Pigging out on iron

Peter’s Valley celebrates the ancient craft of iron working To reach the Annual Pig Iron Fest at Peter’s Valley, you travel down one of those country roads that appear to lead to another century. You turn down a gravel road that leads to a brook, a barn, and all at once, you see the flames rising from a trio of miniature clay iron-smelting furnaces, tended by brawny men in leather aprons. In the background, the rich aroma of roasting pork blends with the acrid odor of smelting iron. Rising above the roar of the furnaces, is the sound of Eric Thornburg and the Bluetones playing “The House of the Rising Sun.” When the teams have smelted their iron, each will craft it into a wrought iron piece. The Fest is a benefit for the blacksmithing program at Peter’s Valley. The hungry crowd that’s lining up for lavish helpings of roast pork could have stepped out of a Woodstock moment: many of the women have long graying hair and the men are bearded and muscular. At Peter’s Valley, a group of craftsmen are reviving traditional American crafts, blacksmithing among them. Dick Sergent, resident blacksmith, among them. Sergent teaches the art of smelting iron and fashioning it into sculptures, gates, and railings - everything except horseshoes. “He’s a true artist,” says Bruce Rigier of Wantage, who has a smithy in the back of his barn on Route 565. For a 150-year span from the mid-1750s until the end of the 19th century, the New Jersey Highlands were rich in iron-smelting furnaces, forges and iron mines. The iron smelted was popularly known as “pig iron,” because the shape of the molds into which the iron ingots were poured was a branching structure formed in sand. The individual ingots lay at right angles to a main channel, and appeared to resemble piglets suckling a sow.