Far from the throngs of the big city, the Goodwin family look almost lost in time. While fewer than 2 in 10 Americans call the countryside home, Jordan Goodwin, 30, raised rurally and homeschooled, is of an even slimmer minority, alongside his wife, Atlanta, 33, who was also homeschooled.
Leading secluded, Biblically-inspired lives is all they’ve ever really known.
Together, they now carry forward their homeschooling, Christian tradition with their seven children on a small plot in Middle Tennessee. More remarkable still is Mr. Goodwin’s antiquated old-school trade as a fully traditional blacksmith in the modern age.
Since 2015, he has taken up his hammer—in a line of work now almost entirely phased out of existence, replaced by modern industrial methods—and gone on to launch a revival in the form of a business. He fully dresses the part, sporting tan leather apron, suspenders, and Civil War era-esque goatee.
“I use a coal forge and traditional techniques pretty much exclusively,” Mr. Goodwin told The Epoch Times, adding that classically produced metalworks have “a very different feel and look from those forged or stamped out by machine in big factories.”
His traditional forge combines forced air and coal to produce an extremely hot fire to superheat his primary working material, wrought iron, into soft, workable condition. Most of the shaping is done on an anvil with various hammers, sledgehammers, tongs, and forming tools.
Work is also done using a bench and vise, as well as filing, fitting, and cold-hammering to achieve a quality fit and finish.
Factors in the pre-industrial revolution economy, such as specialization, competition, and lack of automation, once drove smiths to develop incredible levels of speed and quality of handwork, Mr. Goodwin said.
Not entirely self-taught, he took a few week-long smithing classes; learned from books, tutorials, and forums online; and had the occasional mentorship. Today, inside his shop (which seems so lost in time), located a comfortable 30 feet from his homestead, Mr. Goodwin can forge an old-fashioned drawing knife in 6 or 7 manhours.
Their cottage industry took off, and he became a full-time blacksmith five years ago—and thus Axe & Anvil Hand Works was born.
Now he sells wall-mounted frontier gun hooks for $75 and fancier ones for $100, also forged nails, of Colonial and other various styles, chest handles, and steak flippers. These and other assorted, handcrafted tools—like Colonial tasting spoons and drawing knives—are sold on a cleanly designed website. He obliges custom orders large or small.
The endeavor was launched with a dual purpose, Mr. Goodwin said:
One, he wanted to make hardware for their log house.
Two, he and Mrs. Goodwin decided before getting married that they “would try to both work from home and build a family economy,” he told the newspaper.
“The driving force behind the lifestyle Atlanta and I have pursued is the knowledge that God is good,” he said, adding that they wanted to give their kids “the most Christian education we could” and teach them “to work joyfully with their hands.”
Aged between 9 and 16 months (with another due in March), the children watched Dad forge as young tots, begging him to let them swing a sledgehammer to strike hot iron on his old, traditional anvil.
Among those tots was Alan, now 8, who is already helping him forge hooks, banging away beside him with his little 5-pound sledge.
This is called “striking,” Mr. Goodwin said, adding that it’s impressive how quickly they learn.
“There is something to be said for them being able to see the work Dad does for a living and understand it—and it seems very natural that they want to emulate it,” he said. “I can only imagine how good they will be at it, having gotten such an early start in the basics.”
At just a few years old, they first learned the hammer by slamming down nails into wood. They then graduated to cold metal and molding clay on an anvil. They watched Dad make things, and he showed them while talking about his many projects.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that the Goodwins, living their obscure lifestyle, found their way onto Facebook. Alan went viral in a video showing him at the forge, helping his dad. It garnered 2.3 million views to date, pointing to the public’s emerging fascination with olden ways.
“It was wild to see that [clip] take off,” Mr. Goodwin said. “It has been truly heartwarming to see the overwhelmingly positive response.”
And so Mr. Goodwin now believes, despite being in the minority, that “at least part of our society is reawakening to the many values … of art and craftsmanship.” On a more profound, spiritual note, his role as a traditional, Christian blacksmith, he believes, “will likely be called on again one day to rebuild” civilization.
“We were created in the image of God, the ultimate creator,” he said. “And few things are, therefore, more human than to create beautiful things for His glory and the enjoyment of others.”
