“The Blacksmith”

by John Woods

Mr. Josh Belew was our blacksmith. He lived about four miles from us in an old house with a “dog run”. He was an interesting man and I think a good one. He was mostly easy going, had a very deep voice that was kind of melodious, and he was full of stories. I liked him a lot, and was always glad of the opportunity to go to his house to have some blacksmithin’ done.

Mr. Josh had a shop out on the north side of his house and he spent a lot of time in the shop. He did find time though to put in a crop on his own farm. My Uncle John Willis Brown worked for him on at least two occasions that Mr. Josh told me about.

The first time when Uncle Willis was working there he was a young man. And, when he was young he was pretty wild, but was a good worker according to Mr. Josh. One day in late winter they were building fence. The wind was blowing pretty good and gusting some. Uncle Willis had a new Stetson hat on and the wind blew it off two or three times. Each time it blew off Uncle Willis got a little madder. He was just finishing digging a hole for a corner post (this is a larger than normal post and requires a larger hole) when his hat blew off for the last time. He made sure it was the last time because he went and got it, threw it into the posthole and put the corner post in on top of it. Guess what? It never blew off again. Not that one!

Another time Uncle Willis was helping Mr. Josh get ready for spring planting. Each of them had a team and was working in Mr. Josh’s west field, which is pretty large. Mr. Josh was intent on his own work and was not paying any attention to Uncle Willis, but about middle of the afternoon he happened to look back that way and he saw Uncle Willis’ team standing at the end of the rows. He didn’t think much about it, just thought he was answering a call of nature. But, a little later he looked that way again and the team was still there, sans Uncle Willis.

Near sundown there was still no sign of him, so Mr. Josh went and unhooked the team and took both teams to the barn and tended them. He never saw Uncle Willis again until about six months later when he came in from West Texas. He told Mr. Josh that he just felt the urge for some new scenery and left. That was Uncle Willis then, but he became a new man after accepting Jesus Christ as his savior. There was about as dramatic a change in him as you will ever see in a human being.
I started off to talk about Mr. Josh, but got sidetracked. Seems I do that a lot. Mr. Josh was in every sense, a craftsman. A piece of metal in his hands would become whatever he wished it to be. He had a large forge. This is an open fire pit equipped with a blower to supply air for the fire and usually burns high-grade coal, and when I was there I always turned the crank on the blower. He coached me on how fast to turn it to give him the fire he wanted.

The blower was equipped with a heavy flywheel that was a little slow to get started, but once it got up to speed, then it was easy to keep going. Air from the blower blew right up in the center of the fire pit and he would rake burning coal up around the draft and it would glow very hot. A piece of metal would turn red/white hot quickly. He would jerk it out of the fire with his tongs, lay it on the anvil and hit it with his hammer to shape it to his satisfaction. Once that was done, he would plunge it into a water bath or into wet sand to give it the proper temper (hardness). He was really good at this.

Mainly what he did for us was sharpen and rebuild plow points, but if something on your equipment broke, he could fix if or make you a new one. I’ve watched him weld two pieces of metal together by heating them and applying flux before hammering them together while red-hot.

Mr. Josh also did some automotive mechanics and he was pretty good at it. I called on him more than once, when I had a problem. 

 © Copyright 1995 John T. Woods. All rights reserved.