not to have to travel over two miles to a smithy in the center of town. Or it may have begun simply as an unpremeditated whim. We do know, however, that on January15, 1839 he attended an auction and bought a 226 lbs. anvil along with 224lbs. of iron from G.G. Newell. In an interesting tie to his other enterprises, Gray used a broken Beam from his cider press as a base for the anvil. Indeed, the threads for the press screws can still be seen in this massive piece of white oak. On February 29, 1940 he bought a brand new 30 inch pair of smith's bellows for $17 from S. & W. Hunneman in Boston. A month later he paid 59 year old mason Benjamin Gleason $1.50 for " making chimney in Blacksmith shop." Shortly after that date, Gray started charging his neighbors and kin for blacksmithing work.
The ancient trade of blacksmithing, literally smiting iron, the black metal, took several different forms in 19th century New England. At this time New England was undergoing rapid and unsettling social and economic changes as the region industrialized Dramatically increased commerce presented new opportunities for using old techniques. Some blacksmiths took advantage of this revolution and specialized, manufacturing tools for distant markets. ( By this time farmers and tradesman bought new tools through merchants, not from neighborhood smiths.) Other blacksmiths ironed wooden vehicles or built machinery. Some were farriers, specializing in shoeing the horses and oxen that powered an increasingly mobile society, and providing proto-vet nary care. But most rural and urban neighborhoods in the 19th century still had a generalized blacksmith who repaired tools, made cooking implements, occasionally shoed horses and oxen, and did whatever iron work their neighbors called for. Some of theses smiths practiced their trade full-time. of these, some gradually gave up the trade as they aged in favor of farming or some other more dependable source of income. Still others like Henry Jenkins Gray, were never more that part time smiths
Gray's smithing remained relatively limited in both geography and scope. Throughout his entire career of over 20 years he had only 22 customers for his blacksmithing work. He never manufactured Ironware for distant markets but smithed only for neighbors and kin. Nor did he engaged in all aspects of rural custom smithing. For example, there is no evidence that he shoed horses or oxen for others. Indeed he may not have shoed his own animals. Even during those years when he was actively blacksmithing, Gray often paid others to shoe his own horse and oxen
Tom Kelleher, 2001
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