- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] There was a time when if you needed something you either found someone with the skills to make it or you made it yourself.

If you needed nails, you went to the blacksmith.

(hammer clanging) If you needed cornmeal, you went to a gristmill.

(mill humming) And if you needed a bed, you'd visit a furniture maker.

(saw buzzing) They are the skills and techniques, seemingly lost in the modern world, but if you look for them, you'll find dedicated local craftspeople who still value doing things the old fashioned way.

Join us as we explore historic trades and crafts right here on "Trail of History."

(upbeat music) (soft music) Hand crafted, old fashioned and the good old days, all terms that might harken us back to the past, a past when things were supposedly easier.

The reality, if you made things with your hands prior to the advent of the assembly line, things were far from easy, but the people who took raw materials, labored away and created useful items, they were the essential members of a community.

Today, we live in the on-demand world, but if you look for them, you might just find the folks who still cherish and honor the essential workers of yesteryear and how things were done in the good old days.

(country music) With each blow of the hammer, a blacksmith connects with the past.

This profession dates back more than 3000 years to ancient Egypt and just as it did then, this craft still takes skill and intuition.

- It's a very romanticized profession or craft, but it's a lot of hot, hard, frustrating failure filled work.

- [Narrator] Master welder Jason Blanchett, owns Iron Giant Fabrication and Welding.

Most days you'll find them creating high end architectural features.

- The majority of our work consists of commercial and residential projects, restaurants and lawns and things of that nature.

Most of it's architectural iron work with a high end level of design and usually a higher than average level of fabrication techniques and things of that nature.

- [Narrator] Blanchett initially started down the traditional college path, but decided to learn a trade instead.

He enrolled in the Central Piedmont Community College welding program and took a deep dive into high-tech fabrication.

It also made blacksmithing seem archaic.

- The blacksmith thing is different from those things that initially, I thought it was pretty silly.

Like, why would you with all this technology we have, we have CNC and all this stuff, why would you do this?

Like, why would you hammer something?

We have, you know, five-axis, all these machines and stuff.

Like why would you do that?

- [Narrator] Early on in his welding career, his thoughts on the craft started to change, when a mentor introduced him to blacksmithing.

It's a skill he continues to perfect.

Several times a year, Blanchett gives demonstrations in the blacksmith shop at Charlotte's historic Rosedale.

It's through his demonstrations, visitors learn just how critically important a blacksmith was to a community.

- One, it connects you to a time that's not here anymore.

You know, that like where you'd go to a blacksmith for hinges, you'd go to blacksmith for a hammer, you'd go to blacksmith for a nail, you'd go to, you know, all this stuff, locks and things of that nature.

You couldn't lock anything, you couldn't lock anything without getting somebody to make you a lock.

- [Narrator] Lumps of coal fuel the forge here at Rosedale and Blanchett's assistant Luke, gets a workout on the bellows, constantly pumping air to feed oxygen to the fire.

It takes a certain finesse and instinct.

- Coal gets a lot hotter a lot faster to where you have a gas forge where you turn it on and air gas mixture is already going, you don't have to do anything to manipulate that.

In this you're always manipulating the firebox.

You're incorporating new coal.

You're taking out the clinkers and the used pieces out and you're kind of massaging how much of this heat you're gonna use and then isolating it in your work piece.

- [Narrator] The work requires resilience and resolve to finish what you started.

- Because you can get seven steps into something and have to start right over if you don't follow your process or the rules that you've learned.

So I break, you know, put another piece in the fire and get right back on it.

(soft music) - [Narrator] But here at Rosedale, Blanchett is not only sharing his trade, he's helping to tell the full story of Rosedale and similar historic farms in the American South.

Prior to the civil war, much of the skilled labor in the South was that of the enslaved and many of those African-Americans became highly skilled in trades like carpentry, masonry and blacksmithing.

In the 1800s, it was the African-Americans who worked the original forge here at Rosedale.

- Blacksmithing gave the slave communities a higher or an elevated level of existence.

They had a little bit more social capital, they had more social capital period because you couldn't get a lock, a nail, or a hammer, or a hinge without them.

So they were gonna have a little bit more power, a little bit more sway.

In fact, the grandsons of this farm went on to start a shop in North Davidson.

- [Narrator] Blanchett doesn't consider himself a reenactor or even a historian, but he feels a connection to the history here at Rosedale.

- I feel like this was my way of engaging in the history and also keeping something alive that wouldn't have legs without me a little bit.

Maybe not without me, but without a person of African-American descent, because it does lend legitimacy to the whole storytelling.

- [Narrator] Blanchett knows that he's keeping a craft alive, but he says there's another benefit.

- I'm charged every day to know exactly what I'm making to have it down to the detail, the 16th or the 64th or the 32nd or the finished quality or the anchoring necessities for something, I'm kind of ruled by a lot of numbers and stuff.

So here, my, kind of how I go about this, is it's a very free flowing personal expression kind of deal where I try to communicate the techniques and stuff that are used and what I'm doing in general but then just to let it be free, more free than what I get to express in my day-to-day fabrication and building.

- [Narrator] So on your next visit to Rosedale, stop by the Smithy and you just might see Blanchett hammering away in a creative symphony of iron, fire and brute force, all while helping share the full story of this historic site and this centuries old craft.

(upbeat music) In Eastern Cabarrus County up on a hill, stands a weather worn building surrounded by pieces of an agricultural past.

Pieces representing eight generations of one family's farming legacy, here at the Bost Grist Mill Historic Site.

The purr of an Allis-Chalmers tractor radiates from the mill building.

- Can't use a John Deere.

- Why?

- Putt putt, can't use the putt putt, it's gotten to run real smooth.

You can't have something that's kind of jerky.

- [Narrator] The mill started out on the nearby rocky river, where water powered its operation.

But over a century ago, flooding forced a move and more modern power sources.

- At first, it was steam powered, it was steam engine and then later on, they went to a gasoline engine.

- [Narrator] And as the classic tractor warms up, the sixth generation mill owner, Gene Bost, inspects and prepares the mills inner workings.

- We'll just make sure everything's in working order.

The belts, you make sure they're not gonna be slipping One you start it, that's the hard part.

Once you start it, you can run all day long.

- [Narrator] Running the mill requires a bit of help from Gene's son Brant.

He represents the seventh generation.

Giving it a bit of gas, Brant throttles up the tractor to power this small pulley.

It drives a wide belt that turns this massive pulley that then spins round and round, in turn transferring the tractor's energy to the various belts and gears under the building.

It's a lot to keep track of.

- And what I do is just sit there and watch it in case something happens.

I mean, there's a lot of older stuff and this is going on anything can happen, anything come apart.

So we just kind of watch out and be ready to stop it in hurry, get it started and get it stopped.

That's my main role.

And I kind of keep an eye on underneath.

- [Narrator] But the real magic happens on the inside.

- [Gene] We're making cornmeal.

We put it in a machine, in a mill and the mill is two shafts of stone.

It was going down through in the center those stones, getting in between them it was crushing it.

You need to adjust your stone.

The lower, tighter you get them, the finer it gets, the wider you get it, the coarser it gets.

You want grits?

Grits and cornmeal is the same thing about it except how course it's ground.

- [Narrator] The ground cornmeal flows down this wooden chute into a vibrating screen, which further refines the product.

- It takes out your good product, puts it in that band and on the end where it's running out, that is actually it's the outside portion of the corn, the outside layer and it's called a bran and that's coming out into a bag or air and maybe some little particles or anything, you know, that didn't grind comes out there and it's fed back to animals.

It's not wasted.

- [Narrator] And the finished cornmeal ends up in the vent underneath the sifter.

Most agricultural communities at one time had a mill.

Area farmers would bring their corn and other grains to be ground into products, such as flour, cornmeal and grits.

- Usually a farmer'd bring his own grain in and usually on Saturday.

And they would be lined up.

I've heard stories, they'd be lined up a couple hundred yards.

- [Narrator] But with the industrialization of farming and modern food distribution, like grocery store chains, mills, like the historic Bost Gristmill became obsolete or did it?

Today instead of milling for other farmers, the Bost family preserves their mill by opening it to the public on Saturdays.

They run a small country store inside, offering their own fresh ground cornmeal and other products.

And it's in the other products category where the eighth generation Bost steps in.

Meet 12-year-old Gradin Bost.

- We carry all different kinds of sausage.

We carry your mild sausage, Cajun sausage, mild with extra sage.

We carry all kinds.

We do pork chops.

We do bacon and a couple other little things.

- [Narrator] And to get those delicious products, Gradin is continuing a different Bost family farming tradition, raising free range pigs.

- My grandpa had done 'em and then his daddy done it.

Just the legacy.

- [Narrator] One thing is for certain, this young entrepreneur is all business.

- [Man] Now you understand they're not pets.

- Oh yeah.

They're bacon, they're sausage.

It ain't the easiest job, but some days it goes good and some days it don't.

- The main reason we started this pig thing too, is we care about what people eat.

Just tryin' to do it right, because we care about what we get ahold of.

It's not really the profit we're making, it's just that we care.

- [Narrator] Farm life will never be called an easy life, but here on the Bost historic grist mill and farm, it can be summed up as a good life.

- I wouldn't take nothing for the experience.

I have a love for the land.

And like I said, it gets in your blood and I've even asked daddy I said, you know, "Why we do this?"

He said, "It's in your blood, boy."

A lot of people ask me and say, "Why don't you just go to the beach, spend more time," but when you sit here, it means more to you to see and look what's your family work for and then you work for it, you see the rewards at the end.

That's what means the most to me.

(soft music) - [Narrator] On a chilly night, many find comfort snuggling under a warm quilt.

These handcrafted treasures are often passed down through the generations, but before you can hand down or even get comfy under that quilt, someone has to know how to make it, someone like long-time quilter, Jane Godshall.

- When you make a quilt, you put three fabrics together.

You have your top layer, your batting and then the backing and then you sew through all three layers and that makes a quilt.

- [Narrator] The technique of quilting dates back thousands of years, but just a couple hundred years ago, as American pioneering families moved West and further away from the nearest general store, quilting proved to be an essential skill.

- The 1800s, definitely because you had a much greater movement in the country and they needed the warmth as they went.

So yeah, again, it became a necessity that they had to have bed coverings.

- [Narrator] Those early pioneering women were resourceful and little went to waste.

- The pioneer women would do them by candle light and put every bit of scrap that they could find from old clothing or whatever into it.

- [Narrator] In the early 20th century, the resourceful spirit continued as a new source of cloth came into vogue.

- Farmers and companies got onto this real quick that women needed fabric.

So feed sacks came into being where they would actually be printed.

They'd have, they'd come in, whether it was your hog feed or your, you know, your corn, or flour, or whatever, it would come in in a fabric.

So women would use that.

(country music) - [Narrator] When it comes to quilts, there's a wide range of style and purpose.

- There's hand work, there's machine work.

There's modern quilts, there's traditional quilts.

There's just all kinds.

Quilts could be political.

That was a big thing that started in this country.

During the times of women's suffrage, there were a lot of quilts made about that.

- [Narrator] But eventually, the need to make quilts diminished with modern manufacturing.

Then another shift, a societal shift.

- When women were going back to work in the fifth, sort of in the '50s, but definitely in the '60s and '70s there were more careers happening out there and then women who had careers and had families to take care of.

So the time was just not there.

- [Narrator] Jane says it was around the American bicentennial in 1976 when quilting went from essential skill to more of a hobby and craft.

- People got interested again and that's when, as far as documentation goes, it became more of an industry.

- [Narrator] These days, Jane is a member of two local quilting guilds and shares her years of knowledge at various quilt shows.

Her long-time friend and fellow guild member, Theresa Justice, was first exposed to quilting by her mother, but it wasn't until the 1990s when she got serious about the craft.

- [Teresa] I like to think of myself as a traditional quilter.

- [Narrator] Theresa put her skills to use after discovering a forgotten family heirloom.

- That is a, what they call a postage stamp quilt.

It's made up of one inch blocks.

And my husband's aunt Gertrude actually made that all by hand.

- [Narrator] But Theresa says, aunt Gertrude left this one with a bit of work.

- She gave it to my mother-in-law, who put it in a closet for many years and I discovered it one day at her house and I asked her if I could take it home and finish it for her.

- [Narrator] And finish it she did.

Today this quilt made up of tiny squares is a cherished multi-generational heirloom.

(upbeat music) Quilters like Theresa and Jane say it's hard for them to not quilt.

- I seriously can't just sit and watch a movie.

I need to be knitting or sewing or doing something 'cause I feel like I'm wasting time otherwise.

And this is something I love to do.

- [Narrator] But it's not just about the history of the craft or the quilts themselves.

There's more going on here.

- [Teresa] Other quilters are my closest friends and you get close just like sisters.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Over in York, South Carolina, from the outside this small unassuming shop might not draw much attention to those passing by, but there are clear signs something special is going on inside.

Welcome to Leake Furniture Makers.

- Together every day, I'm making reproduction furniture right here in our town, where we lived and loved for all these years.

And so we're just happy as heck to be here.

- [Narrator] Meet furniture maker John Leake and the we part of the equation, his son Jay.

Together, they make finally crafted furniture with attention to every detail.

- We make a lot of different types of furniture here.

I guess the common theme to it, most of it, would be what we would call backwoods rural type, typical of what you would find in say the Piedmont of South Carolina, versus more urban areas say like Charleston or even Atlanta.

We love to use beautiful wood and we try to join it up carefully and so everything else sort of takes care of itself.

- [Narrator] The duo put an emphasis on craftsmanship over speed, using traditional methods.

- We still have a mortise and tenon joint still very strong, still very traditional, still nothing better.

- [Narrator] But labor-intensive.

- This would be an example of a twin mortise and tenon right here.

This is a four step process for us.

It's sped up considerably with the machinery that we use, but this is still a very, very, very traditional joint.

- [Narrator] They average about a dozen pieces a year, each custom ordered and each constructed to customer's specs.

The Leakes find design inspiration in traditional styles dating to early America.

At the time of our visit to the shop, they were hard at work constructing a hunt board.

- Hunt boards were found predominantly in the Piedmont area here in the Carolinas and down into Georgia.

So we were right in the main stream of the hunt board here.

And a hunt board is a pretty unique piece.

It really what it amounts to is a serving piece, it's essentially a tall table.

The one that we're doing here is based off of an original that was made and documented up in Virginia.

Now, Virginia is a little bit far North for a hunt board, but this original did come from up there.

The one that we are adapted from was in a collection in Richmond.

- [Narrator] This particular hunt board will find its way to Charleston and it's the younger Leakes job to add a bit of embellishment with custom inlay.

- I enjoy the inlay work and I have been getting ready to put in an inlay, which is a Palmetto tree that we have scrolled out.

- [Narrator] For years, many of their pieces stayed close to home, but a feature article in a lifestyle magazine about their version of a cellarette introduce the Leakes to a much larger audience.

- When that magazine article came out, we started getting emails and calls from all over the country.

And next thing you know, we had, you know, in the first couple of days of that article coming out, we probably had 25 or 30 orders all over the country.

- [Narrator] Through their well-earned notoriety, they even received orders for a series of small custom boxes from the White House, used to present foreign dignitaries with gifts.

(soft music) But the spotlight hasn't changed how these two craftsmen work, staying humble.

- There's so much to learn in the world of woodworking and furniture making, and you'll never learn it all.

- [Narrator] And focused on tradition and family.

- Well, I enjoy being in the shop side by side with dad.

It's just, I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

(machinery humming) - [John] In our shop, making a piece of furniture is not a job.

It's a way of life here.

And so we just take that incredibly serious that somebody has given us the honor and the privilege of making something for them.

(soft music) (soft music) - [Narrator] With his sweet grass supplies at the ready, Jerame Smalls puts in the work needed to turn his craft into a business.

- [Jerame] I am the proud owner of 1721 Creations, Charleston sweet grass baskets.

- [Narrator] Creations ranging from decorative to utilitarian.

- A lot of people use the baskets for fruit bowl, for candy dishes.

This small basket right here is actually one of my number one sellers.

This basket right here actually goes on the wall and you place a small candle on the inside.

So baskets can be used for several different things.

I might make reefs.

I make purses, I make everything.

I always tell people to get a decent size basket and a nice basket.

I think $100 is a safe net.

So this small key chain here is $10.

There's a basket that my grandmother made that's actually on the banner here.

That basket's $750.

These baskets can go higher than that, because it's a very time consuming craft.

- [Narrator] But he says it's an investment in quality.

- One thing I love to tell customers is these baskets last a lifetime, a lifetime.

When you go visit Charleston, a lot of the sweet grass baskets are in downtown Charleston, on King Street, Meeting Street and Market Street.

In Mt.

Pleasant we have that highway highway 17.

- [Narrator] Jerame, a Charleston, South Carolina native, learned to weave sweet grass baskets from his late grandmother.

- [Jerame] I started this craft when I was 12 years old.

And with that being said, I've continued as family legacy for over 18 years.

- [Narrator] His family's legacy is rooted in a centuries old tradition, first introduced to the South Carolina low country by enslaved West Africans who worked the numerous rice plantations.

On the plantations, they would utilize the abundant natural materials around them to weave baskets similar to those in their native Africa.

After emancipation and the end of slavery in the American South, many of the formerly enslaved formed communities on the coastal islands of the low country.

The people became known as Gullah and it's their descendants who continue the basket weaving tradition, drawing upon the region's natural resources for their supplies.

- The materials are all grown naturally.

So here is the Palmetto.

This comes from the South Carolina state tree, the Palmetto tree.

And then you also have sweet grass, which is a lighter colored material that's a bit softer here.

So this is sweet grass right here and this grows in the first part of the marshes.

And you have bulrush and rusha which grows in the second part of the marsh.

(upbeat music) It is extremely tedious.

This right here is a very small key chain.

This right here is extremely painful on my hand.

A lot of individuals do not realize that the smaller the basket, the more painful it is on the hand.

Wen you have something as large as like this, with this particular basket, it's not as painful, but the smaller the basket, the more painful it is on the hand.

It's a very tedious craft.

No two basket makers make the same basket.

The second I do a stitch in a different position than the first position, the basket's different.

So no two baskets are ever the same.

The basket weaver can be the same, but even our craft would not be the same of our same product.

- [Narrator] Jerame started his business as a way to honor his late grandmother.

- 1721 Creations is my company's name.

1721 is the address where my grandmother lived at in Charleston.

And it was important for me to where when you see my name for my business, it's a story.

When you hear 1721 Creations, nothing about that says sweet grass baskets.

So it's a story.

Someone will say, "Where does 1721 creations come from?"

I'm now able to talk about my grandmother, the late Mary-Alice Vending Vanderhorse - [Narrator] But there's more to his motivation.

- So I'm a leader within my community in doing these Charleston sweet grass baskets.

It's very important for me to keep this craft within our house.

So going back to those African slave descendants who started this craft over 300 years ago, this was something that we were able to take pride in for us, but the sweet grass baskets is something that was defined by African-Americans.

That's why it's important for me to ensure that I keep this legacy alive.

I'm building a foundation for this story to continue to keep going and that is within my African-American family culture.

- [Narrator] Honoring one's heritage can take many forms, but when you watch a craftsperson at work, it's hard not to see the passion.

It's a commitment to creating and continuing the techniques of the past.

By practicing these age old skills, crafts and ways of life, these individuals ensure the methods of our ancestors, the essential work of their past, live on for future generations.

Thank you for watching this episode of "Trail of History."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.