 |
|
|
Theft hurts more than the museum
By Jerry Sena
jtsena@wataugademocrat.com
When burglars made off with a haul of irreplaceable blacksmithing tools from Boone’s Hickory Homestead Museum last month, they left behind a wagon-load of questions.
For more than half a century, Joe Coffey made many of the tools used on his family’s Deep Gap farm with blacksmithing tools he later contributed to the Hickory Ridge Homestead. The tools were stolen from the museum last month. Photo by Jerry Sena |
For one, why, in a world of 21st-Century crime, did the thieves face little more than 19th-Century security in their quest to loot the museum of its valuables?
The buildings are secured only with padlocks — easy prey for an average set of bolt cutters.
There are no alarms, no lights, and no cameras to deter thieves — such things would disturb the area’s historical authenticity, officials said.
Museum curator Zane Hope said he’d never imagined the collection might be stolen away.
But sometime during the weekend of Feb. 16-18, that’s exactly what happened.
Hope said it appeared to him the thieves roamed the grounds with a purpose.
“They knew what they were looking for,” he said. After forcing their way into several buildings, the burglars limited their theft to the gift shop and blacksmith cabin.
Inside the gift shop, museum officials found 30-40 hand-painted, pewter Revolutionary War soldiers missing, along with a number of animal skins, and about 30 arrowheads.
Though costly – Hope said the soldiers cost the museum about $5 each; the skins run close to $60 – they are replaceable.
The smithing tools, on the other hand, can never be replaced. At least not for Joe Coffey.
The 84-year-old Watauga County native passed the tools to the museum last year. He’d used many of them himself on his Deep Gap farm for more than half a century before handing them over to the museum as part of an active blacksmithing operation at the living history site.
Completed in August, the museum’s newest addition had gained enormously from the authentic tools inside. Hope and a host of other amateur and professional smithies not only used the collection to turn out all the hardware for the shop, but offered visitors a rare chance to see how blacksmiths plied their trade in centuries past.
Hand-wrought iron pieces dot the rough-cut walls. Door hinges and window latches around the structure also owe their creation to Coffey’s ancient tools and the skill of metal-smiths who donate time to the museum throughout the season.
Hope called the tool theft the “most personal” loss from that weekend.
In an interview earlier this week, Coffey was doing his best to not take the theft personally.
On the one hand, he said he’d given up any ownership of the tools once he’d turned them over to the museum.
“It’s no different than if I’d given it to you. Once I give it over it’s yours. It’s no longer mine,” he said.
But, asked what he’d thought at hearing the bad news, he was equally firm: “I hated it.”
Like the museum, Coffey never documented his tools with photographs, which consisted of dozens of hand-made chisels, tongs and punches, and drill bits for a 150-year-old post-mounted drill. The thieves also took a hand-cranked blower – used for super-heating coals – and an 85-pound anvil estimated at about 200 years old.
To Coffey, the tools needed no cataloging. They were just part of the crowded, dirt-floor workshop he’d kept for everyday repairs around the family farm.
Museums, however, typically catalog their collections, a task that officials at Hickory Ridge Homestead Museum never completed.
Hope said the staff would go through photographs taken at a recent festival in an attempt to salvage some photographic record of the tools.
Without such evidence, it’s unlikely the tools can be positively identified, even if authorities suspect they’ve been located.
Steve Canipe, who sits on the board of directors for the Southern Appalachian Historical Association, which administers the museum, said he and others on the board have placed a high premium on authenticity at the museum.
The site, set back on a wooded hillside beyond the Horn in the West parking lot at the center of Boone, isn’t wired for electricity.
The primitive setting provides the perfect atmosphere for the living history exhibits, where volunteers dress in period clothing and demonstrate the lifestyle of mountain settlers from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The presence of lighting and other modern technologies would diminish the historical flavor of the museum, Canipe said.
“We could put in some motion lights,” he said, “but it takes away from the authenticity of the place.”
The wiring, they agreed, would have to be underground so as not to have overhead wires leading to the 200-year-old cabins.
Nor is it acceptable, they said, to have lighting fixtures or alarm boxes marring the site.
Regardless, the SAHA board of directors is facing a difficult decision — either do something to improve security at the site, or continue hoping thieves will pass them by in the future.
A Boone police spokesman said last week that leads have been scarce in the case.
Hope and Canipe said they’re looking for new donors to get the blacksmith shop back up and running.
They’ll appeal to volunteers to go through their old buildings in search of old tools, which are often forgotten in favor of more modern versions.
They’ll also need funds to replace the losses to the gift shop. None of the lost items was insured.
They’re exploring insurance, options, although, as Canipe said, insurance companies prefer to write policies for facilities with burglar alarms and other security devices in place.
|
|
ADVERTISING
|
Get Firefox