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Since being at Tuskegee I have continued to study, and am satisfied that I have well used my opportunities. This division over which I preside is located on the first floor of the Trades Building. It is well fitted for work in general wheelwrighting and repairing. Included in the equipment are ten woodworkers' benches 32 inches high, 42 inches wide, and 8 feet long.
I then sought work in the blacksmithing-shop, the shop I had first desired to enter, so that I might become a first-class blacksmith in addition to having a working knowledge of wheelwrighting. After completing the school term I went to Montgomery, Ala., and worked as a wheelwright and blacksmith. This outside experience was most helpful to me. My last school year was that of 1899-1900.
I was very happy to receive, along with my academic diploma, a certificate also from the blacksmithing division. I was now fitted to begin my life in the great outside world. My first work was as instructor in blacksmithing and wheelwrighting in the Hungerford Industrial School at Eatonville, Fla.
Hiram was handy with tools; indeed, a true farmer should be a good mechanic as well. He must often combine carpentry and wheelwrighting and work at the forge, with his agricultural pursuits. Hiram was something better than a "cold-iron blacksmith." When it came to stretching the wire of the pasture fence he had to resort to his inventive powers.
Building wheels; general repairs on buggies and wagons continued; practise-work on parts of buggies, phaetons, farm- and business-wagons; shop economics, estimates, bills of material; industrial classes and Mechanical Drawing during the year. The student in wheelwrighting receives instruction in wood-turning; the course is the same as that given to students in carpentry.
M. T. Driver, who was in charge of wheelwrighting and blacksmithing, I made rapid progress at my trade. Miss Adella H. Hunt, who has since become the wife of Treasurer Logan, was then a teacher who had the faculty of touching a responsive chord in a student. Mrs. Strong and resourceful in dealing with students, she always won the best that was in them.
I wanted my brother to enter the blacksmith-shop, as I saw visions of a blacksmithing and wheelwrighting business to be owned and conducted by Lomax Brothers some time in the future. I also provided clothing out of what I had earned for both my brother and myself. At close of the school term in 1898 I was able to secure employment at Uniontown, Ala., with Messrs.
Other boys illustrated wheelwrighting, bricklaying, plastering, mattress-making, printing, and various agricultural processes.
Each year our teachers are selected from some of the best schools of the South; such as Tuskegee Institute, Shaw University, Snow Hill Institute, Claflin University, Benedict College, etc. Eight industries are taught, consisting of farming, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, sewing, laundering, printing, domestic science and home nursing.
Afterward I worked at the McKinley Brothers' Wagon Factory at Demopolis, Ala.; as a journeyman workman at Tuskegee, in the Institute's Wheelwrighting Shop, and with the Nack Carriage Company at Mobile, Ala., the largest shop of its kind in that city and one of the largest in the whole South, a firm doing strictly high-grade work.
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