Deutsch  |  English  |  Español  |  Français  |  Italiano

Home | Events | Explore the Village | Meet the People | Trades and Crafts | Village Life

Constructed in 1836, today's Blacksmith Shop replaced an earlier wooden smithy shop first built for the Monmouth Furnace. The new Howell Works shop, located on the banks of the Mill Pond, pos -sessed four forges making it one of the largest ever built in New Jersey. The original Monmouth Furnace shop was located between the present General Store and the Furnace stack.

The Howell Works blacksmiths were an integral part of life in the Village, being primarily responsible for the shoeing of the teams of draft animals and the repairing of vehicles, tools and other items necessary to operations at the Village. One could also expect the blacksmiths to continually be mending or even making specialized tools for the various trades that were commenced within the works.

The Howell Works property was the centre of a local transportation network with stage coaches, mail routes and steam boat connections leaving form the Village. The now peaceful streets were a bustle with teamster traffic transporting goods, both from the Works and the local community to James Allaire's docks and warehouse facilities at Eatontown Dock (now Oceanport) and at Red Bank. Work sledges, used year round to haul bog iron ore and lumber, were a regular site and needed their runners kept in good condition. Wagons, carriages and carts were operating regularly to and from the village. Add to this a constant flow of traffic to and from the Company Store, believed to be the largest in the state at its time of construction.

Today visitors to the Blacksmith's Shop enjoy demonstrations by costumed historic interpreters. Visitors will see how hand made nails are made, tools are repaired, iron moulding is done as well as seeing the operation of the bellows and learning how the fires are stoked and banked. Younger visitors to the Blacksmith Shop will gain an understanding of the guild system and may even become an apprentice smithy during their visit.