Historic Warwick Blog

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Blacksmithing Classes at the Hasbrouck Carriage House Behind Baird's Tavern on August 11 &12, 2012, additional classes available on August 13 & 14 for an additional $50 each day.

$325, includes use of tools and metal materials

This class will be taught by our returning Maine Blacksmith Adriaan Gerber who will be sharing his trade with Summer History Campers during the preceeding week. As a follow-up to our recent beginning blacksmithing class we are offering this weekend, 16 hour class, 8-hours each day, in the making of edge tools.

Adriaan makes high quality knives, swords, halberds and other edge tools in his Maine smithy and sells them around the world. Now he will be sharing his know-how with you in this class that will result in the completion of a tomahawk ( you can even make a handle for it if you would like to devote the time to it at a shaving horse), a knife, and another project depending on time. A draw knife or slick are two possibilities.

The course can continue on into the next week for those who are free to do so, and there will be an additional fee of $50 for each day beyond the 2-day course.

The class will involve safety, fire building (we use vintage coal burning forges), heating metal, shaping, cutting, and forge welding. We prefer that students have some blacksmithing experience although it is not mandatory. The class is limited to six so there will be personal attention given by Adriaan and his assistant Robert Schmick to each of the students.

Call: 845-781-3729 or 845-986-3236 or email: rpschmick1@aol.com for information and registration. Please act now if you are serious as the class is limited to six.

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At our Summer History Camp this year kids will dig up crystals that fluoresce under a special black light. The crystals were actually discovered in the area as early as the 1820s and collectors from all over the United States and Europe came to the specifically places like Amity in the Town of Warwick to find these rare specimens for their museums, universities and their private collections. One of the largest off site exhibitions of these crystals is found in the Ecoles des Mines in Paris; there are over 150 samples of minerals specifically from Amity, NY in that collection which were discovered in large in the 1830s. What is interesting to imagine is that geologist and mineralogists from the greatest institutions of higher learning were traveling by horseback and carriage to the wilds of Warwick in the 1820s and 1830s to find rocks for their cabinets of curiosities.

Wawayanda Furnace ( 19th century ) the furnace that many of us remember seeing on our trips to the New Jersey State Park actually was integral to iron ore production supplied by Warwick mines. On a recent sojourn into the woods we visited some local iron ore mines that would have supplied the mid-nineteenth century Wawayanda Furnace. Of course, these operations were supplanted by the end of the nineteenth century when places with better quality ore that were closer to cheaper forms of transportation, like water and rail shut them down.

Ken Hamilton, "Woodlands Interpreter", will present the early 18th century life of Algonquin-speaking people, like the Minsi people of the Lenape tribe, of what was later named by Benjamin Aske as "Warwick." Here we see a trade camp with historially accurate artifact reproductions produced by Mr. Hamilton by hand; he an accomplished leatherworker, blacksmith and silversmith. As an "historical artifact artist", Mr. Hamilton produces props used in many living history scenarios and museums throughout the country. He will share some of his knowledge with campers at the Summer History Camp 2012. See further details.