Bergsman - Any English language links?

[John Anderson]

I have several Begsmen in my family lineage.  I know they were farmers or land owners that leased their land for mining operations.  Are there any better explanations out there, hopefully in English?  
 
I loved the link for the article on Torp/Torpare.  That is along the lines of what I am looking for if there is something out there.
 
Thank you all so much for your knowledge and assistance.
 
John

[Berit Tjernberg]

John,
This link may be useful:
 
http://www.slaktdata.org/index.php/sv/lexikon
 
Berit

[john]

Thank you for that link Berit.
 
It looks like quite an extensive article.  It is in Swedish though, which means I will have to muddle my way through trying to translate it with the on-line dictionary.  I have printed it though and will start doing that soon.
 
I was looking for an English language article on Bergsmen such as the one found here on Torparen and Crofters, but I think now that probably one does not exist.
 
Thank you again for your efforts,
 
John

[Ingvar Sahlin]

Dear John,  
 
Bergsman is a farmer who also produced iron. A small group of farmers called Bergsmän (one bergsman/two bergsmän) worked on the farmland with farming and made charcoal out of their timber from forest owned by them. A bergsman dig his mine, smelted iron ore, welded bar iron and sold it.
 
The bergsman had his right to produce iron (even bergsmän for cupper production in Falun and silver production in Sala) and he was a member of a trade organisation called Bergslag (= rock-team). In the beginning the bergsman was a farmer but later he became a wealty businessman and lived in bigger and better houses than ordinary farmers had. The bergsmän in a Bergslag owed a smeltery or blast furnace in cooperation. The big cupper mountain of Falun is the oldest company in the world owned by shareholders sins 1200 - to day the company Stora Enso AB is registered on the Stock exchange in Stockholm.
 
Best regards from
Ingvar

[John Anderson]

Wow! Thanks for all the insight Ingvar!  It is fascinating to find out how one's ancestors made their living from day to day.
 
You said that later on Bergsmen became rather wealthy.  That would seem to fit as my Great Great Grandfather (f,m,m,f), Johan Andersson Ljung, was a Bergsman in Karlskoga and when his wife passed away in 1913, he was able to erect a very fine monument in her honor in the Karlskoga graveyard.  I have a photo of it as it looked in 1913, just after her burial, and a photo of it as it looked last winter, sent to me by a friend in Karlskoga.  It still looks almost as it did back then even though it is almost 100 years old!
 
Also, I just recently found out that on another branch of the family tree that I am descended from Belgian Walloon miners who signed a contract with the King of Sweden in 1625 to mine in Sweden.  
 
One of my ancestors was a Kolare or charcoal-burner. Another article I read about mining techniques in the middle ages said that they used to pile wood in front of rock walls that were to be mined and burned the wood to make the rock brittle so they could break it up with hammers.
 
Another one of my ancestors was a Hammer Master, so I assume they were involved in using those mining techniques I read about.
 
Again, I thank you for your insight into Bergsmen and what they do.  I am printing your response and adding it to my family research.  
 
Gratefully,
 
John

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

Hi John, the hammer master was likely involved in the next step of metal production.
 
After the bergsman had mined his ore from the mine, he and the other part owners of the local blast furnace produced pig iron, which was then usually bought by some local iron merchant and transported to a hammer works (hammarsmedja).
 
There the pig iron, who still contained lots of charcoal was refined to bar iron by heating it up and then pounding it with huge hammers, driven by water wheels. And the people doing this specialist work were the smiths. There were several hearths in each hammer work (also called bruk), and the foreman at each hearth was the hammer master.
 
You might also want to know that the hammer works had to be placed in another area, than where the mines and the blast furnaces were situated.  
 
As both types of work needed lots of charcoal there was a competition about who was allowed to buy charcoal. The government then decided that the hammer works should be placed away from the mines and have forests of their own, as it was easier to transport pig iron than iron ore.

[John Anderson]

Wow!  This is all very interesting!  Thank you so much for letting me pick your brain about all this.  
 
If you don't object, I will include your insights in my family history research also.
 
Thanks again,
 
John

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

Hi John, you are more than welcome to this info. I, as many of us, have a lot of bergsmän in the family, from the area north of Filipstad, but the conditions were the same (mostly) in the various bergslager.