Of Necessity - The Shaping of a Semi-Arrested Frontier

Lane 1

OF NECESSITY:

THE SHAPING OF A SEMI-ARRESTED FRONTIER

Andy Lane

ANTH – 3300 Regional Anthropology: Ozarks

Inst: Dr. Brian CampbellDecember 7, 2010

Lane 2

Andy LaneANTH – 3300 Regional Anthropology: OzarksUCA - Fall 2010Inst: Dr. Brian CampbellDecember 7, 2010

OF NECESSITY: THE SHAPING OF A SEMI-ARRESTED FRONTIER

The earliest European settlers in the Ozarks differed from the colonists who came to the eastern shores of America in the early 1600’s mainly in that they did not arrive in organized boatloads with many people in each group. Also, these early Ozarkers did not come to the hills with a purpose to colonize the region for another government, or necessarily to make their fortunes exploiting the resources there as commodities in trade with the rest of the world. No, these early folks were a peculiar mix somewhat like Jefferson’s Yeoman Farmer, on the one hand, and then again sort of like Daniel Boone on the other hand, trying as best as they could to avoid the smell or sight of smoke from a neighbor’s cabin. So it happened that most of the early Ozarkers travelled into the region in small groups of one or maybe two families carrying a limited amount of luggage and equipment. Often, it was just one or two individuals traveling on horse or mule-back that first settled in this rugged land. But in spite of these basic differences between the Ozarkers and the early colonists, there were some basic similarities in the circumstances that they both came into when they settled that worked to shape the character and life styles of the respective groups into something that was unique not just to the American way of life, but more specifically to set the Ozark people apart as a unique culture among the others found in America and to establish the region as “what Dr. Robert Flanders, history professor at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, describes as a ‘semi-arrested frontier.’ ”1 It is then worth taking a brief look at those circumstances that first separated the colonists from their European counterparts and set the ball of uniqueness in motion.

In Chapter Two, “Where They Came From,” of his book Country Furniture, Aldren A. Watson2 looks at the origins of the early colonists to explain why they developed such different methods of working from those they left behind in Europe: ways that came to embody the character of what is called Yankee ingenuity. Naturally, the first colonists came directly from Europe. Many were skilled craftsmen in their old homelands, or at least they had lived in places where established forms of trade and industry probably existed. Those colonists brought that knowledge with them, but they did not bring the elaborate tool systems required to conduct business as usual as they had known in Europe. In order to work in that manner, the new settlers first had to manufacture the tools with which to work. But they were met with a more immediate challenge than this. What they found when they arrived in America was an expansive territory

1 C. W. Gusewelle. “A CONTINUITY OF PLACE AND BLOOD: The Seasons of Man in the Ozarks”: Rockville, MD. American Heritage Magazine, Vol. 29, Issue 1, (December 1977). (9)

This characteristic of a “semi-arrested frontier” is also briefly mentioned by Milton Rafferty on page 15 of the text:Jean Sizemore. Ozark vernacular houses: a study of rural homeplaces in the Arkansas Ozarks 1830 - 1930: University of Iowa. 1989.

2 Aldren A. Watson, Country Furniture.: NY, Scarborough, Ont. New American Library. 1974. (11 – 13).

Lane 3

that was lush with forests and other resources and devoid of prepared fields for cultivation. So of necessity the first priorities for these new settlers became the clearing of land, the building of sufficient – usually temporary - shelters, and the planting of crops for survival. The second priority was the building of the most necessary furniture and tools to support the growth of their communities.

With time and in successive generations, industries of fine craftsmanship did develop in the major cities of the east, but for those who lived in the outlying communities the circumstances of their lives remained relatively primitive. These country folks were forced to learn new methods of doing their work out of necessity because there was no one else available in this new land to supply their needs. Watson also elaborates on the circumstances of living in the rural village community and how this forced the hand of the country craftsman into a mold of economy and ingenuity:

“The village was a self sufficient community cut off from the surrounding towns by difficult geographic features and poor roads. The inhabitants did everything themselves, and when they lacked people who could – they imported them. . . 3

“The people in such a village lived on the land and were concerned more than anything else with a way of producing food, shelter, and clothing. Whether joiners, farmers, or craftsmen, they were probably quite unaware of the term versatility. . . If a man in 1780 raised wheat in the spring, corn in the summer, sheared his sheep, worked a couple of days framing a new barn, cut saw logs in the woods, and then built a table and a set of chairs from the lumber – what would he have called himself? Farmer, joiner, woodsman? Sheep raiser, chair maker, or builder? Very often the country furniture maker was all of these. ”4

So it happened that besides having to create a method of building shelter, furniture, storehouses, tools, and furniture, these rural folks of colonial times were also well occupied with a variety of other essential tasks on a daily basis. Consequently, the development of tool systems and methods for building furniture and other necessary items was extremely simplified so as to be accomplished as quickly as possible. Fashion was hardly a concern at this point. Meeting a market demand was even less of a priority in this situation. Watson points out that, “The mistake is to assume that what they made in an emergency demonstrated their full capacity.” 5 These skilled individuals were forced to attend to first things first, but in these circumstances the experiments they undertook resulted in the development of many workable solutions. In this way, the products and methods of the country builders became different and unique from what was known in Europe at the time.

In the years shortly after the American Revolution there was a large migration of people from the original thirteen colonies, now states, into the regions of the Ohio Valley and the Appalachian Mountains farther to the south. This is where the pioneer characteristic of traveling light begins to be very apparent. For those who moved along the Ohio River and other main

3 Watson, (4).

4 Watson, (2).5

Watson, (12).

Lane 4

waterways it was not so necessary to carry only the most basic essentials. In some cases, entire households were transported by barge or large wagons in the easy to traverse areas. However, with the Appalachian settlers only the very essential items were carted into the rugged wooded mountain wilderness, almost always by horse or mule since there were practically no roads upon which wagons could travel. This situation is precursory to the one in which the Ozark settlers found themselves. The journal of Henry R. Schoolcraft includes this description of preparation for travel into the wilderness of the interior of the Ozarks and away from the more civilized outpost at the mining settlement at Potosi, Missouri in early November of 1818: “Having completed the necessary preparations, I left Potosi at three o'clock, P.M., accompanied by Mr. Levi Pettibone, being both armed with guns, and clothed and equipped in the manner of the hunter, and leading a packhorse, who carried our baggage, consisting of skins to cover us at night, some provisions, an axe, a few cooking utensils, etc.“6 This mode of traveling with limited accommodations was, of necessity, very common among those earliest travelers and settlers. A further accounting of the difficulties of travel experienced by Schoolcraft and Pettibone is given by William Neville Collier:

“The progress made [by Schoolcraft and Pettibone] was slower than had been anticipated; moreover, the travelers lost their way more than once and apparently were considerably off the true course, as they came up to White River near the junction of Beaver Creek. This was much too far south, but there may have been a reason for it. Their provisions were running low and replenishment would depend on their finding some settlement. And along White River offered the best—in fact the only—chance of doing that. By a streak of good luck they ran across two hunters who only a few months before had come up the river and were camped with their families, just above the mouth of Beaver. Here they remained several days and finally arranged with the hunters to accompany them on the trip to James. These two men were James Fisher and William Holt. . . .

[And after a stay of about three months of exploring the region, during which Schoolcraft and Pettibone help the settlers build two cabins for shelter it is reported that,] “The travelers then returned to White River, but by a different route from the one they came, due to having lost their way.”7

Throughout both Schoolcraft’s Journal and Collier’s article the point is accentuated that travel in the Ozarks was very difficult and that in the early years of the 1800’s there were very few people settled in the region.

Except that many of the communities that grew up in the earliest period of settlement in the Ozarks were much smaller than those in the New England colonies, and in some cases the settlers were totally isolated and away from an established community, the same attributes of priority based in the necessity of subsistence and the diversity of occupation that resulted from this shaped the development of tool making and building methods in the Ozarks. But for those who did come to settle in the remote wilderness of the Ozarks there was a nearly perpetually imposed circumstance of necessity and time constraint that was not alleviated by regular commerce with Europe and large, productive farm communities. Subsistence in the Ozarks

6 Henry R. Schoolcraft. Journal of a Tour into the Interior ofMissouri . . . in the Years 1818 and 1819: London. Richard Phillips and Company, 1821. (2).

7 William Neville Collier. “Ozark and Vicinity in the Nineteenth Century.”: Springfield, MO. White River Valley Historical Quarterly, Vol. 2, No.10. (Winter 1966 – 67). (2).

Lane 5

remained a fine balance between hunting / gathering and a small harvest of crops from very meager farm plots. Never-the-less, these settlers had to have some tools with which to work.

In his book, The Architecture of the Ozarks, Donald Harington relates the experience of early Ozark settlers Jacob and Noah Ingledew as they worked to build their humble log cabin, most of this activity is described in Chapter Two. According to Harington’s account, the Ingledew brothers used only the common broad axe, an adz, and an auger to build their home, apparently the only construction tools they had brought with them from the east into the wilderness of the Ozarks. Harrington also notes that regarding this cabin, “there is not a bit of metal in it. . . There is no iron. Where would the Ingledews find iron?” 8 It is later related in the book that over a period of several years items such as knives, razors and other metal tools like scissors were brought to their settlement by a traveling peddler, Eli Willard. Yet until these other resources became available the settlers seemed to have only the original basic tool set.

There is some historic merit in the description given by Harington: that the early settlers in the Ozarks often managed for a time with only the most rudimentary tools that were possible to pack into the rugged Ozarks, and they may have become comfortable to do just that if it was sufficient. Yet one has to imagine that these industrious peoples would have soon developed an industry of tool making to fill out their collections of accouterments according to their various needs, being a self sufficient lot by nature and not necessarily wanting to be at the mercy of a peddler for their supplies as they may or may not be available. Further speculation arouses the notion that coming into contact with the several Native cultures that inhabited the Ozarks in the early years there would have been a lot of adaptation of the methods used by those experienced inhabitants to not only hunt and gather food resources from the mountains, but also to prepare temporary shelters that were appropriate to the environment.

There are two philosophies about how such settlers went about the business of setting up camp. One is represented in the experience of Eric Sloane, a noted author / artist / historian of tools and methods, as he met the challenge of building a rough hewn home in a period of ten days. In his book of reminiscence, Eighty < < < An American Souvenir, Sloan relates the story of how, working with a small team of skilled rustic carpenters, the simple one room home pictured below was built from scratch in order to meet a ten day deadline. A feature of this building that would not have been common in

8 Donald Harrington. The Architecture of the Ozarks. New Milford, CT – London, England. The Toby Press LLC. 2008. (25 – 27).

Lane 6

most early homes in the Ozarks is that the walls are made from split (rived or riven) overlapped boards - a technique common in ship building - rather than hewn or rounded logs. Still, with the inclusion of some wrought iron hardware and a complete shake shingle roof, this is quite an accomplishment in time. In reminiscence Sloane commented that, “The fact that I built the cabin of the early American boy in only ten days gave me a particular satisfaction, perhaps because it proved what I always contended (but wasn’t completely convinced of), that the old timers didn’t really have ‘all the time in the world’ and worked remarkably fast.”9 So he is contending that come cabin building time the pioneers made quick work of it, milling out all of their timbers and lumber in a few days as he had proven could be done.

Above photos are of Sloane’s “cabin” included in the cited text

A different view is taken by Charles McRaven, a master craftsmen experienced at building and restoring hewn log houses in the Ozarks. McRaven contends that it was very common for those moving into the Ozarks to do their home building in a second year, and even possibly a third year after arriving because, of necessity, the first priority was to establish a garden and other essentials for subsistence. The first shelters in this case were sufficient, temporary lean-to’s and dugouts fashioned in the manner that the natives built their temporary hunting lodges out and about in the hills. Some other reasons that McRaven claims that building with logs was an extended process in time are that, for one, it can take several months of arduous work to select, cut, and hand hew enough logs to build a cabin or house. Also, these logs will

9 Sloane, Eric. Eighty < < < An American Souvenir.: New York. Dodd, Mead & Company. 1985. (no page numbers in the book).

Lane 7

shrink and settle as they season. It is suggested that certain upright members such as door and window frames were often left for a second season to install. This settling also made it difficult to “chink” a log home securely in the first season, and it posed a particular challenge when incorporating a stone fireplace into the architecture. 10

McRaven’s assessment of the most basic tools necessary to build a hewn log house is shown at the right. Although there are more tools in this collection than those claimed by Jacob and Noah Ingledew, McRaven allows that a round log cabin or hewn house can be built with the smaller compliment; it just takes a lot more work. Still, the questions remain as to where the settlers got their tools.

A brief round of communication on this subject was made via e-mail in early October of 2010 with the illustrator of the drawings above, Mr. Chandis Ingenthron of Branson, MO. We touched on the idea that there was a lot of variation in the types of things that different settlers would have brought with them from the east. Some was determined by how large a group was traveling and what their luggage capacity was. Other factors involved the years in which they traveled. Also, what they brought would depend a lot on what they actually had available to bring – owing much to the heritage of family resources at the time of the pilgrimage. Included in this conversation was a consideration of the specific needs the settlers encountered once they arrived. There were indeed different environmental circumstances and resources at hand in the Ozarks than there were in the east, and the business of adapting to this environment of necessity further shaped the Ozarker’s methods into a life style that was different from those of the early colonists.

So far I have only touched on the idea of what tools were needed for home building, but the other major need was agriculture, and a

10 Charles McRaven. Building the Hewn Log House, Illustrations. Chandis Ingenthron, Photos, Linda Moore McRaven, Paintings, James Burkhart: Hollister, MO. Mountain Publishing Services. 1978. (10).

From McRaven, Building the Hewn Log House, pp. 33 - 34

Figure 1

Lane 8

specific assortment of tools were required for that work as well. Ozarkers more often used grubbing hoes and shovels to cultivate with rather than large plows simply because the land was so awkwardly found among rocks – large and small – and tree stumps. When the plow was used it was usually a small manual wheel plow that didn’t require an animal for draught or a small draught plow that could be easily moved to get around the many obstacles. Like the builder’s tools, this agricultural equipment required some iron parts to be substantial for the respective works it performed. Sometimes these tools were brought with the settlers, but just as often as not these were manufactured at the homestead. It was, after all, of necessity that the settlers would need to have some capacity to maintain their hardware once it was obtained. So there developed a very rudimentary, home-based, industry of smelting and forging to accommodate this need to manufacture and repair tools.

I designate this as home-based to distinguish it from the short lived attempts to operate smelting and forging facilities in the Ozarks just prior to the Civil War. In both of those cases, the Bevens Bloomary in Northwest Arkansas and the Beach Iron Works in Northeast Arkansas were closed, for one, because it was much too difficult to transport raw materials around the region, and what ore was available was not sufficient to compete with the forging industries of the northeast, and on the other hand there was not a local market sufficient to support a larger scale operation than the home-based forge.11

11 John C. Branner, R. A. F. Penrose, Jr. Annual Report State Geologist, “The Iron Deposits of Arkansas”: Little Rock, AR. State of Arkansas, 1882.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Lane 9

It was easy enough, though time consuming, for the rusticators to set up a primitive furnace to smelt iron from ore when this raw material could be found or acquired in trade. According to local blacksmith, Lin Rhea, this would have been built from a refractory quality mud in a process much like throwing a piece of large pottery or prepared from pre fired refractory bricks if available. Naturally, a furnace made from the raw mud would itself have to be fired and tempered before it could be used as a smelting furnace. This would have been about the size of one of those “chiminea” things that people have on their decks for burning pinion wood.

So with this apparatus in hand a fire was started using charcoal or coal The fire was fed from the top. Small amounts of the ore were added to the fire, also from the top, and periodically the fire was re-stoked, alternating stoking and adding iron ore. This was done slowly to keep the fire from being smothered by the ore. There was often a bellows blowing through a vent in the bottom of the furnace to make the fire hot. After a period of many hours, once it was certain that all the ore in the furnace had smelted, the fire was allowed to burn out. The smelted iron would have collected in a pool at the bottom of the furnace, and when the furnace was cool it was taken out as a cup shaped ingot called sponge iron because of its spongy appearance. These were usually not much bigger than a handful. Now because this was usually at least a twenty four hour process it was natural that it was also sort of a social event. There was often a group of three or four men working the furnace with a jug of good whiskey passing around. It was a time for storytelling, and learning.

Because iron is scarce in the Ozarks, it was primarily an imported commodity. Some of this came from other tools and supplies that were brought in by the settlers, i.e. barrel hoops, wagon wheel rims, and horse shoes, etc. But an even larger quantity came in the form of a common trade item called, “Voyage Iron.”12 These were flat, forged bars of iron of a relatively uniform size, about 10” long by 1.5” wide and a quarter inch thick. These were different from the much larger cast “pig iron” ingots. The smaller bars were often made up in long pieces that were pinched down at the 10” mark in order to be snapped off as needed – much like pieces of eight. And that is one story about how

12 The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie: Key West, FL. The Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society. 1999. (61)

Figure 4

Lane 10

we come by iron for making tools in the Ozarks. In the photo to the right, taken while interviewing Lin Rhea at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock in early November of 2010, I hold a recently forged piece of the wrought iron bar that was used in forging other items and in trade.

The Ozarkers established their tool supplies as a matter of home-based industry without any real intention of working for the purpose of trade, except on a limited basis among a local community as necessity dictated. This feature of acquisition extended into nearly every aspect of the settlers’ lives from home building, laying in the farm fields, and making cloths, to building furniture and a host of other everyday accessories. What they had they usually made for themselves from materials found relatively close at hand. One must really settle into the shoes of those early settlers and to thoroughly imagine how remote and cut off from the trade happening nearly everywhere else in the settled parts of the country at the time in order to fully appreciate how important it was for the early Ozarkers to become as self sufficient as humanly possible. In one respect it was a matter of intention and desire to be independent and not owing to anyone else that promoted this characteristic. But in another unavoidable sense it was of necessity that these ways of life were adopted quickly and learned good from one generation to another until they became the signature of the culture called Ozarker. Understanding how remote and cut off from the outside world the region is helps one to envision why the changes of modernization did not take root. When Harrington writes about the people of Staymore having a natural distrust of “Prog ress” there is a logical reason for that. One might imagine the train of logic something along these lines:

“So you want to sell me one of them there newfangled steam tractors, do ya? Well I suppose you’ll be selling the coal to ope-rate the confounded thing next of all. Then we’ll be needin to build a road sost you can git the wagons-full of coal in here anyway. That’ll sure ‘nuff skeer off all the critters sost I’ll have to go to the next county to find good huntin. By the time I do all that road diggin and a walking around huntin I wouldn’t have no time to use the tractor anyways. I appreciate your concern, but I guess I better stick with old Bessie and the plow like my papa always did.”

Except for the purpose of exploiting the resources of the region to meet an outside market demand, as was done by the “Tie Hackers,” “Charcoalers,” and lead miners, there was not a viable market for modern technologies in the Ozarks until very recent times. Not only was it excessively expensive to transport and use such technology in the wooded mountains, as was discovered with the Bevens Bloomary and the Beach Iron Works, but also the native Ozarkers simply did not want to give up their independent ways and means for innovations that would make them dependent upon the ways of the outside world. In one sense, the isolation of the Ozarks imposed the necessity of independence upon the inhabitants there. In another sense, the necessary independence that became learned by those inhabitants imposed a barrier of isolation that for many generations separated them from the modernization going on in the rest of the country. But one fact stands out in this overall picture: settlement in the Ozarks could not have happened if this character of independence and self sufficiency had not been adopted; this was of necessity.

Lane 11

When historians and anthropologists study the Ozarks, the people who settled there in the earliest times and the generations since then, the most common observation is that this region is a semi-arrested frontier. One can look at a large number of studies and find that there are no major changes in the ways and means of the Ozarkers or in their attitudes about independence, self sufficiency, and resistance to modernization from those earliest times right into the modern day. It is easy enough to look at this situation from an outside perspective and imagine that the reason for this resistance to change is due mainly to a lack of education on the part of the Ozarkers. But it is more likely that if one actually became immersed in the experience of living in the Ozarks it would be found that the greater force at play is the rugged wilderness environment. It is the circumstance of having to live according to those more primitive, self sufficient, and independent ways and means, of necessity, that causes the Ozarks to remain a semi-arrested frontier.

Bibliography

Branner, John C., R. A. F. Penrose, Jr. Annual Report State Geologist, “The Iron Deposits of Arkansas”: Little Rock, AR. State of Arkansas, 1882.Via URL: http://www.archive.org/stream/arkansasin18921800arka/arkansasin18921800arka_djvu.txt . (Accessed November 11, 2010).

Collier, William Neville. “Ozark and Vicinity in the Nineteenth Century”: Springfield, MO. White River Valley Historical Quarterly, Vol. 2, No.10. (Winter 1966 – 67). Un-Stable URL: http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/periodicals/wrv/V...(Accessed via Course BlackBoard on September 23, 2010).

Gusewelle , C. W.. “A CONTINUITY OF PLACE AND BLOOD: The Seasons of Man in the Ozarks”: Rockville,

MD. American Heritage Magazine, Vol. 29, Issue 1, (December 1977).Stable URL: http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1977/1/1977_1_96.shtml

Harrington, Donald. The Architecture of the Ozarks. New Milford, CT – London, England. The Toby Press LLC. 2008.

Lane 12

McRaven, Charles. Building the Hewn Log House. Illustrations. chandis Ingenthron, Photos, Linda Moore McRaven, Paintings, James Burkhart: Hollister, MO. Mountain Publishing Services. 1978.

Schoolcraft, Henry R. Journal of a Tour into the Interior ofMissouri and Arkansaw, from Potosi, or Mine a Burton, in Missouri Territory, in a South-West Direction, toward theRocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1818 and 1819: London. Richard Phillips and Company, 1821[Complete Version. Original spelling has been retained.] Scanned by Jeff Wells, graduate student, Department of History, Southwest Missouri State University .(Accessed via Course BlackBoard on September 23, 2010).

Sloane, Eric. Eighty < < < An American Souvenir: New York. Dodd, Mead & Company. 1985.

The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie: Key West, FL. The Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society. 1999.

Watson, Aldren A. Country Furniture: NY, Scarborough, Ont. New American Library. 1974.

List of Figures

Cover Photos. 10 ea. “Charley Making A Chair Sequence.” Jones, Michael Owen. The Hand Made Object and its Maker: Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. University of California Press. 1975. (26 – 33).

Figure 1. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “Trail Construction and Maintenance Notebook.” Stable URL: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/07232806/page15.htm (Accessed December 11, 2010).

Figure 2. “Antique Walk Plow.” Classified Advertisement. URL: http://www.iclassifieds.com/forsale/antiques/600959039/antique-walk-behind-plow.html(Accessed December 11, 2010).

Figure 3. “Manual Farm Plow.” Nana’s Antiques gallery. URL: http://nanas-antiques.com/Antiques_Collectibles_Gifts/Antiques_Collectibles_Gifts.php(Accessed December 11, 2010).

Figure 4. Aldren A. Watson. The Blacksmith. “Diagram of a Primitive Catalan Forge.” Pg. 8

Lane 13

PHOTOS OF INTEREST

Lane 14

Slave Shackles – hand forged by Mr. Lin Rhea of the Historic Arkansas Museum Staff

The items below show Lin Rhea forging a chain using the “odd number method” - two links are made then joined to make a section of three. When several three link sections are made, then these are

joined to make seven link sections, which in turn are joined to make fifteen link sections, etc. Note that the longer the chain gets the harder it is to work! The bulk and the weight increase dramatically as sections are joined together, and it is helpful to have an apprentice available to manage the excess.

Lane 15

Lane 16

Here, Lin holds up a finished seven link section of chain

Lane 17

Lane 18

To the right is a Damascus steel knife blade forged by Lin Rhea. The characteristic of this type of forging is that as a bar of iron is flattened and folded carbon is bonded with the iron between the layers. As the layers are welded together with each fold a serpentine swirl effect is created in the color of the metal – a very good blacksmith can produce this as a regular pattern that renders a very sought after end product. This type of forging also produces a steel blade that is very strong.

The item shown at the right is a “stump Anvil”. It is designed to be driven into a hole in the top of a stump and used for forging on the spot or in situations where the forge will soon be moved to a different location. Once done with the work the stump or large log is split to remove the anvil.

These were usually not huge and weighty because they were designed to travel in a saddle bag or in limited storage space in a wagon. This design is of German origin. It is not known if this tool actually came from Germany or what its actual age is: it may have been manufactured in the colonies or more locally by a German immigrant.

Lane 19

Because iron was so scarce in times before industrialization, nearly all scraps of iron and steel were kept and reused in other tools. For example, broken files often became the hardened steel bits in axes and other cutting tools. To the right is a pair of tongs that were made from a broken file. In a close-up view the file hashings are clearly visible in the face of the metal around the rivet. Also, this pair of tongs shows the wrought effect of welding different pieces of material together to make up a larger piece of stock. Here the extended handles have been welded to the original file material.

A variety of anvils, tongs, and other tools are shown to the right. The tall pointed cylindrical item is called a ring set or ring true and is used to make uniform rings of iron for chains, etc. This can also be used to enlarge rings to an extent.

The item below is used for heading nails. Once the stock has been shaped into a square pin with a point and cut to a desired length, it is slipped through the hole, which is slightly smaller than the fattest end of the nail stock. A head is then shaped from the small amount of protruding material, and the nail is then popped out of the tool with a slight tap of its point.

Lane 20

The photos below are of a cabin I helped my older sister & brother-in-law build near Mt. View. We started work on this in the spring of 1977 to fell the timber and strip the logs (while the sap is running in the outer layers - making the bark easy to strip off). Then most of the work was completed during the summer. I had one academic year after high school graduation under my belt working with the Carpenter's Local in Tulsa at the time. Most of the antique tools (broad axe, adz, saws, draw knives, etc., were mine as I had begun collecting in the early 1970s). My brother-in-law, Marcus M. Davis, was a good artist but not a specialized craftsman like Charles McRaven. Maybe that is the sort of place where Abe Lincoln lived when he was younger????

Hope you enjoy the report!

Your sincere friend,

A. L.

George A. (Andy) Lane