Herbert Benjamin Shod Island Horses for Decades
A Look at History
By Frank Straus

Blacksmiths

Mackinac Island’s horse traditions were kept alive for many decades by Herbert Benjamin, longtime Island blacksmith and farrier on Mackinac Island’s Market Street. After Herbert’s death in 1967, his son, Robert E. “Bob” Benjamin and his family transferred the blacksmith shop to the Mackinac Island State Park, which reopened it at a new location close to the old one on the building lot next to the Biddle House. There, thousands of tourists from around the world can view an operating forge and look at the tools and fittings used by Herbert Benjamin in his arduous trade.

The name “Smith” is one of the most common in England. From the beginning of the Iron Age, roughly 1000 BC in our time-reckoning, until the coming of the Petroleum Age, every village in Europe and later, the United States had to have a blacksmith to shoe horses and re-forge the simple pieces of ironware that were needed to work the soil. Today iron ore is carried through the Straits of Mackinac in 1,000-foot-long boats that are loaded with tens of thousands of tons of magnetic pellets on each trip, and iron is cheap. Up until comparatively recently, however, iron was a relatively expensive substance, and most items that passed through the blacksmith’s forge were made from atoms of iron that had been through many lives as many different things. The blacksmith had to be an expert at recycling.

The traditions of the American blacksmith stretch back in time to the ancient peoples of the land we now call Germany. These tribesmen, who eventually would subdue and conquer the mighty Roman Empire, were a people who valued iron highly even though, as the ancient historian Tacitus tells us, “they don’t have much of it.” In ancient Germany, as later in the Middle Ages, only the rich could afford to carry a sword or a lance. “They carry spears,” reports Tacitus, “with short and narrow blades, but very sharp.”

One of the distinguishing features of many older blacksmith shops is a large burr or grinding-wheel. While turning the burr with a crank, one would hold a piece of edged iron to the wheel and slowly grind and sharpen it. This is one origin of the phrase “put your shoulder to the wheel.”

Blacksmiths did not have to buy membership in a health-club or gym. Their work at the bellows, forge, and grinding-wheel often gave them a full-body workout in the course of their daily labor. The Massachusetts poet Longfellow wrote in 1839:

“Under a spreading chestnut tree,

the village smithy stands;

The smith a mighty man is he,

with large and sinewy hands;

and the muscles of his brawny arms

are strong as iron bands.”

By the time Herbert Benjamin took over his father Robert’s Market Street blacksmith shop, the chestnut trees of North America were dying back due to blight, and the trade itself appeared to be doomed. During the opening decades of the last century, forges fell silent across the United States as the motor car replaced the horse-drawn carriage.

By 1941 Herbert Benjamin’s blacksmith shop had become a curiosity. It was pointed out by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) guide to the State of Michigan in that year as one of the sights of Mackinac Island. Although Herbert kept almost all of the older tools and simple machines that had been part of the shop since its opening in 1884, his primary work was as a farrier, a shoer and re-shoer of horses.

The clanking sound of a “loose shoe” hitting the pavement is a signal to the horse’s rider that they had better ride to the farrier. It is almost certain that Herbert Benjamin nailed more than 100,000 shoes to the hooves of often-patient horses during his working lifetime. He once told an interviewer that he re-shod more than 1,200 horses each summer. Especially during the start of the season, many of them needed all four iron horseshoes “tightened,” re-nailed, or replaced. Herbert was familiar with many of the working horses of Mackinac Island and knew the shapes of their hooves. With a cigar firmly clenched in his teeth, Herbert would crank up the forge, blowing oxygen onto the fire and heating the coals to a temperature of up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. He would then heat an iron horseshoe to a plastic temperature and beat it into shape. The hot metal was quickly quenched by the effective method of picking it up with a pair of tongs and dunking it in a convenient pail of water. A cloud of steam and the smell of hot iron would envelop the shop as the cooled, shaped horseshoe was nailed to the horse’s hoof. A horse hoof is similar to a human toenail or fingernail in its material and composition, and a carefully trained blacksmith can nail a shoe without hurting the horse at all.

The same forge that heats a horseshoe for the farrier can be used to heat and reshape iron for other purposes. A traditional blacksmith could also be called an “ironsmith” for his ability to make almost anything of the hard metal. Using the tools that remain in use at the Benjamin Blacksmith Shop to this day, participants in the annual Mackinac Island Blacksmith’s Gathering (which will be held this year on and about August 6) annually forge something of iron for the State Park. Fittings for Fort Mackinac, pieces of fencing, gates, latches, hearthware, and fireplace gear have come from the more than 100 smiths who have participated in this voluntary celebration of the blacksmith’s art since 1985.

In the opening years of the 21st century, Herbert Benjamin’s blacksmith trade has come back to life. The slow worldwide trend in the rich countries toward the celebration of artisanry has led a few Americans back to this ancient trade.

It is rumored that some colleges and universities are offering courses in blacksmithing. A small but increasing number of galleries and owner-operated stores sell hand-forged ironware to discriminating buyers.

Following Herbert’s death in 1967, the Benjamin Blacksmith Shop had shod its last horse.

Mackinac Island horseshoeing is now performed at other working blacksmith shops. However, shelves and boards of iron shoes remain at the Benjamin Blacksmith Shop, ready for use or re-use. Many of them are pieces of iron once worn by Island horses. Blacksmiths and their customers much prefer to bring in an old shoe for re-use if it’s not worn out. It’s still very bad luck to lose a horseshoe.