Written by Charles Collett
Huntington, WV Newspaper – October 26, 1964
The anvil chorus – A story in this column last week about the “Relic Room” at the home of Mr. And Mrs. Pierce Edwards is Sedgwick added another old relic to their already large souvenir collection…A small iron paperweight about 3 inches high, is a miniature anvil like seen in a blacksmith shop…The name on the base is H. D. Newcomb, Hardware…The store was on Second Street, now the location of the Mack & Son service station, near Lawrence Street…
The Newcomb store was sold in 1893 and the name changed to Goldcamp Bros. & Co. which later moved to Fourth and Center Streets following the flood of 1913…The memento had been saved over the past 72 years by Frank McKee, a cashier at the N&W freight depot.
The little anvil recalls the horse and buggy days and the several blacksmith shops about town before the model “T’s” took over…The first blacksmith shop I remember was part of the Phillips Buggy Works on Second Street where we kids watched the “smithy” make sparks fly hammering the anvil. The main attraction at the Phillips shops, now the Johnson new agency opposite the Hotel Marting, was the six-foot-tall wood horse that stood on the sidewalk.
The best-known blacksmith shop was J. W. Tulga at Ninth and Park Avenue…My brother and I took our homemade bobsled there to have iron runners made so we could coast on a snow-covered tunnel hill…That was a long time ago as Al Murdock and Bill Pricer of Ashland will testify…Very few of today’s readers will recall the blacksmith shop on the corner at Second and Vernon now the Boll Furniture store…The horseshoeing shop was always busy at Third and Jefferson when I was a fifth grader at school…The proprietors were Christian Haller and L. L. Sticklen, two fine gentlemen…
Back during the days following WWI, when the Ironton News moved to Third and Lawrence, two blacksmith shops were located near that corner where the editor could hear the music of the anvil…Those smithies were John Cline on Third and Wade brothers on Lawrence, always available when the press broke down to make repairs at once.
The blacksmith shop that stands out in memory was on Monroe Street between Third and Fourth, where I sold newspapers on Saturday mornings when Teddy Roosevelt was president…The man who wore the leather apron at the forge always bought a paper for a penny…The day he reached into his apron pocket and handed me a hot penny he got a good laugh as I dropped it…he said the next time I dropped any money it would be his…From then on I always had a handkerchief ready to handle hot pennies.
Some readers may remember Tom Casey on Third Street near Ice Creek Bridge, Earl Sizemore at Phillips Buggy Works, and Curt North at Ironton Engine Co. The Kettler Buggy Works had good blacksmiths but the names have escaped memory…
John Brown was the bellows blower in West Ironton…Charles h. Hoffner was another…Also add the names of Henry Wickline, Henry Bode, and D. B. Gray.
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