I just had a 91 year old retired gunsmith from Pickens SC (he ran the Marxman Gun Shop in Pickens NC) contact me about his GG GF William Hansel Gillespie of Pickens County NC. He is the son of my Gillespie gunmaker GGG GF William Gillespie of East Fork NC (Today's Brevard NC). I knew William had one son, John Harvey Gillespie, that was a gun maker in Henderson County NC but I had never heard that William Hansel Gillespie was also a gunmaker. The old gentleman told me that Hansel had a shop in Pickens and that he remembered as a small child (he was born in 1928) playing around in the dirt floor of what was then a black smith shop. Later he found out this was Hansel's gun shop. Hansel died in 1879 at the age of 65 years of age.
The old gentleman said he remembered some type of uprights in the middle of the dirt floor and also a huge rock formation which he has since learned was a large forge. He also remembered something overhead that reminded him of a banjo or guitar which today he suspects was the bellows for the forge.
In talking with him I asked if he was familiar with George's Creek (today's Pickens NC) area of Picken's County, he was. I told him that circa 1786-1799 old man John Gillespie lived there and family legend says he had a forge there. The old man told me that back in his early days he remembered a building in that area that had a large stone forge in one end of the building and had large lathes with overhead pulleys running them. He said the building has been long gone and I am sure it has no connection with old man John G. (they moved over into NC circa 1799) but it may be the source of the Gillespie's Forge stories for that area. There are 3 or 4 different, un-related Gillespie families in that area so it could have been a different family running the forge.
Is there anyone that lives in Picken's, Picken's County SC that may have some information on these two locations? Or knows of anyone that might have some information?
Dennis
