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Lot 487 Property from the Estate of Anne and Gilbert Hudson
A PAINTED SHEET IRON AND WOOD “AIRPLANE WINDMILL” WITH BLACKSMITH SHOP AUTOMATON
INITIALED BY HENRY ENGELHARDT (1861-1944), MARISSA, ILLINOIS, DATED 1833
Closed20 January 2023
Estimate
USD 8,000–12,000
More Information
Specialist note
The whimsical contraption of professional blacksmith Henry Engelhardt (1861-1944), this “airplane windmill” was a source of entertainment in his small community of Marissa in southwestern Illinois. A history of the village notes the following:
Besides being a skilled blacksmith and iron craftsman, he [Engelhardt] was somewhat of an artist and expert woodworker. In 1933, he made an airplane windmill with a complete blacksmith shop inside the fuselage, which he displayed on a truck in one of the Bar B Q picnic parades, making miniature horse shoes and throwing them out to the crowd as the parade progressed. In the shop two model men work at a miniature anvil while another sharpens scissors on a grinder, and still another rides a complete miniature bicycle whose bell is timed with the beat of the tiny hammers on the anvil. This airplane is displayed in his daughter’s home on the site of the smithy, called “Smithy-Site.”
--Marissa: Its People and History (Marissa, IL, 1976), p. 21.
Engelhardt was born into a family of blacksmiths in Dutch Hill, just a few miles northwest of Marissa and he trained under his maternal uncle, George Steinheimer (1845-1931) in Shumway, Effingham County, Illinois. As recorded on this windmill, he began his apprenticeship in 1878 and established a business in partnership with his brother, John Engelhardt (1863-1930) in Marissa in 1884. Due to illness in 1918, Henry sold his share and after his recovery a year later, established his own business on W. Lyons Street. After his death in 1944, the airplane windmill appears to have been inherited by his daughter, Elna M. Engelhardt (1893-1985), as in 1967 it was on display in her house at 217 W. Lyons Street, the site of her father’s shop (Marissa, op. cit., pp. 21, 66-67, 73, 76, 78).
Besides being a skilled blacksmith and iron craftsman, he [Engelhardt] was somewhat of an artist and expert woodworker. In 1933, he made an airplane windmill with a complete blacksmith shop inside the fuselage, which he displayed on a truck in one of the Bar B Q picnic parades, making miniature horse shoes and throwing them out to the crowd as the parade progressed. In the shop two model men work at a miniature anvil while another sharpens scissors on a grinder, and still another rides a complete miniature bicycle whose bell is timed with the beat of the tiny hammers on the anvil. This airplane is displayed in his daughter’s home on the site of the smithy, called “Smithy-Site.”
--Marissa: Its People and History (Marissa, IL, 1976), p. 21.
Engelhardt was born into a family of blacksmiths in Dutch Hill, just a few miles northwest of Marissa and he trained under his maternal uncle, George Steinheimer (1845-1931) in Shumway, Effingham County, Illinois. As recorded on this windmill, he began his apprenticeship in 1878 and established a business in partnership with his brother, John Engelhardt (1863-1930) in Marissa in 1884. Due to illness in 1918, Henry sold his share and after his recovery a year later, established his own business on W. Lyons Street. After his death in 1944, the airplane windmill appears to have been inherited by his daughter, Elna M. Engelhardt (1893-1985), as in 1967 it was on display in her house at 217 W. Lyons Street, the site of her father’s shop (Marissa, op. cit., pp. 21, 66-67, 73, 76, 78).