GRAMPA WHEELER - THE BLACKSMITH
The
following was written by Danny Hendee, age 11 , grade 6
My story is about my Grandfather
Wheeler who had a blacksmith shop. It was located where my father’s garage is
now. The blacksmith shop was destroyed in the 1947 flood.
Grampa Wheeler was a small man but
he could shoe real big, big work horses. He wore a big leather apron and even
made many of his own tools. Sometimes he made the shoes for the horses that had
problems or were hard to fit. He had a homemade forge that burned soft coal.
You turned a bellows to make the tire that heated the iron shoes hot so you
could bend them Into shapes. Sometimes the horses were stubborn and didn’t want
to stand up, or have their feet fixed and they would lean real heavy on my
Grandpa. He would straddle their legs - clip away their hooves and fit the
shoes. When it fit properly he would nail it in place. You had to be careful
not to pound the nail into the horses foot too far, but Grampa knew just how
far to do it.
He did many other jobs too, like
shoeing a big bobsled to draw wood and he even put iron rim’s on wagon wheels.
That was a real hard job because there were holes in the iron and in the wooden
wagon wheels. These had to fit together so you could put in the screws that
would hold the wheel together. Grandpa did many other interesting things that
we don’t often see today. He was kind of old-fashioned.
Note:
Grampa Wheeler died before I was born, but my mother has told me so much about
him, I think I knew him.
Unlike the poem— The Village
Blacksmith— my Dad, Clinton D. Wheeler, was of small stature. In Chittenden
his shop was locatcd on the left hand side of the road, where Sangamon Road
joins East Pittford Road. I believe he was the only blacksmith in Chittenden.
In 1924 he moved to Rutland with his wife and 5 children. He purchased a house
on McKinley Ave. from F. R. Patch, for whom he worked, with deductions taken
from his pay toward buying the house. Another child was born in 1927 and his
wife passed away in 1928 leaving him with 6 children to raise alone.
In Rutland his shop was a former
hen house that housed his forge and tools. The horses were hitched outside
awaiting new shoes. Later he purchased land across the road where he built a
larger building where the horses were inside. He combined his carpentry skills
along with his smithy trade. In the new building he could build bobsleds,
drays, and repair wagon wheels. He made many of his own tools. He loved horses
and was quite the horse trader—swapping horses with the best of men. We have
many fond memories which I probably shouldn’t relate here (there are tricks to
all trades you know).
He worked for local farmers during
haying season. Frank Beebe, Milo Lester, Guert Davis, and Hollis Adams are a
few names that come to mind. Mrs. Gucrt Davis once told me he was a
jack-of-all-trades.
In 1937 while helping Hollis Adams
hay, he fell from the hay barn and broke his back. After a long slow recovery
he tried one more time to shoe a horse.
Frank Beebe’s milk horse threw
him, breaking his arm.
After 13 years as a chronic
invalid, he passed away October 13, 1949, at 71 years of age.