Sam Williams’ Blacksmith Shop
In the frontier days of colonial Natchitoches, skilled slave laborers provided a crucial element to the local economy. Enslaved Africans brought an ancient crafts tradition of ironworking with them to the New World and became highly skilled blacksmiths on Louisiana plantations. Blacksmithing represented just one of the early skills called for on the frontier and the agricultural society that developed from it. Reflecting a continuum from the days of slavery, Sam Williams’ Blacksmith Shop harkens back to those early days and the skilled workers who left their marks on Natchitoches Parish – people like Solomon Williams, a slave at Oakland Plantation, who worked as the plantation blacksmith even after Emancipation. Solomon Williams’ tools and evidence of his skilled work can still be seen at the plantation today. It is not known whether Sam Williams was a descendant of famed blacksmith Solomon Williams, but it is certain that he carried forward a legacy rooted in ancient Africa.
Blacksmith shops were integral to communities prior to the widespread availability of motor vehicles and even after. Blacksmiths mended tools, shod horses, and performed a variety of odd jobs involving metalwork.
They had wagons and stuff like that, but [the] blacksmith … he was something of a mechanic. He would put shoes on the horse or whatever they need…. Wagon, plow points, hoes, … what they did, they made anything out of iron, practically, but they mostly would sharpen the plows for planting.
Showing dirt-floored auto repair business (Williams Blacksmith Shop), Sheet 13, 1930, Sanborn Map, Natchitoches. Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970, http://sanborn.umi.com/la/3374/dateid-000007.htm?CCSI=3035n