Show OLD SMITHY IS RUN BY EIGHTH IN LINE stands where ancestor built it years ago essex conn when john pratt with his une aie and children and his household goods moed to this vil lage in 1678 and set himself up as a blacksmith he scarcely would have imagined that years later there would still be a blacksmith shop in operation on the same spot and that the proprietor would be his lineal descendant hundreds of persons stop every summer to ask about what is said to be the oldest business in the coun I 1 try that has always been in the hands of one family and to talk to james lord pratt the present own er and eighth generation from the founder jin ji n pratt is not sure how ganv buildings t the te e family has used in conducting the smithy business for two and a half centuries the pres ent hop he knows s was built by his grandfather eighty years ago to take care of an iron business ex banding with the building of clip per ships on the connecticut river here I 1 shall have a shop which is large and light said that john pratt it shall have many v in dows and large ones it shall be of brick and it shall be large enoi enol gh for four forges such a building was put up and it is still sound it had windows enough to permit work ork from daa da break to dusk it was large enough to hold the year s supply of iron brought in by boat in the autumn and once it did have four forges one was used for horse and ox shoeing one for wagon repairing and two for making iron mast bands and other ship fittings now modern machinery has been installed an electric blower is con cealey in the forge in place of the old bellows and the smith uses a power hammer more often than the old anvil it is five or six years since he shod his last horse and it is a ter of a century since oxen were shod in the shop |