George Alvis (1800-186?): Black Blacksmith of Harrisburg, PA

George Alvis was born in 1800 in Richmond, Virginia. By 1830, he was the head of a Free African American family living in Harrisburg, PA. He was a Black Blacksmith. He is buried in Lincoln Cemetery, Harrisburg’s oldest historically Black Cemetery.

Before the White man came to Africa and shipped the blacksmiths west. Before Ogun went into the forest…the hearth was, near always, the most sacred space of sanctuary for the power of the life force—outside a Woman; other than the Mother. The Ironworker’s ability to create, birth, and transform something new—in iron and steel; was eclipsed, only by the reproductive powers of women, to create new life…A brief time after Ogun came to America, on the slave ships, George Alvis (sometimes spelled Olvis), was born. According to the records I have found, he was, mostly likely born around 1800 in the city of Richmond, Virginia. I am not sure exactly when, or how George Alvis managed to come to Harrisburg, but I do know Ogun traveled with him. And mostly likely, Ogun had traveled with George’s ancestors too. He came with them from Africa. George Alvis, the Black Blacksmith of Harrisburg, brought Ogun with him.

Black Blacksmiths

“The skills required to fashion wrought iron, for which African technology was superior to European, were abundant among slave workers from all areas of Africa…In the Americas, iron was first smelted and fashioned successfully by Africans. They did it well because they knew how to do it.” (“Queue | by Jean Libby – Allies for Freedom”, p. 3)

They say that after Ogun went into the forest, the hearth was still the embodied power of the life-force. Furnaces and forges have regenerative power. And Ogun found a home in the Americas in the flames of resistance. In providing a hearth to nurture regenerative change. Ogun is the bellows, the forge, the flame, the hammer, the steel.

It may be, that the legacy of the early African American Blacksmiths is largely unknown today, because many thousands of these men died young. Early entrepreneurs, in the burgeoning iron and manufacturing industries, in the American Colonies, were not at all interested in the purchase and importation of African women, and so most of the “imported” Blacksmiths died without descendants.

By cunning, chance, and the grace of the gods, that did not happen to the ancestors of George Alvis.

Growing up there were few things that I remember with greater visceral clarity, than the time I spent at the Rochester Folk Art Guild.

For many years, my Dad was the only Black Man at the Guild, and although this rarely struck me as odd, it would have never occurred to me that he was out of place. Especially, in the Iron Shop. My Dad was a Blacksmith…

Little did I know, at the time, that by becoming a Blacksmith, my father was following a long tradition, a calling that was woven into his DNA.

For me–the smells and sounds of the Iron Shop are so deeply woven into the fabric of my identity. That even now, I rejoice, as if I found my own kin– within every piece of his story: George Alvis: Black Blacksmith of Harrisburg…But, I had to dig deep to find him.

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There is a good chance that Geore Alvis had his skill passed down to him, generation by generation, in a line leading all the way back to the original Ironworkers who came out of the cradle of Life.

Generations of Legacy: Black Blacksmiths of Richmond, Virginia

What is certainly true— is that if, Richmond, Virginia, the birthplace of George Alvis, has a rich history of famous and powerful African American Blacksmiths. Many were born enslaved and purchased their own freedom. You may have heard of Gabriel Prosser? Gabriel was accused, and convicted of planning a slave rebellion. Or, Gilbert Hunt the Blacksmith-Hero of Richmond?

Gabriel Prosser was an African American Blacksmith–They Hanged Him for Leading a Slave Rebellion

No one knows what happened to Gabriel’s body. Born into slavery the year his country declared its freedom, he trained as a plantation blacksmith and was hired out to foundries in Richmond, Virginia, where he befriended other enslaved people. Together, they absorbed, from the revolutionary spirit of the era, ideas of independence that were never meant for them. Gabriel kept hammering out whatever his masters demanded, but in secret he began to forge a network of thousands of enslaved and free blacks who planned to rally under a flag stitched with borrowed words: “Death or Liberty.” But a terrible thunderstorm flooded the roads on what was to be the day of their revolt, in August, 1800, and during the delay two of the conspirators betrayed the rest. Within a few weeks, twenty-six of them were hanged. (Cep, 2020)

Gilbert Hunt, Black Blacksmith, Formerly Enslaved, Hero of Richmond

Black Blacksmith in the Antebellum South: Gilbert Hunt

“WITHIN the narrow limits of a small wooden tenement, on one of the most retired and unfrequented lanes of the city of Richmond, lives and labors our hero—blacksmith… Though his head is silver’d o’er with age, even now the merry ring of Gilbert’s anvil may be heard at early dawn, saying to many a tardy young man—Be diligent in business.” (Philip Barrett, 1859, page 5) (pdf)

““I was born somewhere about the year 1780, in the county of King William, at a place called the Piping Tree, long a celebrated tavern on the Pamunkey river” (Philip Barrett, 1859, page 6). After being left as an inheritance in a will, Gilbert, is quoted as saying, ”I was brought to Richmond, and learned the carriage-making business…I was sold by my master [and served a new one]—about four or five years. I was then again sold. It was during the time I was owned by my last purchaser that the war of 1812 occurred. I remember the occurrences of that day as well as if it were yesterday” (Philip Barrett, 1859, page 6)

Gilbert Hunt served as a Blacksmith during the War of 1812.

My favorite story about him is that– years after, he rescued the entire audience of the Richmond Theatre…

He rescued the jailhouse, in Richmond, was aflame– and Gilbert rescued everyone (Ogun brought him through those flames).

Gilbert bashed holes in the walls of the jailhouse, pulled the prisoners out, and then he went to work in his Iron Shop–crafting handcuffs for the criminals he had aided in escape.

Even if they were left without heirs! The power of the hearth, the forge, the flame was still with them. Ogun is still with us. We remember and recover their stories (And through this we forge our future).

Finding George Alvis: The Black Blacksmith of Harrisburg

Last week, I started going through one particular type of Lincoln Cemetery Burial Record, that I had not examined in great detail before… it is a handwritten notebook. What I failed to realize, when looking at the notebook in the past, is how many ancestors’ interments it documents–and their names, and burial locations are not recorded in any other Lincoln Cemetery Burial Record. The pages describe the experience of taking a methodical walk through the cemetery, a century, or more ago. Given the names in this notebook, I now believe, it is the oldest surviving record of those interred at Lincoln Cemetery (other than the gravestones themselves).

It was in this Lincoln Cemetery burial record that I first found the name—George Alvis. George and Nancy, and probably a few of their children—are buried in the Block of Lincoln Cemetery that we have spent the most time restoring (Block C), but we have yet to find their gravestones.

George Alvis, as I said before, was born in Richmond, Virginia. Nancy’s maiden name (it looks something like–Lundy, Snody, Snivly), on their daughter’s death certificate (it is difficult to decipher).

Who Was This Harrisburg Black Blacksmith?

According to census data, George Alvis was living in Harrisburg as early as 1830. He shows up on the same census page as the Greenley, Carr, and Davis households, along with many of the other prominent 19th century African American families of Pennsylvania.

Looking beyond the basic data found in those early census records…I didn’t find much on ancestry.com. I didn’t get any results on George Alvis (Olvis) on newspapers.com…

I hit a wall–whenever I hit a wall, I turn to a basic Google search. And, this time, I got lucky:

In Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community, Gerald G. Eggert discuses the emergence of Harrisburg as an industrial city, including racial and ethic demographics, occupations, and opportunities. In this process, Eggert reviewed the early records of W.O. Hickok’s Eagle Works.

Apparently, Hickok Manufacturing has retained their employee records dating back to the founding of the Eagle Works in 1851. According to Eggert’s text, George Alvis appears in the company records employed as a Blacksmith, until at least 1860.

Eggert, Gerald G. Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community. Penn State Press, 1993.

By 1870, George and Nancy have seemingly died. According to my research, Francis Elizabeth Alvis was their oldest child, and the their only child with descendants. Franny, as she was referred to on her death certificate, was born in Harrisburg, PA on 4 Nov 1831, and she had one daughter, with a man named Aaron Sanders in 1856.