[TheForge] doing research

[theforge@mailman.qth.net]

I think Mike Spencer has missed his calling.  He should have been 
a writer.  Very well written, IMHO.

Norm Larson

> When Arch McKnight was young, roughly 1915, he apprenticed 
to Freeland Minard in Barss Corner, Nova Soctia.  At that time, 
Barss corner was a rather isolated farming community but thriving 
by the standards of the time and place.  Freeland's shop was a 
small agricultural shop and the trade was mainly shoeing -- both 
horses and oxen -- and maintainance  work on wagons, bob sleds 
and farm equipment.
> 
> After his apprenticeship, Arch went to work in "the lumber 
woods" near  the headwaters of the Mersey River.  A great many 
men and boys were  employed in cutting logs and hauling them to 
the river to float down  to the mills in Milton and Liverpool.  There 
was also quite a lot of  gold prospecting and some successful 
mining going on in the same area;  Blacksmiths and farriers willing 
to live and work in remote camps were in demand.
> 
> Some time later, Arch went down river to Milton, a sizable village,
> and took employment with the master of the blacksmith shop 
there.  (I  forget the master's name so I'll just call him that.)  The 
Milton shop  had two forges and a very busy trade and was a social 
center for the  men of the area where you could always have a 
chaw and catch up on the  news.  After some years there, Arch 
had saved up $250.  He proposed to  the master's daughter and 
was accepted.  He bulit a house with his  savings (and a very nice 
house it was, for I have been in it), married  the daughter and, when 
the master retired, took over the shop.  He operated the shop and 
worked every day until he was found one day when  he was in his 
late-70s, sitting staring blankly at the wall and unable  to move, the 
victim of a stroke.  After a nearly complete recovery, he  slacked off 
a bit, staying home when the thermometer fell very low or  the 
snow was very deep, but continued to work at the forge for several
> years after that.
> 
> The Milton shop has been restored by a community group and 
made into a museum.  Every single item in the place -- something 
like 15,000  tools, widgets, bits of iron and unidentifiable objects -- 
has been cataloged (saving only a few crates of sundries that 
they're stil working on.) They've done a nice job, excepting only 
that when they restored the crumbling forge, they couldn't find the 
proper water-cooled sidedraft tuyere and replaced it with a bottom 
draft  Lunenburg Foundry firepot. Also, regretably, Arch sold his 
Jardine 25# hammer and his power hacksaw after he retired and 
the community group doesn't have the funds to buy them back.
> 
> I visited Arch several times at his shop.  I also met Freeland 
Minard once when he was in his 90s and only worked at the forge 
in warm  weather and on his better days.
> 
> - Mike
>