One can imagine such a type as Mr. Burgeson suggesting the theme Longfellow immortalized in his poem entitled "The Village Blacksmith." His shop in the little village of Maceyville is one of the best equipped in the country, furnished with all of the latest improved tools and machinery for blacksmithing and wagon repairing.

This enterprising and industrious young man grew to manhood on his father's farm in Arion township, adjacent to the village to Macyville, where Mr. Burgeson was born in 1873, and received his education in District No. 51. He is a son of Ole Burgeson, a native of Norway, born in 1843.

Ole Burgeson served an apprenticeship as painter for three years in his native country. In 1866, he came to America and worked at his trade in the city of New York, where he met and married Maria Ockerblad, a native of Sweden. In 1870, while enroute to California they heard of the Solomon valley, stopped off, looked over the situation and took up a homestead where he lived until 1900, when he moved into Glasco. Mrs. Burgeson is a weaver of carpets, having learned this trade in Sweden, where she was also a weaver of linen cloth.

E.N. Burgeson is one of six children: Josephine Christine was a teacher before her marriage to James Shepard, a farmer of Oklahoma; Julia Elizabeth, unmarried; Levi Benjamin, a farmer; Emma Amelia, wife of Robert E. Cole, and Alice May.

Mr. Burgeson learned his trade by practical experience, having always been interested in mechanical work. He began operating on a cash capital of three dollars when nineteen years of age. He established a shop on the farm, where he experimented and gradually developed a knowledge of the different kinds of work incident to blacksmithing, except horse shoeing. His shop now contains a four-horse-power gasoline engine; sharpens plows and all edged farm tools with trip hammer. A wood boring machine for tenoning wheels is run by this engine, which is superior to the old way with a brace. This machine, of his own invention, is a folding device that serves two purposes - a common boring machine and also a tenoning machine. He also has a device for blowing the bellows by means of a crank wheel, from which extends a rod down to the bellows handle where it is attached by means of a screw clutch, thereby making it tight or loose, which gives him perfect control over his fire. This ingenious device is also run by the engine. Mr. Burgeson is a progressive young man and one who will undoubtedly keep up with the times. He owns his shop, a building 24 by 36 feet in dimensions.