Blacksmith and Wagonmaker Shops

By 1826, the Harmony Society's blacksmith shop stood across the street from here on the west side of Merchant Street, and the building, valued at $400, contained five forges. A feature observed in the Society's first blacksmith shop at Harmony, Pennsylvania, in 1811 may also have been part of this one: John Melish saw a dog turning a wheel for blowing the bellows by treadmill. The blacksmiths made and repaired parts for wagons, buggies, sleds, horse collars, tack, tools, and agricultural implements, and a farrier used part of the shop to shoe horses. The Society bought raw materials from several sources, including English Crowly or blister wrought iron and steel from Pittsburgh, sheet iron from Philadelphia, and cast iron from Montgomery Clendinen's iron works at Beaver Point, later known as Stone's Point in Bridgewater, Pennsylvania. The Harmony Society had bought Beaver Point Iron Works before settling at Economy and sold it to Stephen Stone in 1820. Among the Harmonist blacksmiths at Economy were Johann Georg Bauer, Andreas Kotrba, Johann Friedrich Arnold Bentel, Christoph Diem, Johannes Eberle, Balthesar Henning, Gottlieb Hilarus Henning, Johann Joseph Kotrba, Jacob Schaal, Tobias Schmidt, Peter Schreiber, Jacob Stumpp, Jacob Vaihinger, Jacob Vogt, David Wagner, Simon Wagner, Bernhard Ziegler, and George Ziegler; Jacob Schaal, born in 1802, was the youngest Harmonist known to have worked in any of the Harmony Society's blacksmith shops, having been apprenticed at age six. The wagon shop stood on Fifteenth Street west of the blacksmith shop, and its workers chiefly made and repaired wagons for the Harmony Society and the outside community, though they also occasionally built bridges. Harmonist wagonmakers at Economy included Jonathan Lenz, Johannes Bamesberger, Georg Bentel, Jacob Bessan, Johann Joseph Hörnle, Philipp Heinrich Schöenmann, Heinrich Zeltmann, and Johann Penotus Zundel, while wheelwrights such as Johann Ludwig Bauer, Michael Forstner, Jacob Müller, Gottlieb Regori Ruff, and Johann Penotus Zundel made or repaired wooden vehicle wheels. In the 1890s, hired wagonmaker John F. Boss rented the blacksmith and wagon shops from the Harmony Society, and his family also worked as hired blacksmiths. The property was sold to W.M. Boyd in 1903, and in 1901 the former blacksmith shop was razed. Old Economy Village's blacksmith shop on Church Street was later created for demonstrations inside an old utility shed that had served as a garage for Harmonist trustee John Duss.

Ambridge, Pennsylvania · United States