Artisans Hammer Out The Lady Farm Heritage In Gettysburg
By Jay Purdy
January 2005

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - Until three years ago, the barn on the Daniel Lady Farm on Hanover Road just east of Gettysburg looked like many other aging, unused barns along the Mason-Dixon Line.

Built in 1842, the Swisser-style barn had seen several alterations during its second century, including a cement block silo and cinderblock walls to fill in the overhang for additional stall space.

The original wood shingle roof had long ago been replaced with sheet metal and its cupola looked like it was ready to topple in the next strong wind. Windows and doors had been replaced or were inoperative or missing altogether.

On the inside where, during the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate wounded and dying once lay, portions of the barn's structural beams had fallen prey to rot and termites, old hay was piled high and the stables underneath held a knee-high mass of 20-year-old manure and straw bedding.

The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association (GBPA) came to the farm's rescue in 1996, hoping to save the 142-acre farm from encroaching residential and commercial development and return the barn and the two-story stone farmhouse to their 1863 appearance.

Stabilizing the farmhouse was the first priority. Like the barn, it had served as a field hospital and bloodstains still mark its floors. The house also provided a headquarters for a number of Confederate units and it was recently documented that Gen. Robert E. Lee visited the farmhouse on the first night of the three-day battle.

In 2001, the GBPA was able to turn some attention to the barn, cleaning it and removing its 20th-century additions.

During the cleaning, a pair of original hand-forged hinges that once graced shutter windows in the barn were found.

Restoration work on the barn began in 2003. Questionable wood in the supports and exterior walls was replaced and the outside was painted to return the first colors that the barn sported - red with blue trim.

But the GBPA was faced with the cost of obtaining 25 sets of appropriate hinges for the doors and windows. That's when the Pennsylvania Artist Blacksmith Association (PABA) stepped in.

President Mark Zagursky of Lower Paxton Township, a suburb of Harrisburg, learned of the Lady Farm's need from a friend who is a GBPA member.

A staff engineer with Hershey Foods Corporation and semi-professional blacksmith, Zagursky took the Lady Farm dilemma to the 250-member blacksmith association that covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.

Zagursky worked along with full-time blacksmith Dave Fisher, a member of the Reading Berks Guild of Craftsmen and member of PABA's Board of Directors.

The work was done at Fisher's blacksmith shop, Fisher Forge in Hamburg, Pa. Zagursky and Fisher devoted several days time to forming the 25 pairs of hinges out of mild steel on a 500-pound anvil, employing many of the same techniques and types of tools used when the originals were forged in 1842.

"That's the only way you get the same look," said Zagursky. "To be precisely accurate, the hinges had to be two-thirds of the width of the door they were being fitted to, so we produced three different sizes."

Achieving the "same look" included cold hammering beveled edges onto each quarter-inch thick hinge to eliminate sharp edges.

"That was the toughest part of this project. In cold hammering, the metal is not heated and it has the most resistance to being shaped," said Zagursky.

The men didn't stop with the hinges. They went on to design and forge a weather vane that will sit atop the new central cupola, one of three cupolas will grace the restored barn.

"It looks like a banner waving in the wind," Zagursky said. "It's a design typical of the period, though this one might be more ornate than an ordinary one. If the farmer was especially proud of his barn and had a few extra bucks, he could have put one like this up there."

Cut into the banner are two dates: 1842 for the year the barn was built and 2004 for the year the weathervane was crafted.

The estimated value of the work donated by Zagursky and Fisher would be around $5,000 if the GBPA had contracted out for it.

"The ironwork from Mark and Dave is the icing on the cake for the Lady barn," said Kathi Schue, GBPA's president. "To us, the new ironwork is priceless because its enhancement of the barn is beyond what we could have dreamed of. It's a real showpiece and it's historically accurate."

Even with those two projects under their belts, Zagursky and Fisher aren't finished with the Lady Farm. They're already planning to craft a fireplace crane and other hardware for the restored kitchen in the farmhouse.

"Many years from now, when my kids and their kids visit the Lady Farm, they'll be able to point at the hinges and the weathervane and say 'my dad' or 'my grandfather' made them," said Zagursky. "It's nice to preserve history and even be a little part of it."

At November's Remembrance Day dinner, the GBPA presented Zagursky with its annual Preservation Award. He also received a legislative citation from state Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Allegheny, founder of the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Project and a supporter of the Lady Farm project.

Fisher, who was unable to attend the dinner, will receive a similar citation at a future ceremony when the hinges and copula are in place.

More information about the Daniel Lady Farm and the GBPA can be found at www.gbpa.org, by e-mailing gettysburg@pahouse.net, writing GBPA, P.O. Box 4087, Gettysburg, PA 17325 or calling (717) 783-0411.