With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.
A version of the following article appeared in 2004 in The Fincastle Herald under my byline.
Blacksmiths were very important and necessary folk during the colonization of America. They were needed to make iron tools, like plowshares, so the hard work of planting and building structures could be completed.
Farriers were smiths who specialized in shoeing horses. But smiths not only shod horses, they created springs and wheel parts for carriages, made nails, pots, pans, and other utensils.
The work was done with a hammer and anvil, using iron heated in a fire kept hot by hand-operated bellows. Without blacksmiths to work iron, the settlers could not have moved west as quickly as they did.
Today, mass production methods have all but eliminated most work done by blacksmiths.
In Fincastle, the county seat of Botetourt County, VA, one blacksmith shop still stands. The smell of molten metal and the hiss of fire in water do not echo on the town’s Main Street anymore, but visitors can see the efforts of blacksmiths of old in the Ludwig Wysong Blacksmith Shop museum at Wysong Park.
Imprints from horse hooves are visible in the sidewalk outside of the restored building. Inside, tools of the trade line the walls and two portable forges show how the smithy could haul his trade from place to place if need be.
The museum was dedicated in 1978, a gift to Historic Fincastle, Inc. (HFI) from two brothers: Rufus and Dr. H. D. Wysong. During the 1970s, while researching family history, they became interested in the old shop. It was the last remaining smithy in town, and they purchased it and restored it as a tribute to Fiedt Wysong, their ancestor.
The Wysong brothers partnered with HFI to reconstruct the sagging building. Wysongs from all over the United States donated money, and HFI provided additional funding to help acquire the lot, which is now called the Ludwig Wysong Memorial Park, in honor of Fiedt Wysong’s father.
The family originally hailed from France and Wales. The Wysongs have traced their roots to 1558, where an early family member named Vincent fled from France to the Rhineland area of Germany to escape religious persecution. There, it is reported, the German pronunciation of the name “Vincent” corrupted it to “Weissanz,” which eventually became Wysong.
Fiedt Wysong (1755-1837) was an early Fincastle settler who owned many properties in town. The museum may not have been his shop – there were several in the area and no one knows which was his.
But the current building was a working smithy until 1932.
Fincastle Historian Dottie Kessler says Fiedt Wysong operated a blacksmith shop in 1791.
His father, Ludwig Wysong moved to Wales from the Rhineland. He entered the English king’s service and landed in America in 1715. He located to York County, PA and married at age 60. He had 11 children, 7 boys, and 5 of those sons fought on the side of the patriots in the American Revolution, including Fiedt and his brother Valentine, who also lived in Fincastle. In April 1824, the Wysongs lived on the corner of Main Street and Water Street.
HFI members helped the Wysong family clear the lot on the corner of Main Street and US 220, and local attorney Ralph C. Wiegandt and other citizens donated authentic blacksmith tools for exhibit.
Today, one room of the museum contains benches and furniture, and is called the Wysong Meeting Room. The Wysong family holds reunions in Fincastle occasionally, bringing many hundred visitors to town. The building stands as a museum to the public and a memorial to the Wysong family. The building is open to the public during the Fincastle Festival and by appointment.
Almost 300 people attended the 1978 dedication and reunion, with Wysong representatives from 24 states present. The Wysongs turned the property over to HFI at that time. Mayor Harry Kessler, who was also an HFI member, accepted the deed to the property.
HFI later constructed a new Wysong Blacksmith Shop directly behind the older building. The blacksmith shop, complete with a working forge, cost HFI $30,000 and took two years to construct.
Members hoped to lure a blacksmith to town. However, that did not work out and the building became a source of rental revenue for the non-profit organization until this year, when HFI turned it into its offices.
Information courtesy of Fincastle Historian Dottie Kessler (now deceased) and Historic Fincastle, Inc.
