2018 Touched by the Fire-Blacksmiths Weekend
Touched by the Fire-Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough on September 29-30, 2018 (Charcoal burn begins 9/28) at Fort Boonesborough State Park in Richmond, Kentucky. Join the groups gathered around a blacksmith as he carefully forges iron together into what will become an item of common use in 18th century Colonial America. As he works, he takes questions from his audience at the Touched by the Fire-Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough weekend.
See and learn about an ancient craft kept alive even to this day! During the preceding week, blacksmiths will be here once again doing another Charcoal Burn: a week-long 24/7 project. If you have any interest in Blacksmithing, particularly as it was in the 18th century, we invite you to come to the Fort during Touched by the Fire-Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough. If you would like to volunteer to assist in the Charcoal Burn, email ftboone@bellsouth.net. Merchants and Traders are welcome to display and sell items used during the Colonial era. This event is free to the public with regular paid admission to the fort.
Blacksmiths will share decades of experience in forging iron, displaying their skills in front of the crowds, taking questions as they work. In many cases, much of that experience has come at events such as Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough, and many return to the fort each year to take part. Learn about the tools a blacksmith uses to forge items, like the anvil. Although the anvil, like many of the Blacksmiths tools look simple, they are not, having been refined through thousands of years of experience to the most useful shape.
Learn about the heat of the fire needed to make the iron workable, about working the iron while it is the proper color and how the experienced blacksmith holds and strike the metal to get the best effect, and how the first 15 seconds are when Blacksmiths can do the most work on a piece. Learn the importance of the Blacksmiths “time management.”
Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough, like other events at the fort, are sponsored by The Fort Boonesborough Foundation. The Foundation is made up of a group of dedicated individuals who volunteer their time to sustain, foster, and promote quality programming at Fort Boonesborough State Park and Boone’s Station Historic Site.
About Fort Boonesborough
Richard Henderson, founder of the Transylvania Company in 1775, chose Daniel Boone to head a party of 31 axe men to clear a path through the Cumberland Gap that would run from Long Island of the Holston River, Tennessee, to Otter Creek of the Kentucky River. Blazing the trail presented extraordinary difficulties – the route through the wilderness was a hunter’s trace that was too narrow for a wagon. The task was to combine many trails into one continuous route by clearing underbrush and overhanging foliage. When Daniel Boone and his men reached the Kentucky River on April 1, 1775, they quickly moved to establish Kentucky?s second settlement–the site still known as Fort Boonesborough.
Location
Fort Boonesborough State Park
4375 Boonesborough Rd.
Richmond, Ky. 40475
For more information about Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough, contact Phone 859-527-3131 ext 216 or email alec.forman@gmail.com or ahenry@wittenberg.edu.
Mark your calendar so you don’t miss the next Touched by the Fire-Blacksmiths Weekend at Fort Boonesborough in Richmond, KY.
Tags: Touched by the Fire-Blacksmiths Weekend, Kentucky Blacksmith Weekend, Kentucky Blacksmith Event