Salmagundi: Marion County Blacksmith: Not Just Horseshoes

Marion County Blacksmith: Not Just Horseshoes

by Alan Bensley Borer

Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close (H. W. Longfellow, The Village Blacksmith, 1840)

At first, I had no idea what I was looking at. The papers contained a list of tasks performed by one David Mouser, of Marion County, Ohio. The work performed, from 1859 to 1861, was carefully dated and priced. But at first the work was obscure. “3 single trees honed;” “Mending crank;” “Sharpen plow irons,” “Making repair to sheller;” and many entries regarding “new shoes” or “shoes sett [sic].” But after ruling out cobbler and wagon maker, David Mouser’s occupation must have been no more or less than that of a blacksmith.

The list of jobs performed by Mouser was recorded in paperwork related to the estate of Thomas Harvey, also of Marion County. Mr. Harvey died November 30, 1861, meaning all the work done by David Mouser was done before Thomas Harvey died. Harvey was only 51 when he died of typhoid fever, and was a County Commissioner, a father of eight, and owner of 320 acres of land. He “made most of the improvements,” but whether that meant he literally went out and built or fixed machinery, or hired someone else, is unknown.[i]

Even the pioneering/first generation farmers of central Ohio could not do every kind of chore imaginable. Although Ohio farms and farmers lived and worked in the relative simplicity of a preindustrial world, they still needed repairs made when something broke. Workers of the period were probably more likely to fix a machine than buy new, at least if someone in the area could do the work. Fortunately for Mr. Harvey and his large acreage, David Mouser lived just west of Marion village, and was a competent blacksmith.

Mouser, born in 1810, the same year as Thomas Harvey, was a native of Pickaway County. His father, James Mouser, was also a blacksmith, and began teaching his son the trade when the younger Mouser was 13. Mouser “followed this business for fifty years or more acquiring a good property and a comfortable home in Marion. He is the oldest blacksmith in the county [1883], having devoted his life to this occupation.” Mouser also farmed, and speculated in land, owning many lots in the village of Marion. He had nine children by five wives, and still managed to die a widower in 1896.[ii]

Mouser kept a running account of his work for Thomas Harvey. As mentioned above, his most frequent chore was making horseshoes, followed by the manufacture or repair of farm hardware. Sharpening, honing, making hooks, cranks, and washers accounted for much of Mouser’s time. The “sheller” he repaired on July 2, 1860 was a more involved task. Mechanical corn shellers were only just beginning to appear on the market; the earliest hand sheller patent was granted in 1856, with the majority of patents coming after the Civil War.

Seemingly, Mouser’s bread-and-butter came from shoeing horses. But did it?

Blacksmiths on the frontier who did shoe horses only spent about a fourth of their time on such work. Fifty to sixty percent of their business consisted of repairing farm implements. The rest of their time was devoted to producing new items such as tools and hardware.[iii]

Although Mouser’s list of jobs completed included many horseshoes, many other little jobs were completed. And while horseshoes were the numerically most frequent, a quick glance at the list would agree that they probably accounted for about half his workload.

I want to close this superficial look at a Marion County blacksmith by pointing out many of the things we do not know about Mouser or his client, Thomas Harvey. Did Mouser have a shop in town, or did he use a forge at the job site? Did Mouser and Harvey get along, or was it an antagonistic relationship? It has been stated that the blacksmith’s “forge was a center of social as well as industrial activity.”[iv] Would they have agreed?