UC-NRLF 
 
 32 701 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO A HISTOEY OF 
 
 IRONMAKING AND COAL MINING 
 
 IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 CONTRIBUTED TO THE FINAL EEPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 
 BOARD OF CENTENNIAL MANAGERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES M. 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR: 
 
 No. 265 SOUTH FOURTH STREET. 
 1878. 
 
. 
 
 Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 
 
 JAMES M. SWANK, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT, 
 
 No. 233 South Fifth Street, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following chapters were written during the summer of 1877, at the 
 request of the Pennsylvania Board of Centennial Managers, to accompany 
 their final report to the Pennsylvania Legislature, and are believed to possess 
 sufficient value to justify their publication in a form which will make them 
 accessible to the general reader. They were written amid the pressure of 
 other duties, and it is possible that the critical reader will detect some errors 
 of statement and some omissions of important facts which in his charity he 
 may concede would not have occurred if the author had been a gentleman of 
 leisure, as every true historian ought to be, intent on doing one piece of work 
 at a time and doing it well. I am, however, not conscious of any lack of enthu- 
 siasm or industry in the performance of a really difficult and laborious task. 
 
 That there may be no misunderstanding, I wish distinctly to impress upon 
 the mind of the reader the fact that I have not attempted to write a complete 
 history of ironmaking and coal mining in Pennsylvania, but have assumed 
 only to write such an introduction to their history as will contain a record of 
 the principal events which mark the beginning of these two great industries of 
 our State, and mark, also, the leading events in their subsequent development. 
 Beginning with their beginning, I end with the progress they had made down 
 to 1876, but only glance at the great gap between. Otherwise stated, the scope 
 of the following pages embraces a statement of the first enterprises in iron- 
 making and coal mining in Pennsylvania, a reference to significant periods of 
 their development, and a summary of ultimate results. Greater amplitude and 
 detail could only have been possible by completely changing the plan upon 
 which the two essays had been projected. I have undertaken to preserve only 
 that part of the history of our iron and coal industries that is of most value 
 and is in most danger of being lost. 
 
 To those who would have been gratified to see in this volume a description 
 of existing ironworks in Pennsylvania, it is proper that we should say that the 
 American Iron and Steel Association published in 1876 a complete list of all 
 such enterprises in the United States, which list is now being revised for 
 publication in the spring of the present year. 
 
 In the preparation of the chapters which follow I have consulted all ac- 
 cessible printed sources of information which were deemed authentic, and, in 
 addition, I have personally or by letter communicated with many persons who 
 were likely to possess information concerning our early ironmaking and coal- 
 mining enterprises. Upon many of the subjects treated of in connection with 
 the history of early ironmaking in Pennsylvania, as, for instance, the first iron 
 rails made in the United States, there was absolutely no literature to consult, 
 and great difficulty was experienced in obtaining reliable facts from living 
 ironmasters, family records, or other private sources. 
 
 (in) 
 
 971804 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 I have been greatly aided by the polite and sympathetic attention of the 
 gentlemen in charge of the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
 who have afforded me every desired facility for the examination of historical 
 data contained in colonial records, old maps, local histories, and biographical 
 sketches. 
 
 I have freely consulted in the library of the American Iron and Steel 
 Association such standard historical and statistical works as Charles E. 
 Smith's Statistics of Iron Manufacture in Pennsylvania, (1850); J. P. Lesley's 
 Iron Manufacturer's Guide, (1857) ; Joseph Scott's Geographical Description of 
 Pennsylvania, (1806) ; Sherman Day's Historical Collections of the State of Penn- 
 sylvania, (1843); Thomas F. Gordon's Gazetteer of the State of Pennsylvania, 
 (1832); Dr. William H. Egle's Illustrated History of the Commonwealth of 
 Pennsylvania, (1876) ; Dr. J. Leander Bishop's History of American Manufac- 
 tures, (1861); J. H. Alexander's Report on the Manufacture of Iron, (1840); 
 Harry Scrivenor's Comprehensive History of the Iron Trade, (London, 1841); 
 Daddow & Bannan's Coal, Iron, and Oil, (1866); Walter E. Johnson's Notes on 
 the Use of Anthracite, (1841); etc., etc. I have quoted freely from the Annual 
 Keports of the Secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association for 1876 
 and 1877. Mr. Robert W. Hunt's paper on the "History of the Bessemer 
 Manufacture in America," and the paper of my deceased friend, Mr. William 
 Firmstone, entitled a "Sketch of Early Anthracite Furnaces," both papers 
 contained in the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 
 (1875 to 1877), have been carefully studied. I have also examined Hon. 
 Abram S. Hewitt's lecture on the Statistics and Geography of the Production of 
 Iron, (1856) ; B. F. French's History of the Rise and Progress of the Iron Trade 
 of the United States, (1858) ; and John B. Pearse's Concise History of the Iron 
 Manufacture of the American Colonies and of Pennsylvania, (1876). Mrs. Isabella 
 James's Memorial of Thomas Potts, Junior, was of great service to me, because 
 of the reliable documentary references to colonial ironmaking which are con- 
 tained in it. I am also under obligations to this lady for some suggestions of 
 value in connection with the same period of our iron history. 
 
 Although it is impossible in a brief preface to mention the names of all the 
 friends who have aided me, verbally or in writing, in obtaining information, 
 there would seem to be a special propriety in mentioning the fact that in my 
 search for reliable data I have not limited my inquiries to our own country, 
 but have been honored by a correspondence with two distinguished English- 
 men, Mr. B. F. Mushet, concerning his share in perfecting the Bessemer Pro- 
 cess, and Dr. C. W. Siemens, concerning his invention of the Gas Furnace and 
 Direct Process. I name these gentlemen to show to the reader that wherever it 
 has been possible I have gone to the fountain-head for information. 
 
 The publication of the report of the Pennsylvania Board of Centennial 
 Managers having been delayed until February, 1878, owing mainly to the 
 illness of their Secretary, Alexander C. Mullin, Esq., as a matter of pro- 
 priety the contributions to that report which are contained in this volume 
 could not be published until now, although written several months ago. 
 
 JAMES M. SWANK. 
 
 OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL ASSOCIATION, 
 
 No. 265 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY 15, 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, . . 9 
 
 BEGINNING or THE IRON INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES, . 10 
 Virginia the first Colony to make Iron, in 1620, . . . .10 
 
 First Iron Enterprises in other Colonies, . . . . . . 10 
 
 The Washington Family interested in Ironmaking in Virginia, . . 11 
 
 First Iron Ore in the United States cfiscovered in North Carolina, . 11 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN PENNSYLVANIA, . . .11 
 
 First Mention of Iron in Pennsylvania, in 1692, . . . . 11 
 
 First Ironworks established in Pennsylvania by Thomas Rutter in 1716, 12 
 
 Pool Forge on the Manatawny Samuel Nutt's forge at Coventry, . 13 
 
 Sir William Keith's Ironworks on Christiana Creek, .... 14 
 
 First Blast Furnace in Pennsylvania built in Berks County, . . 14 
 
 Will of Thomas Rutter History of Colebrookdale Furnace, . . 15 
 
 Thos. Potts, Jr. Samuel Nutt's Reading Furnace William Branson, 16 
 
 SECOND STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON INDUSTRY OF 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA, . 16 
 
 Durham Furnace General Daniel Morgan Durham Boats, . . 17 
 
 First Iron made in Lancaster County McCall's Forge Spring Forge, 17 
 Green Lane Forge Mount Pleasant Furnace and Forge Warwick 
 
 Furnace Cornwall Furnace Elizabeth Furnace, . . . 18 
 Baron Henry William Stiegel Early Pennsylvania Stoves, . 19, 20 
 
 Curious Extracts from the Records of Elizabeth Furnace, . . 20 
 
 William Branson and Windsor Forges the Jenkins Family, . . 2t 
 
 Noted Ironworks in Pennsylvania in 1759 First Steel Works, . 22 
 
 First Plating Forge in 1750 Steel Works in Philadelphia in 1750, 23 
 
 Crum Creek Forge, built in 1742 Sarum Ironworks, built in 1746, 23 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORNWALL ORE HILLS, .... 24 
 
 Peter Grubb purchases the Cornwall Ore Hills in 1737, . . . 24 
 
 Cornwall Furnace built by Peter Grubb in 1742, .... 24 
 
 Colebrook Furnace built by Robert Coleman in 1791, ... 25 
 
 History of the Grubb Family, .25 
 
 Hopewell Forge Speedwell Forge Mount Hope Furnace, . . 26 
 Biography of Robert Coleman Notice of James Old, . . 26, 27 
 
 HISTORY OF VALLEY FORGE, ........ 28 
 
 CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON INDUSTRY OF EASTERN 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA, .......... 30 
 
 Ironworks in Berks County David Jones the Birds Udree Ege, 30 
 
 Maria Forge and Furnace in Carbon County, 30 
 
 First Iron Enterprise in York County, in 1756, 30 
 
 (v) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First Iron Enterprises in Cumberland and Franklin Counties, . 31 
 
 The Chambers Family Michael Ege, Sr., 31 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens a Pennsylvania Ironmaster, .... 32 
 
 Activity in Ironmaking in Lancaster and Chester Counties, . . 32 
 
 Ironworks in York and Delaware Counties Early in this Century, 33 
 
 Beginning of the Iron Industry in the Lehigh Valley, ... 34 
 
 Forges in Luzerne County in the Last Century, .... 34 
 The Manufacture of Iron in Pennsylvania in the Last Century, 34-36 
 
 FIRST IRONWORKS IN THE JUNIATA VALLEY, 37 
 
 Bedford Furnace in Huntingdon County built in 1785, ... 37 
 
 Centre Furnace Hock Forge General Philip Benner, ... 37 
 
 Spring Creek Forge Logan and Tussey Furnaces Roland Curtin, 38 
 
 Barree Forge Huntingdon Furnace The Shoenberger Family, . 38 
 
 Tyrone Forges Juniata Forge Coleraine Forges Other Enterprises, 39 
 
 First Ironworks in Blair County, .39 
 
 John Canan John Eoyer Doctor Peter Shoenberger, ... 40 
 
 First Furnace and Forge in Bedford County, 40 
 
 The Hanover Ironworks in Fulton County, 41 
 
 Vicissitudes of the Pennsylvania Iron Industry, ..... 41 
 
 The Caledonia Steel Works William McDermett, ... 42 
 
 Governor David R. Porter a Pennsylvania Ironmaster, ... 43 
 
 Extent of the Iron Industry in the Juniata Valley, ... 44 
 Early Iron Enterprises in Juniata, Mifflin and Perry Counties, 44, 45 
 
 First Use of Gas from the Tunnel-head, 45 
 
 Henry S. Spang John Lyon Anthony Shorb, .... 46 
 
 EARLY IRONWORKS IN OTHER CENTRAL AND EASTERN COUNTIES, . 46 
 
 First Ironworks in Clearfield, Clinton, and Tioga Counties, . . 46 
 
 William P. Farrand Peter Karthaus Disastrous Enterprises, . . 46 
 Early Ironworks in Lycoming, Columbia, and adjoining Counties, 46, 47 
 
 Ironworks in Luzerne County the Scrantons Analomink Forge, 48 
 
 Early Iron Enterprises in Dauphin County, . . . . . 48 
 
 Simon Cameron a Pennsylvania Ironmaster, 49 
 
 Furnaces in Adams County Iron Enterprises in Schuylkill County, 49 
 
 FIRST IRONWORKS WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES, .... 49 
 
 Iron made in Fayette County by John Hayden in 1790, ... 49 
 
 The First Furnace Turnbull & Marmie John'Holkar the Oliphants, 50 
 
 Notice of John Hayden, by Hon. James Veech, .... 50 
 
 Union Furnace Mount Vernon Furnace Isaac Meason and others, 51 
 
 Mary Ann Furnace and Forge in Greene County, .... 53 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIMITIVE METHOD OF MANUFACTURING WROUGHT 
 
 IRON, * 53 
 
 THE FIRST KOLLING-MILLS WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES, . . 54 
 
 Christopher Cowan's Rolling-Mill at Pittsburgh, built in 1812, . 55 
 
 Isaac Meason's Plumsock Rolling-Mill, built in 1816, ... 55 
 
 The Lewis Family James Pratt David Adams, .... 55 
 
 WAS PLUMSOCK THE FIRST MILL TO ROLL BARS AND PUDDLE IRON? 56 
 Clemens Rentgen and his Patents Puddling Iron with Wood, 56, 57 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY AT PITTSBURGH IN 1792, . 58 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Biographical Sketch of George Anshutz, ...... 58 
 
 SECOND STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON INDUSTRY AT 
 
 PITTSBURGH, 59 
 
 Joseph McClurg Anthony Beelen Tuper & McKowan, ... 59 
 List of Kolling-Mills in Pittsburgh in 1826 Blast Furnaces, . 60, 61 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN OTHER WESTERN COUNTIES, 61 
 
 Westmoreland Furnace, built by John Probst about 1792, . . 61 
 
 General Arthur St. Glair's Hermitage Furnace, 61 
 
 Bishop Hopkins a Pennsylvania Ironmaster, ..... 62 
 
 Judge Baldwin Colonel Mathiot Alexander Johnston and others, . 63 
 
 Shade Furnace, the First Iron Enterprise in Somerset County, . 64 
 
 Thomas Vickroy Richard Geary Daniel Weyand and others, . 64 
 
 Forge at Johnstown, built by John Buckwalter in 1809, ... 65 
 
 Kobert Pierson's Nailery at Johnstown, 65 
 
 First Furnace in Cambria County built by George S. King and others, 65 
 
 Iron Enterprises in Indiana County, ...... 66 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN NORTHWESTERN PENNSYL- 
 VANIA, 66 
 
 Furnace and Forge at Beaver Falls, built in 1802, .... 66 
 Bassenheim Furnace Detmar Basse Miiller Homewood Furnace, . 67 
 First Ironworks in the Shenango Valley, ..... 68 
 Bear Creek Furnace, in Armstrong County, built in 1818, . . . 68 
 Activity in Ironmaking in the Allegheny Valley, .... 69 
 Decadence of the Manufacture of Charcoal Pig Iron in Western Penn- 
 sylvania Furnaces in Erie and Crawford Counties, .... 70 
 Natural Gas First Used in Ironmaking at Leechburg in 1874, . 70 
 
 FIRST USE OF BITUMINOUS COKE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF AMERICAN 
 
 PIG IRON, 71 
 
 William Firmstone F. H. Oliphant and others, . . . . 71 
 Henry C. Carey a Pennsylvania Ironmaster, . . . .71 
 
 FIRST USE OF ANTHRACITE COAL IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PIG IRON, 72 
 Geo. Crane Dr. F. W. Geissenheimer and other Anthracite Pioneers, 73, 74 
 
 List of First Furnaces to Use Anthracite Coal, .... 75 
 
 First Use of Anthracite for Generating Steam and for Puddling Iron, 76 
 
 FIRST USE OF KAW BITUMINOUS COAL IN THE MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 PIG IRON, , . . . 77 
 
 David Himrod Wilkinson, Wilkes & Co., 77 
 
 FIRST USE OF LAKE SUPERIOR IRON ORE IN THE BLAST FURNACE, 78 
 
 David and John P. Agnew Frank Allen, 78 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE MANUFACTURE OF CAST STEEL IN THE UNITED 
 
 STATES, 79 
 
 List of Early Steel Works in Pennsylvania, 79 
 
 Hussey, Wells & Co. Park, Brother & Co., and others, ... 80 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS INTO THE UNITED STATES, 81 
 William Kelly Henry Bessemer Robert F. Mushet and others, 81, 82 
 
 Particulars of the Introduction of the Bessemer Process, . . . 83 
 
 Daniel J. Morrell E. B. Ward William M. Lyon and others, . 83 
 
 First Bessemer Steel Rails in the United States Rolled at Chicago, 84 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF THE SIEMENS GAS FURNACE AND SIEMENS-MAR- 
 TIN PROCESS INTO THE UNITED STATES, 85 
 
 The Messrs. Siemens the Messrs. Martin, . . . . 85 
 
 Abram S. Hewitt Frederick J. Slade James Park, Jr., ... 86 
 
 John A. Griswold & Co. Anderson & Woods William F. Durfee, 87 
 
 THE WHITWELL HOT BLAST, 88 
 
 FIRST IRON RAILS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES, ... 88 
 
 The Mount Savage Rolling-Mill the First to Roll Heavy Rails, 89 
 
 First American T Rails Rolled by the Montour Rolling-Mill in 1845, 89 
 
 Description of the First Rails Imported into the United States, . . 90 
 
 First Thirty-foot Rail, Rolled by the Cambria Ironworks in 1855, . 91 
 
 IRON SHIPBUILDING IN THE UNITED STATES, 91 
 
 The Steamboat, Valley Forge, built of Iron at Pittsburgh in 1839, . 91 
 
 Captain Ericsson History of the Monitor, ...... 92 
 
 Shipbuilding on the Delaware The American Steamship Company, 93, 94 
 
 EXPORTS OF PENNSYLVANIA IRON BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, . 94 
 
 BRITISH MEASURES TO PREVENT THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND 
 
 STEEL IN THE UNITED STATES, ... .... 95 
 
 STATISTICS OF THE PRODUCTION OF IRON AND STEEL FROM 1805 TO 
 
 1876, 98 
 
 COMPARATIVE STATEMENT BY COUNTIES OF PENNSYLVANIA IRON- 
 WORKS IN 1850 AND 1876, 105 
 
 CONCLUSION, 105 
 
 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 FIRST MENTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF COAL IN THE UNITED STATES, 109 
 First Coal Discovered in the United States in 1679, . . . .109 
 Anthracite Coal Discovered in New England about 1760, . . 109 
 First Discovery of Coal west of the Mississippi in 1804, . . . 110 
 THE FIRST COAL MINES IN THE UNITED STATES OPENED IN VIR- 
 GINIA, . 110 
 
 DISCOVERY OF COAL IN MARYLAND, Ill 
 
 Statistics of Cumberland Coal, . * Ill 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT COAL SEAM AT PITTSBURGH, . .111 
 
 THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA COAL TRADE, .... 112 
 
 Statistics of Shipments of Western Pennsylvania Coal and Coke, . 113 
 BEGINNING OF THE BUSINESS OF MANUFACTURING CONNELLSVILLE 
 
 COKE, .113 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE BITUMINOUS COAL TRADE OF CLEARFIELD 
 
 COUNTY, 114 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL FIELDS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 115 
 FIRST USE OF ANTHRACITE COAL IN STOVES AND GRATES, . 121 
 COST OF DEVELOPING THE ANTHRACITE COAL FIELDS OF PENNSYL- 
 VANIA, 122 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION ABOUT COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVA- 
 NIA, 122 
 
 STATISTICS OF COAL MINING IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN PENN- 
 SYLVANIA, ... 123 
 
EAELY 
 
 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 THE object of the following sketch is to recoyd^ m^ch 
 order and without violence to geographical requirements, th& first 
 steps that were taken in Pennsylvania to ma.fce, iroi/j and io stjqw 
 the extent of the iron interest of the State at the close of fclit; 
 first century of our national existence. We shall endeavor, first, 
 to record the beginning of the iron industry in each of the iron- 
 producing sections of the State; second, to note in detail the intro- 
 duction of those radical changes in the business of iron and steel 
 making with which Pennsylvania has been prominently identified ; 
 and, third, to present such statistics of the past and present con- 
 dition of the iron industry of the State as seem to us to be worthy 
 of preservation. It has not been our purpose to preserve a list of 
 all the iron enterprises that have existed in the State, if that were 
 possible ; nor to boast of the metallurgical achievements of Penn- 
 sylvania ironmasters and their workmen; nor to seek the aid of 
 the geologist and the chemist in describing the iron ores of the 
 State and the conditions under which they are found. We leave 
 these features of the history of ironmaking in Pennsylvania to 
 other hands. The publication of this sketch is believed to be 
 amply justified by the revived interest in our national annals 
 which the Centennial itself has created, and by the great promi- 
 nence of Pennsylvania among the iron-manufacturing States of the 
 Union. In the development of the iron industry of the nation 
 Pennsylvania has been in many respects, as will hereafter appear, 
 the pioneer of all her sisters, while she has long been their honored 
 leader in contributing to the quantity and variety of American 
 iron products. 
 
 (9) 
 
10 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Beginning of the Iron Industry in the United States. In 1619 
 the London Company sent workmen to Virginia " to set up three 
 ironworks." The enterprise was at once undertaken on Falling 
 creek, a branch of the James river, and not far from Jamestown. 
 Here iron was undoubtedly made in 1620 and 1621, but on the 22d 
 of March, 1622, most of the workmen were cut off by the Indians 
 and the works were destroyed. No other attempt to make iron in 
 Virginia seems to have been made for about a hundred years. The 
 next attempt to make iron in the colonies was in the province of 
 Massachusetts Bay. A furnace was erected in 1643 on the western 
 bank of the Saugus river, at Lynn, by a company of which John 
 Winthrop, Jr., was the leading spirit. In 1651 a forge had been 
 added to the furnace. The first vessel cast in New England was a 
 small iron pot, cast by Joseph Jenks, Sr., at Lynn, probably in 1644. 
 Iup K?48 a -forge- was Established at Braintree by Winthrop's com- 
 pany," and- in lB5'2^one was established at Raynham by two brothers 
 tfa'tp<J'^Gfii#cd, at least 'one of whom had been employed at Lynn. 
 'Iri 16'o6 th'e fir'st ironworks in Connecticut seem to have been estab- 
 lished at New Haven by Captain Thomas Clarke. About 1734 a 
 forge was erected by Thomas Lamb at Lime Rock, in the Salisbury 
 district of Connecticut. In 1748 a forge was erected at Lakeville, 
 in the same district, and in 1762 the first blast furnace in the 
 State was built at this place by Ethan Allen of Ticonderoga fame, 
 John Haseltine, and Samuel Forbes. Rhode Island made iron 
 soon after its settlement in 1636. In 1675 a forge at Pawtucket, 
 erected by Joseph Jenks, Jr., was destroyed by the Indians, as were 
 also other ironworks and infant enterprises. Henry Leonard, one 
 of the first ironworkers at Lynn, removed to Shrewsbury, New 
 Jersey, soon after 1664, and there set up probably the first forge 
 in that province. It is stated that in 1682 "a smelting furnace 
 and forge were already set up " in New Jersey, and it is supposed 
 that they were built at Shrewsbury, and were then owned by Colo- 
 nel Morris. In 1685 Thomas Budd wrote that there was but one 
 ironwork in New Jersey, and that this was located in Monmouth 
 county. Shrewsbury is in this county. Pennsylvania first experi- 
 mented in making iron about 1692, but the industry was not estab- 
 lished until 1716. No iron enterprises were established in New 
 York until after 1734. It is probable that the first ironwork in 
 the State was erected about 1740 by Philip Livingston, on Ancram 
 creek, in Columbia county. The iron industry was revived in 
 Virginia about 1715, Colonel Alexander Spotswood building two 
 
BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN PENNSYLVANIA. 11 
 
 furnaces, one of which was a smelting furnace at Fredericks burg, 
 on the Rappahannock river, and the other was a very com- 
 plete air furnace at Massaponax, fifteen miles distant, on the same 
 river. In 1732 there were four furnaces on the Rappahannock, in 
 one of which, Principio furnace, Augustine Washington, the father 
 of George Washington, was largely interested, the ore used in it 
 being supplied by him from his plantation, two miles distant. His 
 mother's family, the Balls, were also interested in the same or in 
 a neighboring iron enterprise. Augustine Washington's plantation 
 was at Bridge's creek, in Stafford county, on the east side of the 
 Rappahannock. About the same year that the iron industry was 
 revived in Virginia the manufacture of iron was commenced in 
 Maryland. Principio forge, in Cecil county, was among the first 
 iron enterprises in the State, if it was not the very first. It was 
 owned by the same company that owned Principio furnace in Vir- 
 ginia, which State partly supplied it with pig iron. The Carolinas 
 also made iron about 1715. North Carolina is entitled to the 
 honor of having first given to Europeans the knowledge that iron 
 ore existed in the American colonies. The discovery was made by 
 the expedition fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585. 
 
 Beginning of the Iron Industry in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania 
 was one of the last of the colonies to begin the development of its 
 iron resources, but it was also one of the last of the colonies to 
 receive permanent settlers. The Swedes and Dutch, who were its 
 first settlers, holding almost entire possession of its territory down 
 to the granting of Penn's charter in 1681, probably made no iron 
 within its limits, although there is a tradition that the Swedes 
 made iron at Tinicum in Governor Printz's time, from 1643 to 1653. 
 William Penn sailed up the Delaware in the Welcome in 1682, 
 and in a letter written in 1683 he mentions "mineral of copper 
 and iron in divers places" as having been found in his province. 
 In other letters he expresses the wish that the iron and other 
 mineral resources of the province may be developed. In 1692 we 
 find the first mention of iron actually having been made in the 
 province. It is contained in a metrical composition which is 
 preserved in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
 the title of which is as follows : A Short Description of Pennsyl- 
 vania: "Or a Relation what things are Known, Enjoyed, and 
 like to be Discovered in the said Province. Issued as a token of 
 good will ... of England. By Richard Frame. Printed 
 
12 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 and sold by William Bradford in Philadelphia, 1692." Frame 
 describes in his epic the wild and tame beasts, and the fowl, 
 fish, cereals, fruits, berries, nuts, etc., which are found in the 
 province, and in regard to iron says that at "a certain place 
 . . . about some forty pound " had then been made. This iron 
 was probably made in a common smith's fire. 
 
 In 1698 An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province 
 and Country of Pennsylvania and of West New Jersey in America, 
 . . "by Gabriel Thomas, who resided there about Fifteen Years," 
 was published at London, in which mention is made of the mineral 
 productions of these colonies. Alluding to Pennsylvania, he says : 
 "There is also ironstone or ore, lately found, which far exceeds 
 that in England, being richer and less drossy. Some preparations 
 have been made to carry on an ironwork." From this statement 
 by Mr. Thomas we infer that the experiment alluded to by Mr. 
 Frame, which resulted in the production of forty pounds of iron as 
 early as 1692, did not lead at the time to the establishment of an 
 "ironwork." Nor can we learn that the "preparations" men- 
 tioned by Mr. Thomas led to any immediate practical results. In 
 1702 James Logan wrote to William Penn as follows: "I have 
 spoke to the chief of those concerned in the iron mines, but they 
 seem careless, never having had a meeting since thy departure; 
 their answer is that they have not yet found any considerable vein." 
 Bishop, in his History of American Manufactures, quotes Oldmixon 
 as mentioning in 1708 a deposit of iron ore called "iron hill" in 
 New Castle county, then in Pennsylvania, between the Brandywine 
 and Christiana ; and Mrs. James, in her Memorial of Thomas Potts, 
 Junior, says that on the 24th of September, 1717, Sir William 
 Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, "wrote to the Board of Trade 
 in London that he had found great plenty of iron ore in Pennsyl- 
 vania." 
 
 Two years before the death of Penn in 1718 the first ironworks 
 were established in Pennsylvania. The event is briefly described 
 in one of Jonathan Dickinson's letters, written in 1717, and quoted 
 by Mrs. James : " This last summer one Thomas Rutter, a smith, 
 who lives not far from Germantown, hath removed further up in 
 the country, and of his own strength hath set upon making iron. 
 Such it proves to be, as is highly set by by all the smiths here, who 
 say that the best of Sweed's iron doth not exceed it ; and we have 
 accounts of others that are going on with iron works." Rutter's 
 enterprise was a bloomary forge, called Pool forge, the exact loca- 
 
BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN PENNSYLVANIA. 13 
 
 tion of which is uncertain, but it was on Manatawny creek, and 
 probably about three miles above Pottstown. Mrs. James visited 
 the spot it is supposed to have occupied, "and could see some re- 
 mains of the dam, and an excavation in the bank where buildings 
 once stood." Another Pool forge is known to have existed farther 
 up the stream, probably built after the first one was abandoned. 
 Pool forge was attacked by the Indians in 1728, who were repulsed. 
 Bishop says : "A forge is mentioned in March, 1719-20, at Maua- 
 tawny, then in Philadelphia, but now in Berks or Montgomery 
 county. " This reference is undoubtedly to Pool forge. 
 
 In Day's Historical Collections mention is made by a historian of 
 Chester county of Samuel Nutt, who built a forge called Coventry, 
 in the northern part of Chester county, which "went into opera- 
 tion about the year 1720," and made "the first iron" manufactured 
 in Pennsylvania. Another historian of Chester county contributes 
 to Egle's History of Pennsylvania the information that Samuel Nutt 
 did not arrive in this country until 1714. " He took up land, on 
 French creek, in 1717, and about that time built a forge there. 
 A letter written by him in 1720 mentions an intention of erecting 
 another forge that fall." Mrs. James states that Nutt purchased 
 800 acres of land at Coventry in October, 1718. She claims that 
 Rutter removed in 1714 from Germantown "forty miles up the 
 Schuylkill, ... in order to work the iron mines of the Mana- 
 tawny region." In her Memorial she gives a verbatim copy of the 
 original patent of William Penn to Thomas Rutter for 300 acres 
 of land in Manatawny, dated February 12, 1714-15. Dickinson 
 says positively that Rutter made iron in 1716. Nutt probably 
 made iron at Coventry forge in 1718. Bishop refers to a letter 
 written by Dickinson in July, 1718, stating that "the expectations 
 from the ironworks forty miles up Schuylkill .are very great." 
 In April, 1719, Dickinson again wrote: "Our iron promises well. 
 What hath been sent over to England hath been greatly approved. 
 Our smiths work up all they make, and it is as good as the best 
 Swedish iron." Dickinson probably meant Nutt's forge as well 
 as Rutter's. The following obituary notice in the Pennsylvania 
 Gazette, published at Philadelphia, dated March 5 to March 13, 
 1729-30, ought to be conclusive proof of the priority of Thomas 
 Rutter's enterprise : " March 13. On Sunday night last died here 
 Thomas Rutter, Senior, of a short illness. He was the first that 
 erected an ironwork in Pennsylvania." Both Rutter and Nutt 
 were Englishmen, and were men of means and great enterprise. 
 
14 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 After they had removed up the Schuylkill, Nutt married Mrs. 
 Anna Savage, the widowed daughter of Thomas Rutter. Her first 
 husband, Samuel Savage, had accompanied her father when he 
 went up the Schuylkill to make iron. 
 
 Bishop says that " Sir William Keith had iron works in New 
 Castle county, Delaware, erected previous to 1730, and probably 
 during his administration from 1717 to 1726." This enterprise 
 consisted of a furnace and forge, which were located on Christiana 
 creek, and were built about 1725. At that time Delaware was 
 embraced within the limits of Penn's province, and it was here 
 that Keith had discovered the "great plenty of iron ore in Penn- 
 sylvania" of which he wrote to the London Board of Trade. 
 There is authority for the statement that the furnace was aban- 
 doned before 1730, and that another furnace was erected which 
 never went into blast. Iron was, however, made on the Christiana 
 in bloomaries for several years after 1730. 
 
 In Watson's Annals the statement is made that " the first built 
 furnace of Pennsylvania was that of Colebrooke Dale, (Berks Co.,) 
 built in 1720 by James Lewis and Anthony Morris, of Philadel- 
 phia." This statement is supported by the fact that Thomas 
 Potts, Jr., was a resident of Manatawny as early as 1720, where 
 he was acting in 1725 as the agent of his rich relative, Anthony 
 Morris, one of the alleged builders of the furnace. It is further 
 strengthened by the fact that Anthony Morris and Thomas Potts 
 were" in 1731 part owners of Colebrookdale furnace, and also part 
 owners when the furnace was torn down and rebuilt by a company 
 in 1734. It is corroborated as to the date by information com- 
 municated to us in a letter from Mrs. James, in which she says : 
 " I have a large calf-bound folio ledger of nearly 200 folios of Cole- 
 brookdale furnace, marked ' B.' The first date is August, 1728, 
 but there are several pages referring to the first ledger, one of them 
 in 1726. . . . Mention is constantly made ... of sending 
 'piggs' to Pool forge, proving that Pool was then in full blast. 
 . . . ' A' would seem to be a large volume from reference to the 
 folios," and therefore to have covered the operations of a number of 
 years. Mrs. James thinks that it is lost. If it could be found it 
 would doubtless show that Colebrookdale furnace was built in 1720, 
 or a year or two earlier. Mrs. James is of the opinion that Thomas 
 Rutter built the furnace, but she also writes to us that on the title- 
 page of ledger " B," above referred to, the name of Thomas Potts is 
 written in connection with the year 1728. This was before Thomas 
 
BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN PENNSYLVANIA. 15 
 
 Rutter's death on March 8, 1730. In his will, dated November 27, 
 1728, he does not give the name of any of his iron possessions. The 
 opinion is fairly warranted that Colebrookdale furnace was built by 
 a company, of which Thomas Rutter, Anthony Morris, James Lew- 
 is, and Thomas Potts were among the members, with Thomas Potts 
 as their agent Thomas Rutter being the principal owner. This 
 opinion derives plausibility from the following extracts from Thom- 
 as Rutter's will, on file in the office of the Register of Wills in 
 Philadelphia, and which we have examined. 
 
 " I give and bequeath unto my son Thomas Kutter one-third part of y e one 
 hundred acres of land leased to a furnace company, with y e one-third part of 
 y e said furnace, iron ore, or other appurtenances to y e said one hundred acres 
 of land. ... I give and bequeath unto my son Joseph Butter the one- 
 third part of the furnace, iron ore, and other its appurtenances, with the one- 
 third part of one hundred acres of land leased to y e furnace company, and 
 also two-thirds of my other land adjoining to y e furnace land; also two-third 
 parts of y e forge, and of y e hundred acres of land whereon y e forge stands." 
 
 The furnace here referred to was unquestionably Colebrookdale 
 furnace, and the forge was Pool forge. In the inventory filed with 
 the will, and dated "March ye 18th, 1729-30," appraisement is made 
 of "two-thirds of the furnace and iron ore and of one hundred 
 acres of land," etc., corresponding to the words of the will in its 
 reference to the furnace. The truth of history will not be violated 
 if we award ungrudgingly to Thomas Rutter the honor of having 
 erected the first blast furnace, as well as the first forge, in Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 Colebrookdale furnace was located in Berks county, on Iron- 
 stone creek, a branch of the Manatawny. It stood about eight 
 miles north of the mouth of the Manatawny, and three-fourths of 
 a mile west of the present town of Boyertown, and about two hun- 
 dred yards from the Colebrookdale Railroad. Plenty of cinder 
 marks the exact site. A large grist and saw mill stands about one 
 hundred feet distant. It would seem that friendly Indians were 
 employed at the furnace, as "Indian John" and "Margalitha" are 
 found in the list of workmen about 1728. In Nicholas Scull's 
 map of Pennsylvania, published in 1759, Colebrookdale furnace is 
 mentioned, and in a list of ironworks existing in Pennsylvania in 
 1789, and published by Mrs. James, it is again mentioned, although 
 we infer that it was not then active. We have not found the 
 furnace mentioned at any later period. A stove-plate cast at this 
 furnace in 1763, and so inscribed, was exhibited at the Philadelphia 
 
16 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Exhibition. In 1731 pig iron sold at Colebrookdale furnace "in 
 large quantities." The name of this furnace was sometimes written 
 Colebrook. It is an interesting coincidence that the first furnace in 
 England to cast pots, kettles, and other hollow ware by the use of 
 sand moulds was Abraham Darby's Colebrookdale furnace in Shrop- 
 shire, which he leased in 1709. It was a small charcoal furnace, 
 and had been in existence for a century. Darby converted it into a 
 coke furnace. He died in 1717. As he was a cotemporary pioneer 
 in the iron business, and a Friend or Quaker, as were most of the 
 pioneer ironmasters of Pennsylvania, it is easy to imagine that 
 Penn's colonists should have called their first furnace after Cole- 
 brookdale furnace in Shropshire. 
 
 After the death of Thomas Rutter, in 1730, Thomas Potts, Jr., 
 became the principal owner and manager of the ironworks on the 
 Manatawny, carrying them on with ability and success for many 
 years. He was the progenitor of many noted Pennsylvania iron- 
 masters of the same name in the last and present centuries. Sev- 
 eral of his sons intermarried with the heirs of Thomas Rutter and 
 Samuel Nutt. He died in January, 1752, aged seventy-two years. 
 In his will, dated 1747, he leaves his "two-thirds of Colebrook- 
 dale furnace and iron mines " to his son Thomas. Tradition says 
 that he was born in Wales. 
 
 Soon after Nutt had built his forge at Coventry it is believed 
 that he built a furnace on French creek, called " Redding." Mrs. 
 James places the date of its erection at about 1720. It is probable 
 that it was the second furnace in the State, Colebrookdale being 
 the first. Samuel Nutt died in 1737. 
 
 In Samuel Nutt's will, dated September 25, 1737, he bequeaths 
 to his wife one-half of his right to a furnace and forge, and to his 
 nephew and step-son-in-law, Samuel Nutt, Jr., and his wife the 
 remaining half of such right. The furnace referred to was un- 
 doubtedly Reading, and the forge was Coventry, in the ownership 
 of each of which William Branson was probably an equal partner. 
 
 Second Stage in the Development of the Iron Industry of Pennsyl- 
 vania. In 1728 there were four furnaces in blast in Pennsylvania, 
 one of which undoubtedly was Colebrookdale. Another was Dur- 
 ham, in Bucks county, where there was also a forge about the same 
 time. The others were probably Sir William Keith's, on Chris- 
 tiana creek, and Samuel Nutt's Redding furnace on French creek. 
 Durham furnace was built in 1727, but its first blast did not take 
 
SECOND STAGE IN THE IRON INDUSTRY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 17 
 
 place until the spring of 1728. It was built by a company of four- 
 teen persons, of which company James Logan, who was Penn's sec- 
 retary, was a member. In November, 1728, James Logan shipped 
 three tons of Durham pig iron to England. In the consolidated 
 exhibit of the ironworks of the Lehigh valley at the Philadelphia 
 Exhibition in 1876, the keystone of the Durham furnace, bearing 
 date 1727, was an interesting feature. In 1728-9 Pennsylvania 
 exported 274 tons of pig iron to the mother country. 
 
 There is reason to believe that as early as 1734 there were two 
 Durham furnaces. In Scull's map of Pennsylvania (1759) an old 
 and a new furnace and a forge at Durham are distinctly marked. 
 In 1770 there were two furnaces and two forges at Durham. There 
 were at one time three forges on Durham creek. The first furnace 
 was torn down in 1819, and Long's grist-mill was built on its site. 
 The father of the celebrated Daniel Morgan of the Kevolution was a 
 charcoal-burner at Durham ironworks. As late as 1780 there were 
 negro slaves employed at Durham, twelve of whom in that year 
 escaped to the British lines. Much of the iron made at Durham 
 was taken to Philadelphia in boats fashioned somewhat as an 
 Indian canoe, and first built at Durham ; hence the term, after- 
 wards in common use, " Durham boats." These boats were about 
 sixty feet long by eight feet wide. They were sometimes propelled 
 by sails, but most frequently with poles in the hands of men who 
 walked upon footways on each side of the boat. The Durham boat 
 closely resembled the more modern keel-boat. 
 
 Iron was made within the ancient limits of Lancaster county at 
 a very early day. Day says the first ironworks in the county are 
 supposed to have been built by a person named Kurtz, in 1726, 
 and that the enterprising family of Grubbs commenced operations 
 in 1728. We have traced the authority for this statement to 
 Hazard's Register, volume 8, where there is a fragmentary quota- 
 tion from the Lancaster Miscellany of information contributed by 
 Redmond Conyngham. From another source we learn that Kurtz 
 was an Amish Mennonite. He probably built a bloomary forge. 
 In Egle's History of Pennsylvania it is stated that Kurtz's works 
 were on Octorara creek, and that it is possible they were in Mary- 
 land, and not in Lancaster county. Of the Grubbs we shall speak 
 hereafter. McCall's forge, on Manatawny creek, afterwards Glas- 
 gow forge, was built about 1725 by Anthony Morris and George 
 McCall. Spring forge, at Spring Mill, owned by Anthony Morris, 
 was running in 1729, as was Pool forge. These forges were supplied 
 
18 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 with pig iron from Colebrookdale furnace. Green Lane forge, on 
 Perkiomen creek, twenty miles north of Norristown, was built in 
 1733 by Thomas Mayberry. The workmen employed here were at 
 one time chiefly negro slaves. This forge was supplied with pig 
 iron from Durham furnace before 1747. Rev. George Michael 
 Weiss is said to have owned it before 1763. Glasgow and Green 
 Lane forges were in operation down to the middle of the present 
 century. Redding furnace, on French creek, which was undoubt- 
 edly the second of the name, was built by Samuel Nutt and William 
 Branson in 1735-6; Warwick furnace, also on French creek, by 
 Samuel Nutt's widow, in 1737 ; Mount Pleasant furnace, on Perki- 
 omen creek, thirteen miles above Pottstow T n, by Thomas Potts, Jr., 
 in 1738 ; Cornwall furnace, in Lebanon county, by Peter Grubb, 
 in 1742; Elizabeth furnace, in Lancaster county, about 1750. 
 Mount Pleasant forge, built after the furnace, was in operation 
 as late as 1856. Elizabeth furnace continued in operation until 
 1856, about one hundred years, when it was abandoned by its 
 owner, Hon. G. Dawson Coleman, for want of wood. 
 
 The history of this old furnace has been shrouded in so much 
 obscurity and is withal so interesting that we are gratified in being 
 able to present a circumstantial account of it. We introduce this 
 account by reproducing the following narrative, written by Robert 
 Coleman, grandfather of Hon. G. Dawson Coleman, to whom we are 
 indebted for a copy of it from the family records. 
 
 Some time previous to the year 1755 Jacob Huber, who then owned the 
 tract of land upon which these works now stand, erected a small furnace there. 
 Like all other new undertakings of this kind, commenced and conducted with 
 but small experience of the business, Huber soon found it expedient to dispose 
 of his establishment. Accordingly he parted with all his estate in the furnace 
 tract, and such other lands as he had acquired, to a company composed of 
 Henry William Stiegel, Charles Stedman, and Alexander Stedman. The 
 Stedmans living at a distance, Stiegel became the active owner and manager 
 of the estate. He accordingly took possession in the year 1757, erected a new 
 furnace, and carried on the works for the space of about eighteen years, during 
 which period he acquired for the use of the company a considerable addition 
 to the furnace lands, and also made some purchases in his own right. In the 
 meantime Mr. Stiegel became embarrassed in his circumstances. He fell 
 largely in debt to Daniel Bennezet, of Philadelphia, for the security of which 
 debt he mortgaged all his undivided third part of the Elizabeth furnace estate 
 to Mr. Bennezet, and not having paid the money proceedings were had upon 
 the mortgage; a levari facias issued upon a judgment obtained thereupon, by 
 virtue of which a sale was made by John Ferree, Esq., high sheriff of Lan- 
 caster county, to Daniel Bennezet, the mortgagee, who received a deed for the 
 
SECOND STAGE IN THE IRON INDUSTRY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 19 
 
 mortgaged premises dated the 5th of May, 1775. Daniel Bennezet also be- 
 came the purchaser, at two other and subsequent sheriff's sales, of other lands 
 belonging to Mr. Stiegel. 
 
 In the year 1776, possessed of but a small capital, and recently married, I 
 took a lease for the Elizabeth furnace estate for the term of seven years, not 
 anticipating at that time that before the expiration of the lease I should have 
 it in my power to become owner in fee simple of the whole or a greater part 
 of the estate. Success, however, crowned my endeavors. A new and regular 
 system was adopted, by which the business of ironworks was made to resemble 
 more a well-conducted manufactory than the scenes of confusion and disorder 
 which had before that time prevailed in that business. During the continu- 
 ance of the lease I made several purchases of lands contiguous to the estate, 
 and in the year 1780 I purchased from John Dickinson, Esq., the one undivi- 
 ded third part of the Elizabeth furnace and lands thereunto belonging, he 
 having before that time become the owner of all the estate and interest which 
 Alexander Stedman held in the same. In the year 1784 I purchased out Mr. 
 Charles Stedman, who also held an undivided third part of the estate. The 
 remaining third part of the original estate was not purchased by me from 
 Daniel Bennezet until the year 1794, he either not being inc^ned to sell or 
 asking more than I thought it expedient to give. 
 
 On the furnace erected by Huber, whose first name was probably 
 John, and not Jacob, the following legend was inscribed : 
 
 Johan Huber, der erste Deutsche man 
 Der das Eisenwerk vollfiiren kann. 
 
 Freely translated, this inscription reads : " John Huber is the 
 first German who knows how to make iron." 
 
 Baron Henry William Stiegel, whose eccentricities are described 
 with perhaps too free a hand in Bishop's History of American Manu- 
 factures, was a native of Manheim in Germany, and according to the 
 most reliable accounts a gentleman of noble birth and great wealth. 
 Elizabeth furnace is said to have been so named by him in honor 
 of his wife. It is situated near Litiz, fourteen miles from Lancas- 
 ter. Day says that Stiegel founded the village of Manheim, near 
 Elizabeth furnace, in 1762, and erected glassworks as well as the 
 furnace. Bishop states that " some of the first stoves cast in this 
 country were made by Mr. Stiegel, relics of which still remain in 
 the old families of Lancaster and Lebanon counties." These and 
 other early stoves are thus described by the same author. 
 
 These were probably the same as the "Jamb stoves" made by Christopher 
 Sower, of Germantown, some of which were cast at or near Lancaster. They 
 
20 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 were, it is probable, the first stoves cast in America, and are described as sim- 
 ilar in construction to the box form of the old ten-plate stoves which super- 
 seded them, but they were without a pipe or oven. They were set in the side 
 or "jamb" of the kitchen fire-place, and passed through the wall so as to 
 present the back end in the adjoining room. This, though red hot, but im- 
 perfectly warmed the rooms, which, though small, were less impervious to cold 
 air than those of the present day. Dr. Franklin published, in 1744, with a 
 copper-plate illustration, an account of the open stove, or "newly invented 
 Pennsylvania Fire-place, etc.," which bears his name. They were afterward 
 improved by Count Kurnford, a native of New Hampshire, who also investi- 
 gated the subject of heating houses by steam conveyed in metal pipes, which, 
 about the middle of the last century, was proposed by William Cook, of Man- 
 chester. Our hardy ancestors, however, depended little on stoves, which were 
 not in general use in dwellings until near the present century, and still later 
 in churches. Cannon stoves were, in 1782, provided as an article of luxury 
 for Christ Church, Philadelphia. The air-tight stove is said to have been in- 
 vented by Isaac Orr, of New Hampshire, who died in 1844, at the age of fifty. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Henry Dubbs, of Lancaster, records the fact that 
 Stiegel's stoves bore the inscription : 
 
 Baron Stiegel ist der Mann 
 Der die Ofen machen kann. 
 
 That is, " Baron Stiegel is the man who knows how to make 
 stoves." 
 
 After Elizabeth furnace came into the possession of Robert Cole- 
 man he made shot and shell for the Continental army, and some of 
 the transactions which occurred between him and the Government in 
 settlement of his accounts for these supplies are very interesting. 
 Under date of October 26, 1780, the following entry is made by 
 Mr. Coleman to the credit of The United States: "By cash, re- 
 ceived of William Thorne, Pay-Master, 107,319,15-90 dolls., old 
 emission, exchange 73 for one, 551,5,11." In August, 1781, 
 another credit is entered of " 328 dolls., new emission, three for one," 
 which shows an appreciation of the currency. Two months later 
 exchange was at two and a half for one. On November 16, 1782, 
 appears the following entry : " By cash, being the value of 42 Ger- 
 man prisoners of war, at 30 each, 1260;" and on June 14, 1783, 
 the following : " By cash, being the value of 28 German prisoners 
 of war, at 30 each, 840." In a foot note to these credits Robert 
 Coleman certifies "on honour" that the above 70 prisoners were all 
 ever secured by him, one of whom being returned is to be deducted 
 when he produces the proper voucher. Rupp, in his history of Lan- 
 
SECOND STAGE IN THE IRON INDUSTRY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 21 
 
 caster county, mentions that in 1843 he visited one of the Hessian 
 mercenaries who was thus disposed of at the close of the war for 
 the sum of 80, for the term of three years, to Captain Jacob Zim- 
 merman of said county. 
 
 In 1743 William Branson, of Philadelphia, erected two forges on 
 Conestoga creek, near Churchtown, in Lancaster county, which he 
 called Windsor, and which were famous forges in their day. The 
 following circumstantial account of these noted forges and some of 
 their early owners is from a letter we have received from Mrs. 
 Martha J. Nevin, wife of the Rev. Dr. John W. Nevin, of Caer- 
 narvon Place, Lancaster. 
 
 In looking over an old family record I found the following : " In the year 
 1700 David Jenkins arrived in Philadelphia from Wales, and settled near the 
 Great Valley Church. His son John, anxious to become acquainted with the 
 resources of his adopted country, penetrated more deeply into the forest and 
 directed his course to the site on which the Windsor forges were afterwards 
 erected. Entered into contract with John, Thomas, and Richard Penn for the 
 purchase of four hundred acres of land, January 10th, 1733. Nine years after- 
 ward he sold it to William Branson, of Philadelphia, who in 1742 erected the 
 forges and mansion house." 
 
 Wishing to get a particular account, I wrote to James McCaa, Esq., who 
 was one of the executors of my father's estate, (the late Kobert Jenkins, ) and 
 who had possession of the old Windsor account-books, to look them over, and 
 give me the correct account. I received from him the following : " William 
 Branson & Company, then owners and proprietors of the old Reading furnace, 
 in the year 1742 bought all the interest and improvements that John Jenkins 
 had made on the Windsor tract of 400 acres. He perfected the title in the 
 name of William Branson and immediately began to build. The date on the 
 stone over the door of the lower forge is 1743. The date of the mansion I do 
 not exactly know, but have always understood it was built directly after the 
 completion of the forges. In a short time afterward Mr. Branson sold out to 
 the English company, who were Lynford Lardner, Samuel Flower, and Rich- 
 ard Hockley, Esqs., who held it for thirty years, when, in 1773, David Jenkins, 
 son of the original proprietor, bought the half interest of the company for the 
 sum of 2,500, and in two years afterwards bought the other half for the 
 sum of 2,400, including the negroes and stock used on the premises." 
 
 You may depend on this account being thoroughly accurate, as it is taken 
 directly from the old account-books. David Jenkins was my grandfather. 
 My father, Robert Jenkins, inherited Windsor from his father. I was born 
 there. 
 
 Robert Jenkins managed Windsor forges with great success for 
 fifty years, dying in 1848. He was a member of the Legislature 
 in 1804 and 1805, and from 1807 to 1811 was a member of Con- 
 gress. David Jenkins was a member of the Legislature in 1784. 
 
22 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Pool forge, about a mile down Conestoga creek from Windsor 
 forges, was built about 1760, probably by James Old. He at least 
 owned it about that time. Spring Grove forge, on the same stream, 
 about three miles west of Pool forge, was built in 1793. None of 
 these forges were abandoned until after 1856. Until 1813 a large 
 part of Lebanon county, which was formed in that year, was em- 
 braced within the limits of Lancaster county. 
 
 In Nicholas Scull's map of Pennsylvania (1759) two ironworks 
 are marked at Pottstown, at the mouth of the Manatawny, one on 
 each side of the stream, but their names and their owners' names 
 are not given. We learn, however, from another source, that one of 
 them was a forge named Pottsgrove, the original name of Pottstown, 
 which was laid out in 1752 by John Potts, son of Thomas. Above 
 Pottstown the following ironworks appear on Scull's map in the 
 order named : McCall's forge, Pool forge, and Pine forge, on the 
 Manatawny, and Colebrookdale furnace on the Ironstone branch. 
 The last three enterprises are located in Berks county, but McCall's 
 forge is in Montgomery county. Mayberry's forge and one or 
 two other ironworks east of the Schuylkill are also marked on 
 Scull's map. Pine forge was built before 1747 by Thomas Potts. 
 In 1768 it was owned by his son John. It probably supplanted 
 both the Pool forges. In 1845 it was converted into a rolling-mill, 
 run by water-power, which is still active. Crossing the Schuylkill 
 with Scull, we find Warwick furnace and Reading furnace on 
 French creek, and Windsor forge, in the order named the first 
 two in Chester county and the last in Lancaster county. Coventry 
 forge is not noted, but it was certainly in operation in 1756, as an 
 official statement made in 1757 shows, and in 1770 it is noted on 
 William Scull's map of Pennsylvania. It was in operation after 
 the Revolution, and in 1856 a forge of the same name, which is now 
 abandoned, was in operation at or near the original site. In Israel 
 Acrelius's History of New Sweden, written about 1756, mention is 
 made of a forge attached to Warwick furnace, and of another at- 
 tached to Reading furnace, one of which was beyond doubt Coventry. 
 The historian says : " Each has his own furnace Branz at Reading, 
 Nutt at Warwick. Each also has his own forges Branz in Wind- 
 sor. Nutt supplies four forges besides his own in Chester county." 
 
 The first steel works in Pennsylvania are said by Mrs. James 
 and others to have been erected on French creek, in Chester county, 
 prior to 1734, by Samuel Nutt, but William Branson was proba- 
 bly associated with him in this enterprise. Branson appears to 
 
SECOND STAGE IN THE IRON INDUSTRY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 23 
 
 have owned the works in 1737. Samuel Nutt, in his will, written 
 in that year, makes no mention of them. They were known as the 
 Vincent steel works. In 1756 they were owned by William Bran- 
 son, and are thus described by Acrelius, the Swedish historian : "At 
 French creek, or Branz's works, there is a steel furnace, built with 
 a draught-hole, and called an ' air oven.' In this, iron bars are set 
 at the distance of an inch apart. Between them are scattered horn, 
 coal-dust, ashes, etc. The iron bars are thus covered with blisters, 
 and this is called ' blister-steel.' It serves as the best steel to put 
 upon edge-tools. These steel works are now said to be out of 
 operation." 
 
 In 1750 there was a plating forge with a tilt-hammer in By- 
 berry township, in the northeastern part of Philadelphia county, 
 the only one in the province, owned by John Hall, and two steel 
 furnaces within the city limits, one of which (Paschal's) was 
 built in 1747, and stood on a lot at the northwest corner of Eighth 
 and Walnut streets : the other was owned by William Branson. 
 There appear to have been no other steel furnaces in operation in 
 the province in 1750. Hall is said to have established a bloomary 
 forge on White Clay creek, in New Castle county, about 1734. 
 He was a grandson of Thomas Rutter, and oldest son of Joseph 
 and Rebecca (Rutter) Hall. 
 
 At an early day there were two iron enterprises in that part of 
 Chester county which is now embraced in Delaware county. These 
 were, a forge on Crum creek, about two miles above the town of 
 Chester, built by John Crosby and Peter Dicks about 1742, and a 
 rolling and slitting mill on Chester creek, in Thornbury township, 
 where Glen Mills now stand, built in 1746 by John Taylor. The 
 forge on Crum creek w r as in operation as late as 1756, when Acre- 
 lius says it was owned by Peter Dicks, had two stacks, was worked 
 sluggishly, and had ''ruined Crosby's family." This last statement 
 is discredited by a local historian. In 1748 Peter Kalm, a Swedish 
 traveler, wrote that the ore for the Crum creek forge was obtained 
 thirty or forty miles away, where it was first melted in an oven and 
 then carried to the forge. The bellows at this forge were made 
 of leather. Taylor's enterprise was named Sarum ironworks, 
 and embraced a forge as well as a rolling and slitting mill. In 
 September, 1750, John Owen, sheriff of Chester county, certified 
 to the Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania that Sarum had been 
 in operation until June of that year. After this time the British 
 government had interdicted the further employment of rolling and 
 
24 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 slitting mills in the colonies. We can not learn whether Mr. Taylor 
 long obeyed this decree, but it is said that his works were carried on 
 with energy until his death in 1756. Acrelius, writing about the 
 time of Taylor's death, says : " Sarum belongs to Taylor's heirs ; has 
 three stacks, and is in full blast." Peter Kalm states that at Chi- 
 chester (Marcus Hook) "they build here every year a number of 
 small ships for sale, and from an ironwork which lies higher up 
 in the country they carry iron bars to this place and ship them." 
 This "ironwork" was probably Sarum. Taylor was the descen- 
 dant of an English settler in the province. His rolling and slit- 
 ting mill was the first in Pennsylvania. 
 
 Development of the Cornwall Ore Hills. Cornwall furnace, men- 
 tioned before as having been built by Peter Grubb in 1742, was 
 located within the limits of the since celebrated Cornwall ore 
 hills, in Lebanon county, and is now running. It is the oldest 
 furnace in the country that is still in operation. The Cornwall 
 ore hills, which literally comprise three mountains of almost pure 
 magnetic iron ore, were conveyed by John Penn, Thomas Penn, 
 and Richard Penn, proprietors-in-chief of the province of Penn- 
 sylvania, and counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex on the 
 Delaware, by their warrant dated London, May 8, 1732, to Joseph 
 Turner, of Philadelphia, for five hundred pounds, money of Penn- 
 sylvania. The grant embraced 300 acres. Turner assigned the 
 entire tract to William Allen, April 5, 1734, and on the 28th and 
 29th of November, 1737, Allen assigned the same to Peter Grubb, 
 to whom a patent was issued August 2, 1745. Peter Grubb died 
 intestate about 1754, and the estate descended to Curtis Grubb 
 and Peter Grubb, Curtis receiving two-thirds under the intestate 
 law of that day, and Peter one-third. Both sons were colonels 
 in the Revolution. June 28, 1783, Curtis conveyed a one-sixth in- 
 terest to Peter Grubb, Jr., his son. By articles of agreement, dated 
 September 26, 1785, Peter Grubb, Jr., grandson of the first-named 
 Peter Grubb, and son of Curtis Grubb, sold to Robert Coleman 
 his share of the Cornwall ore hills, Cornwall furnace, and ap- 
 purtenances, reserving the right for a sufficient quantity of ore for 
 one furnace, which right is held and exercised to-day by Fergu- 
 son, White & Co., the proprietors of Robesonia furnaces in Berks 
 county. The deed for the share sold to Robert Coleman, signed 
 by Peter Grubb, Jr., and Mary his wife, is dated May 9, 1786. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORNWALL ORE HILLS. 25 
 
 After that year Robert Coleman, through successive purchases from 
 the Grubbs, acquired four additional sixths of the property orig- 
 inally conveyed by the Penns to Joseph Turner. At his death 
 in 1825 his estate was devised to his four sons, and at the present 
 time, under various partitions that have since taken place, the 
 interest of Robert Coleman is vested in his grandsons, Robert and 
 G. Dawson Coleman, and in the heirs of his grandsons, William 
 and Robert W. Coleman, while one-sixth still continues as the 
 property of the descendants of Peter Grubb. Neither the Coleman 
 nor the Grubb family limited its operations in the last century to 
 the Cornwall "ore banks and mine hills," but each became the 
 owner of many other iron properties. Both families are now 
 prominently engaged in the manufacture of pig iron the heirs 
 of William and Robert W. Coleman owning five anthracite fur- 
 naces and the old Cornwall charcoal furnace, G. Dawson Cole- 
 man owning three furnaces, and the heirs of Peter Grubb owning, 
 in whole or in part, eight furnaces. 
 
 During the Revolution Cornwall furnace cast cannon and shell 
 and shot for the Continental Congress. Colebrook furnace, a near 
 neighbor of Cornwall furnace, is frequently said to have been built 
 in 1745. This statement is an error, traceable doubtless to a 
 confounding of this furnace with Colebrookdale furnace in Berks 
 county. Colebrook furnace was built by Robert Coleman in 1791. 
 
 John Grubb, the father of Peter Grubb, 1st, who built Cornwall 
 furnace, was a native of Cornwall, in England, whence he emigra- 
 ted to this country in 1692, landing at Grubb's Landing, on the 
 Delaware, near Wilmington. He was a member of the Provincial 
 Legislature of Pennsylvania from 1694 to 1698. He is buried in 
 the Swedes' graveyard, at Wilmington. Peter Grubb, his son, was 
 born at Grubb's Landing. We are unable to ascertain the exact 
 time when he embarked in the manufacture of iron in Lan- 
 caster county. Hazard intimates that he commenced operations 
 as early as 1728, but we can find no proof that he did. A tradition 
 in his family says that he built a furnace in 1735 about five-eighths 
 of a mile from the site of Cornwall furnace, and cinder is pointed 
 out to sustain the tradition. But this supposed furnace was un- 
 doubtedly a bloom ary, which may be regarded as Mr. Grubb's first 
 iron enterprise. The earliest record evidence of his connection with 
 ironmaking in Lancaster county is believed to be contained in 
 "ye leace" of Cornwall ore lands, in 1739, by Peter Grubb to 
 Samuel Grubb and Joseph Taylor. In this lease Peter Grubb is 
 
26 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 styled an " ironmaster," and it says that he " intends to build an 
 iron furnace" on land adjacent to that leased to Samuel Grubb 
 and Joseph Taylor. That furnace was undoubtedly Cornwall 
 furnace, built in 1742. Hope well forge was built about the same 
 time by Peter Grubb. On the same stream Speedwell forge was 
 subsequently built, probably by James Old, about 1760. These 
 forges were on Hammer creek, within the present limits of Lan- 
 caster county. Mount Hope furnace, built by Peter Grubb, Jr., 
 in 1785, and still active, is on the Big Chiquisalunga creek, in 
 Lancaster county, about ten miles south of Lebanon. In Acre- 
 lius's history, written about 1756, appears the following statement : 
 
 Cornwall, or Grubb' s ironworks, in Lancaster county. The mine is rich 
 and abundant, forty feet deep, commencing two feet under the earth's surface. 
 The ore is somewhat mixed with sulphur and copper. Peter Grubb was its 
 discoverer. Here there is a furnace which makes twenty-four tons of iron a 
 week, and keeps six forges regularly at work two of his own, two belonging x 
 to Germans in the neighborhood, and two in Maryland. The pig iron is car- 
 ried to the Susquehanna river, thence to Maryland, and finally to England. 
 The bar iron is sold mostly in the country and in the interior towns ; the 
 remainder in Philadelphia. It belongs to the heirs of the Grubb estate, but 
 is now rented to Gurrit & Co. 
 
 Martic forge, near the present village of Colemanville, Lancaster 
 county, built in 1755, was one of the two forges "belonging to 
 Germans in the neighborhood." From about 1825 to 1850 steel 
 was made here. 
 
 Robert Coleman was born near Castle Fin, in Donegal county, 
 and not far from the city of Londonderry, in Ireland, on the 4th of 
 November, 1748. In 1764, when 16 years old, he left Ireland for 
 America. Arriving in Philadelphia he presented letters of intro- 
 duction to Blair McLanahan and the Biddies, who recommended 
 him to Mr. Read, Prothonotary at Reading, Pa., in whose employ- 
 ment he remained two years as a clerk. He left Reading and en- 
 tered the service of Peter Grubb, 2d, as clerk at Hopewell forge. 
 Here he remained six months, and then left to accept a situation 
 at Quitapahilla forge, near Lebanon, the property of James Old. 
 Mr. Old, moving some time after from Speedwell forge to Reading 
 furnace on French creek, took Robert Coleman with him. While 
 at this furnace Mr. Coleman married Ann Old, the daughter of his 
 employer. The marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. Thomas 
 Barton, at the furnace, on Monday, October 4, 1773. Fourteen 
 children blessed this union. Soon after his marriage Mr. Coleman 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORNWALL ORE HILLS. 27 
 
 rented Salford forge, near Norristown, where he remained three 
 years. His grandson, G. Dawson Coleman, has in his possession a 
 document of rare interest, illustrative of Revolutionary experiences 
 at Salford forge. It is indorsed: "Robert Coleman's memorial, 
 presented August 26th, 1776, asking permission for his clerk and 
 three forgemen be exempted from marching with the army to 
 Amboy." It represented that the memorialist was an officer in 
 Colonel Potts's battalion, and was then on his^ march to Amboy; 
 that he had rented a forge for three years at a rental of " two hun- 
 dred a year," the lease of which would expire in three months ; 
 and that the " principal part " of his workmen were Associators, 
 who, if obliged to march with the militia, would cause him great 
 loss and entirely prevent him from working up his stock in hand. 
 The request of Mr. Coleman was granted the same day by the 
 Council of Safety, to whom it was addressed. While at this forge 
 Mr. Coleman manufactured chain bars, which were designed to 
 span the Delaware river for the defense of Philadelphia against 
 the approach of the enemy's fleet. From Salford forge Mr. Cole- 
 man removed in 1776 to Elizabeth furnace, which he first rented 
 and afterwards purchased. In 1809 he retired from active busi- 
 ness and removed to Lancaster, where he died August 14, 1825, 
 aged almost 77 years. His remains rest in the Episcopal burying- 
 ground. During his long life he held various positions of honor. 
 He served with credit as an officer in the Pennsylvania militia 
 during the Revolution ; was a member of the State Convention 
 which framed the Constitution of 1790; was for several years a 
 member of the State Legislature ; raised and commanded a troop 
 of cavalry during the whisky insurrection; was a Presidential 
 elector at-large in 1792, and a Presidential elector for his Con- 
 gressional district in 1796 ; and for nearly twenty years was an 
 associate judge for Lancaster county. For more than a quar- 
 ter of a century he was the most prominent ironmaster in the 
 State. Mrs. Coleman, who was born in 1756, survived her hus- 
 band many years, dying in 1844, aged 88 years. 
 
 We are unable to giye much information about James Old. 
 Like many other Pennsylvania ironmasters of his day, he was a 
 native of Wales. He was unquestionably a man of great enter- 
 prise and a most successful ironmaster. Mr. Old was a member 
 of the Legislature in 1791, 1792, and 1793. He married Margaret 
 Davies, daughter of Gabriel Davies, who bore him seven children, 
 sons and daughters, but it is probable that he has now no living 
 
28 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 descendants who bear his name. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, 
 written in 1781 and 1782, speaks of an iron mine in Albemarle 
 county, on the north side of the James river, which was owned 
 by a person named Old. Margaret Old, a daughter of James 
 Old, married Cyrus Jacobs, who was the owner or lessee for many 
 years of Pool and Spring Grove forges on Conestoga creek, and a 
 noted ironmaster in his day. The Jacobs family came to Penn- 
 sylvania about 1700, and settled on Perkiomen creek. 
 
 Valley Forge, in Chester county, has historic associations which 
 no American can ever forget. This forge seems to have been 
 erected some time prior to 1757 by Stephen Evans, whose execu- 
 tors sold it in that year to John Potts. There is a misty tradition, 
 however, that it was built at a much earlier day by a person named 
 Walker, an Englishman, who came over with William Penn. Its 
 original name was Mount Joy, which name is said to have been 
 given to the neighboring mountain by William Penn. This was 
 also the name of a manor owned by him on the Schuylkill. The 
 forge was located near the mouth of East Valley creek, on the 
 Chester side of the creek the creek forming a part of the boundary 
 between Chester and Montgomery counties. The forge was destroy- 
 ed by the British in 1777, just prior to Washington's occupation of 
 the vicinity for winter quarters. It was rebuilt after the Revolu- 
 tion, probably by David and Isaac Potts. The iron used at Valley 
 forge was made at Warwick furnace, which continued in opera- 
 tion during a part of almost every year from its erection in 1737 
 down to 1867, when its last blast came to an end and the furnace 
 was abandoned. 
 
 The foregoing information about Valley forge was obtained with 
 much difficulty and from various sources. Since writing the above, 
 however, we have received a yet more circumstantial account of this 
 historic forge, the particulars of which were kindly obtained for us, 
 after much personal investigation, by Joseph E. Thropp, Esq., of 
 West Conshohocken, Montgomery county. It is as follows : 
 
 Valley forge was built on the western side of Valley creek, in Chester 
 county. The original site was about five-eighths of a mile from the mouth 
 of the creek. It was owned and operated by members of the Potts family 
 from the spring of 1757 until its destruction by the British about two months 
 before the American army encamped there in 1777. From 1771 Col. William 
 Dewees, son of Sheriff William Dewees of Philadelphia, was associated with 
 the Potts' s, and in 1773 appears to have bought an interest. The iron used at 
 this forge was hauled by teams from Warwick furnace. After the close of the 
 
HISTORY OF VALLEY FORGE. 29 
 
 war another forge was erected about three-eighths of a mile farther down the 
 stream, on the Montgomery county side, on ground now covered by part of 
 the cotton and woolen factory, and a new dam was built, raising the water 
 partly over the site of the old Mount Joy forge. (This second forge was in 
 ruins in 1816.) About the same time a slitting-mill was erected on the Ches- 
 ter county side, most probably being constructed out of one of the buildings 
 used by the artisans for the army. The forge and slitting-mill were built by 
 Isaac Potts and his brother David. In 1786 they were operated under the 
 firm name of " Isaac Potts & Co.," the company consisting of David (Isaac's 
 brother) and his son James. The property subsequently passed through the 
 hands of Joseph Potts, Ralph Peacock, Rebecca Robbins, and Jacob Vogdes, 
 until in 1814 the latter, who had not operated the works, sold them to John 
 Rogers and Joshua Malin. Malin, who was a cousin of Rogers, was the 
 manager. He rebuilt the rolling and slitting mill, making it about 30 feet 
 wide by 80 feet long. There was a "tilt mill" in one end, and between the 
 main building and the dam a small foundry, the cupola of which was blown 
 by a water blast. He also commenced a three-story stone building on the 
 Montgomery county side, which is still standing, and constitutes part of the 
 present cotton factory. This was intended for the manufacture of hardware. 
 In 1816 Malin became involved, and John Rogers was by suit proven to be 
 his partner and compelled to pay his debts. April 1st of that year Rogers 
 bought Malin' s half interest in the property, and in the fall of the year 
 James Wood went there as a partner of John Rogers and manager of the 
 works. Isaac Smedley was also a member of the firm. Wood completed the 
 mill which was intended by Malin for a hardware factory, and made it into a 
 saw factory principally, though shovels, spades, files, etc., were also made. 
 He also operated the rolling-mill, making boiler plate and sheet and band 
 iron. Part of this was slit for the nail mill at Phoenixville, where as yet they 
 had no such facilities. (Lewis Wernwag operated the nail mill at Phoenix- 
 ville at the time.) Malin had made nails by hand in a frame building nearer 
 the road. The iron used by Wood in the rolling-mill was obtained from 
 Laurel forge, Coventry forge, and Springton forge. 
 
 About 1818 Rogers sent John Parkins and his son John, Jr., to Wood to see 
 if they could successfully make cast steel, to be used in their saws. These 
 men had during 1812 made an attempt to make cast steel in New York City, 
 but failed. A furnace was built in the back end of the rolling-mill, but did not 
 prove large enough ; then a large stack was erected between the rolling-mill 
 and the smith-shop, (part of the smith-shop is still standing and used as a 
 stable,) and six furnaces were built around it. Here cast steel of good quality 
 for use in saws was made. Sixty barrels of clay for crucibles were brought 
 from Perth Amboy. Early in 1821 Brooke Evans, of Sheffield, England, 
 went to Valley Forge, having leased the property from Rogers. He convert- 
 ed the saw factory and rolling-mill, then being vacated by James Wood, into 
 gun factories. He raised the roof of the rolling-mill and added two stories 
 to it. (He made at Valley Forge 20,000 muskets.) This building was subse- 
 quently destroyed by a freshet and no traces of it remain. The building on 
 the Montgomery county side, after being vacated as a gun factory, was enlarged 
 and converted into a cotton and woolen factory. 
 
30 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Continued Development of the Iron Industry of Eastern Pennsyl- 
 vania^ Berks county was a busy iron centre before the Revolu- 
 tion, as it is to-day. We have already mentioned its earliest iron 
 enterprises, and now add some others. David Jones, a Welshman, 
 settled on 1000 acres of land in Caernarvon township in 1735, 
 and soon afterwards became prominent as an ironmaster. He was 
 the ancestor of the Hon. J. Glancy Jones. Charming forge, near 
 Womelsdorf, was erected in 1749, and is still active. Hopewell fur- 
 nace, in the southeastern corner of Berks county, on French creek, 
 was built in 1759 by William Bird, an enterprising Englishman, 
 who is said to have built a forge at Birdsboro in 1740, and who 
 originated other iron enterprises. The furnace is still active. 
 He built Roxborough furnace, in Heidelberg township, some time 
 prior to his death, which occurred in 1763. The name of this fur- 
 nace was afterwards changed to Berkshire. He was succeeded by 
 his son, Mark Bird, who built a rolling and slitting mill and a 
 nail factory at Birdsboro about the time of the Revolution. He 
 also built Spring forge in Oley township, and Gibraltar forges, in 
 Robeson township. At Trenton, New Jersey, he manufactured wire. 
 He failed in business about 1788. The town of Birdsboro, in 
 Berks county, now the seat of the extensive ironworks of Messrs. 
 E. & G. Brooke, was named after William Bird. Oley furnace, 
 eleven miles northeast of Reading, was built about 1770, and is still 
 active. Oley forge, on Manatawny creek, was built in 1780, and 
 was in operation as late as 1856. These were Mr. Udree's enter- 
 prises. Green Tree forge was built in 1770. Reading furnace, in 
 Heidelberg township, Berks county, was erected in 1793, by George 
 Ege, and was in operation until about 1850. Other old furnaces 
 in this county include Joanna, built in 1792, rebuilt in 1847, and 
 still in the active list; Sally Ann, built in 1791 and in operation in 
 1856 ; and Mary Ann, built in 1797 and also in operation in 1856. 
 Other old forges were built as follows: the two Rockland forges, 
 six miles southeast of Kutztown, in 1788 and 1790, and the two 
 District forges, in Pike township, in 1797 and 1800. In 1798 there 
 were six furnaces and six forges in Berks county. In 1832 there 
 were eleven furnaces and twenty-one forges. 
 
 Maria forge, in Carbon county, was built in 1753, and a blast 
 furnace soon followed it. They stood on Poco creek, a short dis- 
 tance east of Weissport. The forge was abandoned in 1858, and 
 the furnace in 1861. 
 
 There was a bloomary forge in York county in 1756, owned by 
 
CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON INDUSTRY. 31 
 
 Peter Dicks, of Chester county. Spring forge, in the same county, 
 was built in 1770. Pine Grove furnace, in Cumberland county, 
 was built in the same year by Thornburg & Arthur, and about 
 1800 it was sold to Michael Ege, Sr. About the year 1770 a 
 furnace was built at Boiling Springs, in this county, forming the 
 nucleus of the Carlisle ironworks, which afterwards, about 1782, 
 included a forge, a rolling and slitting mill, and a steel furnace. 
 Michael Ege, Sr., was the proprietor. These works are still in 
 operation, C. W. & D. V. Ahl being the owners. Many other 
 furnaces and forges were built in Eastern Pennsylvania prior to 
 the Kevolution, and also some bloomaries. 
 
 After the Revolution, and even before its close, the business of 
 making iron in Pennsylvania received a fresh impulse and was 
 extended into the interior of the State. Bishop states that the 
 first furnace built in Franklin county was Mount Pleasant fur- 
 nace, in Path valley, erected soon after the peace of 1783 by 
 three brothers, William, Benjamin, and George Chambers. A 
 forge was erected as early as 1783. This forge and furnace were 
 four miles northwest of Loudon, and were destroyed in 1843. 
 Soundwell forge, sixteen miles north of Chambersburg, on Cono- 
 dogwinet creek, was built in 1790, and was active in 1855. 
 Carrick forge, four miles from Fannettsburg, in Franklin county, 
 was built in 1800, and was in operation in 1856. A furnace of 
 the same name was built in 1828, which is still active. Mont Alto 
 furnace, in the same county, was built in 1807, and is still active. 
 Two forges of the same name, which are yet in operation, were 
 built in 1809 and 1810 about four miles from the furnace. In 
 1832 Mont Alto rolling-mill was built. Loudon forge and furnace 
 were built about 1790 by Colonel James Chambers, and destroyed 
 about 1840. Valley forge, near Loudon, in Franklin county, 
 was built in 1804, and abandoned after 1856. Other old forges 
 in Franklin county* were abandoned before 1850. Liberty forge, 
 on Yellow Breeches creek, in Cumberland county, was built in 
 1790, and is still active. Other forges in Cumberland county 
 were built prior to 1800. Cumberland furnace, ten miles south- 
 west of Carlisle, on Yellow Breeches creek, was built in 1794. 
 Holly furnace, at Papertown, in the same county, is said to have 
 been built in 1795. A forge was in existence here in 1848. Both 
 of these furnaces were built by Michael Ege, Sr. They have 
 long been abandoned. A paper mill now occupies the site of 
 Holly furnace. Two furnaces, now abandoned, once stood near 
 
32 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Shippensburg in this county Mary Ann, built in 1826, and 
 Augusta, built in 1828. Southampton furnaces, Nos. 1 and 2, and 
 Mary furnace, all near Shippensburg, but in Franklin county, are 
 also abandoned. A large forge near Southampton furnaces was 
 torn down in 1849. Big Pond, built in 1836, at Newville, in Cum- 
 berland county, is still on the active list as a charcoal furnace. 
 
 Franklin and Cumberland counties were very busy iron centres 
 during the first half of the present century. We have mentioned 
 chiefly their early iron enterprises. One of their later enterprises 
 was Caledonia furnace, in Franklin county, ten miles east of Cham- 
 bersburg, which was built in 1837, and owned in 1863 by Hon. 
 Thaddeus Stevens, in which year it was burned by the Confederates, 
 under General Lee, when on the march to Gettysburg. Another 
 embraced Warren furnace and forge, in the southwestern corner of 
 Franklin county. William Bowers built the forge in 1830 and the 
 furnace in 1835. Both stopped running in 1856. In 1840 there 
 were 8 furnaces and 11 forges, bloomaries and rolling-mills in 
 Franklin county, and 6 furnaces and 5 forges and rolling-mills in 
 Cumberland county. 
 
 We are indebted to Hon. Frederick Watts, of Carlisle, for 
 the following information concerning the distribution of the iron 
 property of Michael Ege, Sr., who was for nearly fifty years a 
 prominent ironmaster of Cumberland county, owning, as we have 
 shown, Pine Grove furnace, the Carlisle ironworks, Holly furnace, 
 and Cumberland furnace. At his death, in 1815, his son, Peter 
 Ege, owned Pine Grove furnace ; another son, Michael Ege, Jr., 
 the Carlisle ironworks; another son, George Ege, Holly furnace, 
 and a daughter, Mrs. Eliza Wilson, Cumberland furnace. 
 
 Bishop says that in 1786 there were seventeen furnaces, forges, 
 and slitting-mills within thirty-nine miles of Lancaster. In the 
 next twenty-five years a large number of forges and furnaces were 
 built in Lancaster and Chester counties, and in both counties, 
 but particularly in Chester county, rolling-mills were established. 
 In 1790 Benjamin Longstreth erected a rolling and slitting mill 
 at Phcenixville, where the foundry now stands, to roll bars into 
 plates to be slit into nail rods. This was the beginning of the 
 present extensive works of the Phoenix Iron Company. Rokeby 
 rolling-mill, on Buck run, four miles south of Coatesville, was 
 built in 1795, and Brandywine rolling-mill, at Coatesville, was 
 built in 1810. The puddle-mill of the latter works, now called 
 Lukens, operated by water-power, occupies the site of the original 
 
CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON INDUSTRY. 33 
 
 mill, which was the first plate-mill built in the United States, as 
 we are informed by the present proprietors. Mary Ann forge, 
 two miles north of Downingtown, was built in 1785, and Spring- 
 ton forge, five miles north of Mary Ann forge, was built in 
 1790. Both of these forges are still active. Hibernia forge, on 
 West Brandywine creek, four miles north of Coatesville, was built 
 in 1793, and is still in operation in connection with a small rolling- 
 mill which was added in 1837. Sadsbury forges, on Octorara 
 creek, near Penningtonville, were built in 1800 and 1802, and one is 
 still in operation. Brooke forge, near Pequea, in Lancaster county, 
 was built in 1795, and Pine Grove forge, sixteen miles ^outh of 
 Penningtonville, on Octorara creek, in the same county, was built 
 about 1800. A small rolling-mill, which is now abandoned, was 
 added in 1844, on the Chester county side of the creek. Pleasant 
 Garden forge, on the Brandywine, five miles southeast of Oxford, 
 was built in 1806 and abandoned about 1848. A small rolling-mill 
 was built in 1845, which is also abandoned. 
 
 In 1838 there were in existence, within a radius of fifty-two 
 miles of Lancaster, 102 furnaces, forges, and rolling-mills. 
 
 At Columbia and Marietta in Lancaster county there were in 
 1876 eleven furnaces, the oldest of which, Sarah Ann, a charcoal 
 furnace, was not built until 1841. In 1845 it was changed to 
 anthracite. All the others use anthracite when running. 
 
 In 1805 there were two forges in York county. Castle Fin forge, 
 on Muddy creek, in York county, was built in 1811 by a person 
 named Withers, and rebuilt in 1827 by Thomas Bird Coleman, 
 who also erected a steel furnace in 1832 or 1833. Margaretta 
 furnace, on Cabin Branch creek, was erected in 1823, and a forge 
 called Woodstock was erected at the same place in 1828. Both 
 have been abandoned. Codorus furnace and forge, on a creek of 
 the same name, were built by Henry B. Grubb, and abandoned 
 before 1850. York furnace, at the mouth of Otter creek, was built 
 in 1830, and is still active. A short time prior to 1830 a furnace 
 called Susan Ann, or Manor, was built by William S. Cornwell 
 near the Brogue tavern in York county. A furnace at York 
 made all kinds of castings in 1832, when it was owned by Israel 
 Gardner. In 1843 there were two furnaces and four forges within 
 the county limits. In 1850 there were five furnaces and three 
 forges. Since 1850 the iron industry in the county has declined. 
 
 In 1805 there were seven forges and one slitting-mill in Delaware 
 county. Franklin rolling-mill, at Chester, in Delaware county, was 
 
34 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 built in 1808. In 1828 there were five rolling and slitting mills 
 in this county, and some manufactories of finished iron products. 
 \J The iron industry in the Lehigh valley was confined to a few 
 
 charcoal furnaces and forges and one rolling-mill until its first 
 anthracite furnace was built in 1840. There was a forge at Easton 
 before 1778, named Chelsea. In 1808 William Henry, of Nazareth, 
 built a forge in Northampton county, which was started in 1809, 
 making its first bar of iron on the 9th of March. In 1824 Matthew 
 S. Henry built a furnace which made its first ton of pig iron on 
 the 10th of May, 1825. Hampton furnace, near Sheimersville, in 
 Lehigh bounty, was built in 1809. In 1826 Stephen Balliet built 
 . a furnace in Lehigh county, near the Blue mountains, called 
 Lehigh. In 1832 there were in Lehigh county a furnace and forge 
 owned by Mr. Balliet, and a furnace and two forges owned by Mr. 
 Heinbaugh probably Hampton furnace. In Northampton county 
 there were in the same year one furnace and three forges in oper- 
 ation. In 1836 a rolling-mill and wire factory were built at South 
 Easton, in Northampton county, by Stewart & Co. Now, of all the 
 iron districts in the country, the Lehigh valley ranks second only 
 to Pittsburgh in the yearly value of its iron products, while it ranks 
 first in the list of pig iron districts. It has several large rolling- 
 mills and fifty anthracite furnaces. The Bethlehem Iron Company 
 owns six furnaces and one of the most complete iron and steel roll- 
 ing-mills in the world. 
 
 About the year 1778 a bloomary forge was built on Nanticoke 
 creek, near the lower end of Wyoming valley, in Luzerne county, 
 by John and Mason F. Alden. Another bloomary forge was 
 erected in 1789 on Lackawanna river, about two miles above its 
 mouth, by Dr. William Hooker Smith and James Sutton. Still 
 another bloomary forge was erected in 1799 or 1800, on Roaring 
 brook, at Scranton, then called Slocum's Hollow, by two brothers, 
 Ebenezer and Benjamin Slocum. The product of these bloomaries 
 was taken down the Susquehanna river in Durham boats. They all 
 continued in operation until about 1828. 
 
 About 1789 there were fourteen furnaces and thirty-four forges 
 in operation in Pennsylvania, according to a list published by Mrs. 
 James. In 1791 the number of furnaces had increased to sixteen, 
 and of forges to thirty-seven. 
 
 Most of the bar iron made in the last century in Pennsylvania 
 was hammered at the forges out of blooms made from pig iron. 
 But little was made from blooms produced in the bloomary fire di- 
 
CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON INDUSTRY. 35 
 
 rectly from the ore, as was the New England custom. The Penn- 
 sylvania furnaces were also employed in making castings, such as 
 stoves, pots, kettles, etc. The stove which Franklin invented was 
 first cast at Warwick furnace about 1742, by his friend, Kobert 
 Grace, who carried on the furnace in right of his wife, the widow 
 of Samuel Nutt, Jr. But the first bar iron made in the province, 
 by Thomas Rutter, Samuel Nutt, and others, was made in forges, 
 sometimes called bloomary forges, directly from the ore. During 
 the Revolution cannon and cannon-balls were cast at the Pennsyl- 
 vania furnaces for the Continental army. Sixty cannon were cast 
 at Warwick furnace alone in 1776. 
 
 The early Pennsylvania furnaces made from ten to twenty-five 
 tons of pig iron or castings in a week, the highest limit being 
 seldom attained. As all the furnaces were blown by water-power, 
 and as the water failed in the summer season, a fair yield by one 
 furnace in a year was 500 tons of iron. The size of the furnaces 
 seldom exceeded twenty-five feet in height and seven feet in width 
 at the bosh. The fuel used was exclusively charcoal, and the blast 
 was always cold. Only one tuyere was used. Leather bellows were 
 at first used, but wooden bellows, or tubs, were afterwards substi- 
 tuted. These tubs are still in use in connection with some of our 
 oldest furnaces. Warwick and Cornwall furnaces were each over 
 thirty feet high. These and some other furnaces each yielded in 
 the last century as much as 1,000 tons of iron annually. In 1731 
 pig iron sold at Colebrookdale furnace at about $15 a ton. Cast- 
 ings cost about twice as much as pig iron. The forges made 
 from sixty to one hundred and fifty tons of bar iron in a year, 
 which sold at from $75 to $100 a ton. 
 
 The bar iron and castings made in the Schuylkill valley during 
 the last century were taken down the river to Philadelphia in boats, 
 which were poled back to their starting points with great labor. 
 
 The following notice of the workmen employed in making iron 
 in Pennsylvania prior to the Revolution and of the prices of iron 
 is taken from Acrelius's History of New Sweden, written about 1756. 
 
 The workmen are partly English and partly Irish, with some few Germans, 
 though the work is carried on after the English method. The pig-iron is smelt- 
 ed into "geese," ("goesar,") and is cast from five to six feet long and a half 
 foot broad, for convenience of forging, which is in the Walloon style. The 
 pigs are first operated upon by the finers, (smelters). Then the chiffery, or 
 hammer-men, take it back again into their hands, and beat out the long bars. 
 The finers are paid 30s. a ton and the hammer-men 23s. Qd. per ton; that is. 
 
36 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 to say, both together, 2 13s. 9d. The laborers are generally composed partly 
 of negroes, (slaves,) partly of servants from Germany or Ireland bought for a 
 term of years. A good negro is bought for from 30 to 40 sterling, which 
 is equal to 1500 or 2000 of our dollars, koppar mynt. Their clothing may 
 amount to 75 dollars, koppar mynt, their food, 325 ditto very little, indeed, 
 for the year. The negroes are better treated in Pennsylvania than anywhere 
 else in America. A white servant costs 350 dollars, koppar mynt, and his 
 food is estimated at 325 dollars more, of the same coinage. For four months, 
 in summer, when the heat is most oppressive, all labor is suspended at the 
 furnaces and forges. Pig-iron is sold at the furnaces for from 3 6s. 8d. to 
 3 10s. per ton. Bar-iron at the forge brings 20 per ton, or 20s. per 100 
 pounds. It is sold dear, for six months' credit is given. Pig-iron is sold 
 in Philadelphia at 5 per ton; bar-iron, in large quantities, at from 14 to 
 16 per ton. It certainly seems remarkable that the price is diminished 
 after the long transportation to the city ; but in this people find their profit. 
 
 The iron-works of Pennsylvania lie mostly within forty miles of Philadel- 
 phia. The carriage for such a distance does not exceed twenty shillings ster- 
 ling per ton. As a set-off to this is reckoned the return-freight upon goods 
 serviceable for the storehouse of the works. 
 
 The following description of the methods employed in forging 
 iron by our English ancestors is taken from Bishop's History of 
 American Manufactures. These methods were substantially the 
 same as those in use in this country during the last century. 
 
 John Ray, F. R. S., has left on record a description of the process of forg- 
 ing iron as practiced in Sussex, England, in 1674. The forge had two ham- 
 mers, one called the finery, the other the chafery. At the former the metal 
 was brought into the state of blooms and anconies. The bloom was a four- 
 square mass, two feet long, prepared by beating a loop, or mass of metal 
 weighing about three-fourths cwt., with iron sledges upon an iron plate, and 
 afterwards with the forge-hammer worked by water. This was called shing- 
 ling the loop. After two or three more heats at the finery, the mass was 
 brought to an ancony, the middle of which was a square bar of the desired 
 size, and the two ends of rough square lumps. At the chafery the bar was 
 completed by reducing the ends to a uniform size with the middle portion. 
 Three loads of large wood-coal made a ton of iron at the finery, and one load 
 of small coals at the chafery. A man and boy at the finery would make two 
 tons of iron per week, and two men at the chafery would make five or six 
 tons a week. 
 
 John Houghton, F. R. S., (Husbandry and Trade Improved,} in 1697 says 
 both the finery and chafery were open hearths covered with heaps of coals, 
 blown by bellows in the same way as the furnaces, but not so large ; and the 
 sow and pigs received five heats in the two two at the finery and three at 
 the chafery. He calls the thick square first made a half bloom, and the bar 
 with the two knobs a bloom, the greater end being called the mocket head, 
 and the less the ancony end. At the fourth heat the mocket head was re- 
 duced, and at the fifth the ancony end, to ihe state of a bar. 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN THE JUNIATA VALLEY. 37 
 
 First Ironworks in the Juniata Valley. The first blast furnace in 
 the Juniata valley was Bedford furnace, built in 1785 on the site 
 of the present town of Orbisonia, in Huntingdon county, by the 
 Bedford Company, composed of Edward Ridgley, Thomas Crom- 
 well, and George Ashman. It made from eight to ten tons of pig 
 iron a week. Lytle, in his History of Huntingdon County, says it 
 was constructed mostly of wood, and was five feet wide at the bosh 
 and either fifteen or seventeen feet high. A forge was built on the 
 same creek, by the Bedford Company, a short distance from their 
 furnace, about 1785, which supplied the neighborhood with horse- 
 shoe iron, wagon tire, harrow teeth, etc. Large stoves and other 
 utensils were cast at Bedford furnace. The entire product of the 
 furnace was converted into castings and bar iron. At the Phila- 
 delphia Exhibition was a stove-plate cast at this furnace in 1792. 
 On the 10th of September, 1793, Thomas Cromwell, for the com- 
 pany, advertised in the Pittsburgh Gazette castings and bar iron for 
 sale at Bedford furnace. The first American bar iron ever taken 
 to Pittsburgh is said to have been made at Bedford forge. There 
 was then no wagon road to Pittsburgh. " In the forge the pig 
 iron of the furnace was hammered out into bars about six or eight 
 feet long, and these were bent into the shape of the letter U and 
 turned over the backs of horses and thus transported over the 
 Alleghenies to Pittsburgh." Bar iron and castings from Bedford 
 furnace and other ironworks in the Juniata valley were taken down 
 the Juniata river in arks, many of them descending to as low a 
 point as Middletown on the Susquehanna, whence the iron was 
 hauled to Philadelphia. Much of the iron of the Juniata valley 
 was also sent to Baltimore in arks down the Susquehanna river. 
 
 Centre furnace, located about nine miles southwest of Bellefonte, 
 in Centre county, was the second furnace erected in the Juniata 
 valley or near its boundaries. It was built in the summer of 1792 
 by Colonel John Patton and Colonel Samuel Miles, both Revolu- 
 tionary officers. The first forge in Centre county was Rock forge, 
 on Spring creek, six miles south of Bellefonte, built in 1793 by 
 General Philip Benner, who subsequently originated other iron 
 enterprises in the same county, and became an extensive shipper 
 of Juniata iron. He died in 1833, aged seventy years, long before 
 which time his Rock forge enterprise had expanded into a rolling 
 and slitting mill, nail factory, furnace, etc. The furnace was 
 built in 1816. Benner came from Chester county, where he had 
 made iron at Nutt's forge at Coventry after the Revolution. In 
 
38 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 1795 Daoiel Turner erected Spring Creek forge, and in 1796 Miles 
 Dunlap & Co. had Harmony forge on Spring creek in operation. 
 Logan furnace, near Bellefonte, was built in 1800 by John Dunlap. 
 Andrew Boggs and John Royer operated this furnace about 1805- 
 6-7, under a lease from John Dunlap, the firm-name being Boggs 
 <fe Royer. Tussey furnace, fourteen miles south of Bellefonte, was 
 built about 1805 by William Fatten. In 1807 Roland Curtin, a 
 native of Ireland, and father of Governor Andrew G. Curtin, 
 erected a forge on Bald Eagle creek, about four miles from Belle- 
 fonte, and in 1817 he built a furnace called Eagle. In 1831 a 
 small rolling-mill was added, for the manufacture of bar iron and 
 nails. About 1820 Hardman Phillips erected at Phillipsburg a 
 forge and screw factory the latter one of the first of its kind in 
 this country. Cold Stream forge was erected about the same time 
 by John Plumbe, Sr., in Rush township, Centre county. 
 
 Barree forge, between the villages of Spruce Creek and Peters- 
 burg, in Huntingdon county, and nine miles west of Huntingdon, 
 on the Little Juniata, was built about 1794 by Edward Barthol- 
 omew and Greenberry Dorsey, to convert the pig iron of Centre 
 furnace into bar iron. The pig iron was hauled in wagons about 
 thirty miles over rough roads. Huntingdon furnace, in. Franklin 
 township, was built in 1796, four miles from the mouth of Spruce 
 creek, on Warrior's Mark run, but the location selected was too 
 far up the stream to secure the requisite power, and after one or 
 two blasts a new stack was built a mile lower down. The furnace 
 was built for Mordecai Massey and Judge John Gloninger by 
 George Anshutz, who in 1808 became the owner of one-fourth of the 
 property. At the same time George Shoenberger purchased a one- 
 fourth interest. Prior to 1808 Martin Dubbs became part owner, 
 and for a time the furnace was carried on by John Gloninger & 
 Company, Dubbs being the " Co." Massey, who was a land specu- 
 lator, never seems to have been directly interested in the manage- 
 ment of the furnace after its erection, although continuing to own 
 an interest in it and the greater part of the lands upon which 
 it was erected down to 1808, when the sale to George Anshutz 
 and George Shoenberger took place and Massey retired absolutely. 
 For these details of ownership we are indebted to Milton S. Lytle, 
 Esq., of Huntingdon, who has taken the pains to examine the 
 official records. A forge called Massey was connected with Hunt- 
 ingdon furnace, and was probably built about 1800. It stood 
 on Spruce creek, about one mile and a half east of the furnace. 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN THE JUNIATA VALLEY. 39 
 
 The furnace has been cold since 1870. Tyrone forges, on the Little 
 Juniata, six miles west of Spruce Creek, were established by the 
 owners of Huntingdon furnace, the first of the forges in 1804. In 
 1832 Gordon stated that these forges, with a rolling and slitting 
 mill and nail factory attached, formed " a very extensive establish- 
 ment," owned by Messrs. Gloninger, Anshutz & Co. " The mill rolls 
 about 150 tons, 75 of which are cut into nails at the works, 50 tons 
 are slit into rods and sent to the West, and about 25 tons are sold 
 in the adjoining counties." 
 
 Juniata forge was built at Petersburg about 1804 by Samuel 
 Fahnestock and George Shoenberger, the latter succeeding to the 
 entire ownership in 1805. Coleraine forges, on Spruce creek, were 
 built in 1805 and 1809, by Samuel Marshall, an Irishman. There 
 have been many forges on Spruce creek, none of which are now 
 in operation. Union furnace, in Morris township, in Huntingdon 
 county, was built by Edward B. Dorsey and Caleb Evans in 1810 
 or 1811. Pennsylvania furnace, in the northern part of Hunt- 
 ingdon county, was built by John Lyon, Jacob Haldeman, and 
 William Wallace in 1813. It was for a long time managed by 
 John Anderson. The boundary line between Huntingdon and 
 Centre counties ran through this furnace. About 1818 Reuben 
 Trexler, of Berks county, built a bloomary called Mary Ann, in 
 Trough Creek valley, Huntingdon county, and about 1821 he 
 added a furnace with the same name, but afterwards changed to 
 Paradise. In 1832 John Savage, of Philadelphia, built a forge 
 near Paradise furnace, which Hon. Archibald McAllister informs 
 us was the first forge in this country " that used the big hammer 
 and iron helve on the English plan." 
 
 George Shoenberger, the father of Doctor Peter Shoenberger, 
 was born in Lancaster county, and during the closing years of the 
 last century settled on Shaver's creek, in Huntingdon county, as 
 did also his brother Peter. The town of Petersburg was laid out 
 in 1795 by Peter Shoenberger, the brother of George Shoenber- 
 ger. September 27, 1800, Peter sold to his brother George the 
 tract of land of which Petersburg formed a part, and about 1804 
 George built Juniata forge in connection with Samuel Fahnestock, 
 as we have already stated. Subsequently, as we have shown, he 
 became part owner of Huntingdon furnace. He died in 1814 
 or 1815. His only son, Doctor Peter Shoenberger, succeeded 
 him in the ownership of his iron enterprises. 
 
 Etna furnace and forge in Huntingdon county, now in Catharine 
 
40 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 township, Blair county, were built in 1805 by Canan, Stewart 
 & Moore. John Canan was an Irishman from Donegal, but a 
 citizen of Franklin county prior to his emigration to Huntingdon 
 county. The furnace was the first within the limits of the present 
 county of Blair. Cove forge, on the Frankstown branch of the 
 Juniata, in Blair county, two miles northeast of Williamsburg, 
 was built in 1810, by John Royer, who was born in Franklin 
 county in 1779, was a clerk at Chambers's ironworks in that 
 county, was subsequently engaged at Logan furnace, and in 1808 
 commenced to build Cove forge. After a checkered experience, 
 including an honorable record as a member of the lower branch of 
 the State Legislature, first from Huntingdon and afterwards from 
 Cambria county, he died at Johnstown in 1850. Allegheny fur- 
 nace was built in 1811, by Allison & Henderson, and was the 
 second furnace in Blair county. In 1835 it was purchased by 
 Elias Baker and Roland Diller, of Lancaster county. The next 
 furnace in Blair county was Springfield, built in 1815 by John 
 Royer and his brother Daniel. Springfield furnace and Cove 
 forge are now owned by John Royer, son of Daniel. The next fur- 
 nace in this county was Rebecca, built in 1817. The last was the 
 first furnace erected by Doctor Peter Shoenberger, who afterwards 
 became the most prominent ironmaster in the State. Other iron 
 enterprises of his in the Juniata valley were numerous and ex- 
 tensive, and their beginning followed closely upon the building 
 of Rebecca furnace. He also owned ironworks in Bedford, Cam- 
 bria, Indiana, Westmoreland, Lancaster, Mercer, Allegheny, and 
 perhaps some other counties of Pennsylvania, and at Wheeling 
 in West Virginia. The Doctor was born at Manheim, Lancaster 
 county, in 1781 ; died at Marietta, Lancaster county, June 18, 
 1854, aged seventy-three years; and was buried at Laurel Hill 
 cemetery, Philadelphia. His widow is still living at Germantown, 
 at the age of ninety years. He left a large number of children, 
 who continued most of his iron enterprises. 
 
 A furnace and forge were built at Hopewell, in Bedford county, 
 about the year 1800, by William Lane, of Lancaster county. On 
 Yellow creek, two miles from Hopewell, Mr. Lane built Lemnos 
 forge and slitting-mill in 1806. In 1841 Loy & Patterson built 
 Lemnos furnace, on Yellow creek, two miles west of Hopewell, to 
 use charcoal, the firm leasing the lands from Mr. Lane. They blew 
 the furnace for a few years, when the property was sold, Messrs. 
 Karns, Horton & Gates purchasing it. They afterwards sold to 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN THE JUNIATA VALLEY. 41 
 
 John and Thomas King. It has since changed hands several times, 
 and the furnace is now abandoned. Bedford forge, also on Yellow 
 creek, was built by Swope & King in 1812. Elizabeth furnace, 
 now Bloomfield, was built at Woodbfury, in Bedford county, in 
 1827, by King, Swope & Co., Doctor Shoenberger being the com- 
 pany, and owning one-half. In 1845 the furnace was removed to 
 Bloomfield, in Bedford county. In 1840 Bedford county, which 
 then embraced Fulton county and a part of Blair county, con- 
 tained nine furnaces and two forges. There are now no iron enter- 
 prises in Fulton county. There are three modern-built furnaces in 
 Bedford county one at Hopewell and two at Kiddlesburg. Han- 
 over furnace and forge, nine miles below M'Connellsburg, in 
 the Great Cove, in Fulton county, were built fifty years ago the 
 forge in 1822 by John Doyle, and the furnace in 1827 by John 
 Irvine. The "Hanover ironworks" were regarded in their day as 
 an extensive enterprise. They were abandoned, with many other 
 iron enterprises in the State, soon after the passage of the tariff of 
 1846. We are favored by James Pott, Esq., of M'Connellsburg, 
 with the following account of Hanover ironworks, which we publish 
 partly to illustrate the varying vicissitudes which the iron industry 
 of Pennsylvania has experienced in the past, and is even now ex- 
 periencing. No other business appears to be subject to so many 
 vicissitudes as the making of iron. 
 
 These works were located in Ayr township, known as the Great Cove, Bed- 
 ford (now Fulton) county, at a point nine miles southward of M'Connells- 
 burg. The works were commenced in 1822 by John Doyle, who had been 
 previously, and was then, I believe, engaged in the iron business at Mount 
 Pleasant (now Eichmond) ironworks, near Loudon, Franklin county, Pa. Mr. 
 Doyle built a forge only, which he operated but for a short time, and was suc- 
 ceeded by Thomas B. Dunn, who carried on the business until 1824, when the 
 property was sold to John Irvine. In 1827 Mr. Irvine built a furnace. Up 
 to this time the pig iron to supply the forge was obtained from Mount Pleas- 
 ant furnace. The iron business seems then to have been brisk, and in 1831 
 Mr. Irvine built another forge, and with the furnace and two forges he carried 
 on a lively business, manufacturing wrought iron and stoves and hollow ware, 
 employing, off and on, from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty hands. Mr. 
 Irvine operated the works with varying success until 1833, when he "suspend- 
 ed," and James E. Turner and Samuel Van Tries purchased the property and 
 operated it extensively until 1836, when Mr. Turner withdrew from the firm, 
 Mr. Van Tries becoming the sole proprietor, but soon after associating with 
 himself James B. Ross in the business. Under the new firm the works were 
 operated profitably and successfully for a while, but under the disastrous 
 effects of the "compromise tariff" of 1833 the iron business languished and 
 
42 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 the firm failed in 1842. The property then reverted to William Pott, an 
 ironmaster at Loudon, Franklin county, Pa., as it had done on each similar 
 preceding occasion, he being the mortgagee in the case. Mr. Pott then leased 
 the works to James E. Turner, (the former associate of Mr. Van Tries,) in 
 1843. Mr. Turner operated on a limited scale, using the forges only, making 
 blooms, mainly from the iron in the mass of accumulated forge cinders of the 
 preceding years. In September, 1843, the works were almost entirely de- 
 stroyed by the great freshet of that time, and Mr. Turner did little after that 
 in the iron business. 
 
 William Pott now sold his Hanover ironworks property to John Pott, 
 formerly owner and operator of the Greenwood ironworks at Pottsville, Pa., 
 and afterwards of Manheim ironworks, on the West Branch of the Schuylkill, 
 where the town of Cressona now stands. Encouraged by the revival of the 
 iron business by the stimulus given it by the protective tariff of 1842, Mr. Pott 
 took possession of these works in April, 1844, and at once set to work repairing 
 the damages of the freshet of 1843. He built a new furnace, which was put 
 into operation in the fall of 1844. The iron business was then remunerative, 
 and promised prosperity by reason of the vitality given it by the tariff of 1842. 
 The tariff of 1846 followed and worked disaster to the iron business of Penn- 
 sylvania, and in 1847 Mr. Pott made the last blast in Hanover furnace, aban- 
 doned the manufacture of iron, built a mill on the site of one of the forges, 
 and thenceforth devoted himself to agriculture and milling. This was the 
 end of Hanover ironworks, and nothing now remains to indicate its former 
 character except the stack of the furnace and the huge piles of slag and cin- 
 ders which bear evidence of the extent of the business during the period 
 between the years 1822 and 1847. Mr. Pott died in 1856, but the property 
 still remains in the hands of his family. The capacity of the respective fur- 
 naces was not large, being from fifteen to twenty tons of pig iron per week, 
 with cold blast and water-power. 
 
 Steel was made at Caledonia, near Bedford, for several years 
 before the beginning of this century. A circumstantial and very 
 interesting account of this enterprise is given in the following 
 extract from a letter addressed to James Park, Jr., of Pittsburgh, 
 by a distinguished citizen of Pennsylvania. The facts given in 
 this extract are now for the first time printed. 
 
 William McDermett, who was born near Glasgow, Scotland, emigrated to 
 this country at the close of the Kevolutionary war, say about 1783-84. He 
 married in England and brought his young wife with him. He possessed a 
 small capital. She was highly educated and accomplished. I have seen some 
 of the jewels, silver plate, and clothing which she brought with her. They 
 would indicate that her family were persons of some consideration. The 
 young couple landed at Philadelphia, and proceeded westward through Penn- 
 sylvania. He had, in Scotland, learned the art of making steel by some new 
 process, and believed the ores of Pennsylvania to be favorable to his project. 
 He went as far west as Bedford, attracted possibly by the name of the 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN THE JUNIATA VALLEY. 43 
 
 which was well known to his wife in England. Going a short distance nearly 
 south of that town, and about a mile beyond the present Bedford Springs, he 
 seems to have found the location he was in search of, and there commenced 
 his work, having given to it the name of "Caledonia," by which it is yet 
 known to the residents of Bedford. He erected a log dwelling-house, con- 
 structed an extensive dam, and put up his machinery in a humble way. In 
 a few years he began to manufacture steel very successfully. It was sent by 
 his teams to the neighboring counties, and articles of merchandise brought 
 back in return. Many of his children, with whom I have conversed, remem- 
 ber handling the small bars of steel, seeing the departure of the teams, and 
 greeting them on their return. This continued for eight or ten years. At 
 about the close of the last century, when the family lived very comfortably 
 and their means were increasing, Mr. McDermett indorsed for one or more of 
 his neighbors who were in trouble. His fate was the common result of such 
 benevolence. The sheriff soon sold the establishment. Much of the farming 
 land now occupied by the proprietors of the Springs belonged to Mr. McDer- 
 mett, and the patents from the Commonwealth are found in his name. No 
 other person seems to have understood the art which he had thus successfully 
 put into practice. The house in which he lived still stands. The apple 
 orchard which he planted continues to bear some fruit; but his machinery 
 and works were gradually carried away and converted to other uses. A large 
 part of the dam yet remains, but those who annually fish in it for trout know 
 little of the enterprising man who built it. He moved with his family into 
 the village of Bedford, and lived for a few years in the stone house which 
 stands on one of the corners of the public square. When General Washing- 
 ton passed through Pennsylvania he rested at Bedford, and was the guest of 
 Mr. McDermett and his family. Several of the children were in the habit of 
 repeating the pleasant things which the General said to them during his visit. 
 A few years later Mr. McDermett moved to Spruce creek, in Huntingdon 
 county, on which a considerable iron business had sprung up. Here he ended 
 his days. His wife survived him for many years, and her children experi- 
 enced all the benefits of the liberal education which her acquirements enabled 
 her to impart to them. While she resided on Spruce creek, a young lawyer 
 named David B. Porter came there to learn the business of making iron. He 
 had studied his profession in Lancaster and Harrisburg, but was prevented 
 from practicing it by successive hemorrhages of the lungs. He was soon 
 employed by the Dorseys as the manager of their works, and afterwards for 
 many years exerted a large influence as a State Senator of Pennsylvania and 
 as Governor of the Commonwealth. He married one of the daughters of Mr. 
 McDermett. In old age Governor Porter was, perhaps, as well informed in 
 regard to the progress of the iron business in Pennsylvania as any other 
 citizen of the State. He always regarded Mr. McDermett as the chief pioneer 
 in the manufacture of steel, and greatly regretted that he had not, in his life- 
 time, committed the process to the keeping of some other person. 
 
 To the above we are enabled to add some additional particulars 
 concerning both Mr. McDermett and his distinguished son-in-law. 
 
44 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 After Mr. McDermett's removal to Spruce creek, a forge and steel 
 works, called Claubaugh, were built on the creek by his nephew, 
 Thomas McDermett, at which steel was made by the process that 
 was used at Caledonia. We presume that blister and shear steel 
 were made by this process. These works passed into the hands of 
 Lloyd, Steel & Co. about the time of the death of William Mc- 
 Dermett in 1819 or 1820, by whom they were conducted for a few 
 years, when they were permanently abandoned. 
 
 David R. Porter was first employed for one year as a clerk 
 at Barree forge, and during the following year he was employed 
 as manager. He next entered into partnership with Edward B. 
 Patton in the building of Sligo forge, on Spruce creek, which 
 establishment passed out of their hands in 1819, in which year 
 Mr. Porter was elected to the lower branch of the Legislature 
 from Huntingdon county, from which event his successful politi- 
 cal career may be dated. In 1820 he married Josephine McDer- 
 mett, a lady of rare attainments. 
 
 Many other furnaces and forges and a few rolling-mills were 
 built in the upper part of Juniata valley after 1800. In 1832 
 there were in Huntingdon county, which then embraced Blair, eight 
 furnaces, ten forges, and one slitting and rolling mill in operation. 
 Each of the furnaces yielded from 1200 to 1600 tons of metal an- 
 nually. In the same year an incomplete list enumerated eight 
 furnaces and as many forges in Centre county. For many years 
 after the beginning of this century Huntingdon and Centre 
 counties constituted the principal iron-producing district in the 
 country, Pittsburgh and Eastern cities manufacturing the iron 
 which they supplied. This prominence in the production of iron 
 was maintained until after 1842, when the tariff of that year and 
 the discovery that iron could be made with anthracite and bitumi- 
 nous coal enabled other districts in the State and country to wrest 
 from these counties their iron sceptre. In 1850 there were in these 
 two counties and in Blair county (formed out of Huntingdon and 
 Bedford in 1846) and in Mifflin county forty-eight furnaces, forty- 
 two forges, and eight rolling-mills., nearly all of which were in 
 Huntingdon and Centre. These two counties have a long and most 
 honorable iron record. 
 
 There was a very early forge in Mifflin county, the site of which 
 is now in Juniata county. The following account of it is condensed 
 from a letter we have received from A. L. Guss, Esq., a native of 
 Juniata county. 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN THE JUNIATA VALLEY. 45 
 
 Between 1794 and 1800 a forge was built on Licking creek, about a mile 
 and a half west of Mifflintown, then in Mifflin but now in Juniata county, by 
 William Sterrett and Thomas Beale. Sterrett was the son of an Indian trader, 
 and was the first white male child born within the present limits of Juniata 
 county, being born in Bingham Fort. Beale was a son of William Beale who 
 settled at Tuscarora Academy in 1754, and who came from East Cain, Chester 
 county. The forge was in operation for about four years. Some of the pig 
 iron for this forge was brought from Lancaster county, but most of it came 
 from Centre county. The supply from the latter county was hauled across 
 Seven mountains and loaded on arks at Lewistown and floated down the 
 Juniata to the place now known as Patterson, opposite Mifflintown, and thence 
 hauled to the forge. One of these arks suffered shipwreck above the head of 
 "the island." Much of the pig iron with which it was loaded was recovered 
 by the farmers and used as andirons in their houses, and in lime-kilns to hold 
 up the wood. In 1806 the forge was destroyed by fire. Its remains may be 
 seen at this day. 
 
 Hope furnace, six miles from Lewistown, and Freedom forge, 
 three miles from the same place, were built in 1810, and were 
 probably the first iron enterprises within the present limits of Mifflin 
 county. General James Lewis was one of the proprietors of Hope 
 furnace. la 1832 there were three furnaces and one forge in Mif- 
 flin county, and in 1850 there were five furnaces and two forges. 
 
 The first iron enterprise in Perry county was probably a forge 
 on Cocalamus creek, built in 1807 or 1808 by General Lewis, and 
 operated by him in connection with Hope furnace. It was aban- 
 doned about 1817. It had two fires and two hammers, and was 
 called Mount Vernon. Juniata furnace, three miles from Newport, 
 was built in 1808 by David Watts, Esq., an eminent lawyer of 
 Carlisle. In 1832 it was owned by Capt. William Power. A forge 
 called Fio was built on Sherman's creek, about four miles from 
 Duncannon, in Perry county, in 1829, by Lindley & Speek. A 
 forge was built at Duncannon in 1829 by Stephen Duncan and 
 John D. Mahon. Duncannon rolling-mill was built in 1838 by 
 Fisher, Morgan & Co. Montebello furnace, at Duncannon, was 
 built in 1834; Perry furnace, four miles from Bloomfield, in 1840; 
 Oak Grove, four miles from Landisburg, by Dr. Adam Hayes 
 and his brother John, in 1830 ; and Caroline, at Bailysburg, in 
 1833. These furnaces were built to use charcoal, and all have 
 been abandoned. There are several new anthracite furnaces in 
 this county, but nearly every one of them is now idle. 
 
 Elizabeth furnace, near Antestown, in Blair county, is said to 
 have been the first in the country to use gas from the tunnel- 
 head for the production of steam. The furnace was built in 1832, 
 
46 i IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 and the gas was first used in 1836. The improvement was patented 
 in 1840, and as late as 1846 the owner of the furnace, Martin Bell, 
 charged other furnaces a royalty for the right to use the gas. 
 
 Among the names which have been prominent in the iron manu- 
 facture in the Juniata valley, special reference may be made, in 
 addition to Doctor Shoenberger and others who have been men- 
 tioned, to Henry S. Spang of Lancaster county, John Lyon of 
 Cumberland county, and Anthony Shorb of Lebanon county. 
 
 Early Ironworks in other Central and Eastern Counties. In 
 Clearfield, Clinton, and Tioga counties a few furnaces have been 
 built since 1811, when Washington furnace, on Fishing creek, at 
 Lamar, Clinton county, was built. It was in blast in 1875. But 
 nearly every other iron enterprise in these counties has proved to 
 be a financial failure. The furnace at Farrandsville, near the 
 mouth of Lick run, in Clinton county, which was built about 1834, 
 to use coke, sunk, in connection with a nail-mill, foundry, and 
 other enterprises, a large sum of money, said to be over half a 
 million dollars, contributed by Boston capitalists, William P. Far- 
 rand, of Philadelphia, being their agent. Mill Hall furnace, near 
 the mouth of Fishing creek, in this county, was built in 1831, by 
 George Bressler, in company with Messrs. Harvey, Wilson, and 
 Kinney, to use charcoal. In 1857 it was converted into an anthra- 
 cite furnace. Sugar Valley furnace, at Logansville, in Clinton 
 county, was built in 1834, and Washington forge, in the same 
 county, in 1837. Lamar furnace, at Salona, in the same county, 
 was built in 1831. Of the enterprises above named, Washington 
 furnace and forge are the only ones that have not been aban- 
 doned. In a sketch of Clearfield county, in Egle's History of 
 Pennsylvania, it is stated that "in 1814 Peter Karthaus, a native 
 of Hamburg, Germany, bi*t afterwards a resident merchant of Bal- 
 timore, established a furnace at the mouth of the Little Moshannon, 
 or Mosquito creek, in the lower end of the county." This furnace 
 was operated with partial success for several years. Between 1834 
 and 1837 it was converted into a coke furnace, but was soon after- 
 wards abandoned. The first furnace in Tioga county was built 
 at Blossburg to use charcoal, but in 1841 it was altered by J. G. 
 Boyd and another person to use coke. It soon chilled, however, 
 and was abandoned. 
 
 An early furnace in Ly coming county was built in 1820, four 
 miles from Jersey Shore, and named Pine Creek. In 1832 it 
 
EARLY IRONWORKS IN OTHER EASTERN COUNTIES. 47 
 
 was owned by Kirk, Kelton & Co. A forge was added at the 
 same place in 1831. Heshbon forge, furnace, and rolling-mill, 
 on Lycoming creek, five miles above its mouth, were built, re- 
 spectively, in 1828, 1838, and 1842. Hepburn forge, on the same 
 creek, twelve miles north of Williamsport, was built in 1830, 
 and Crescent rolling-mill, one mile lower down the stream, was 
 built in 1842. About 1835 Astonville furnace, near Ralston, was 
 built to use coke, but charcoal was soon substituted. At Ralston 
 a charcoal furnace, rolling-mill, nail factory, etc., were erected 
 by the Lycoming Valley Iron Company in 1837. In 1850 there 
 were three furnaces, three forges, and two rolling-mills in this 
 county. 
 
 Esther furnace, about three miles south of Catawissa, on East 
 Roaring creek, in Columbia county, was built in 1802 by Michael 
 Bitter & Son, who cast a great many stoves. In 1836 the furnace 
 was rebuilt by Trago & Thomas. Catawissa furnace, on. Furnace 
 run, near Mainville, in Columbia county, was built in 1815, and a 
 forge was built at the same place in 1824, on Catawissa creek. In 
 1832 there were two furnaces and two forges in Catawissa township. 
 In 1837 Briar Creek furnace, two miles from Berwick, in Columbia 
 county, was built. It has not been in blast since 1849. In 1845 
 Fincher & Thomas built Penn charcoal furnace, on Catawissa 
 creek, one mile east of Catawissa. All these furnaces have been 
 abandoned, but the forge at Mainville is still active. The Iron- 
 dale anthracite furnaces, two stacks, were built at Bloomsburg in 
 1844 and 1845. Bloom furnace, to use anthracite, was built on 
 the North Branch canal, near Bloomsburg, by William McKelvy, 
 William Neal, and Jacob Melick in 1853, and put in blast April 
 14, 1854. A charcoal furnace, called Liberty, was built at Moores- 
 burg, in Montour county, in 1838. The first furnace at Danville, 
 in Montour county, was built in 1838 to use charcoal, but was 
 altered to use anthracite the following year, when two other fur- 
 naces were built to use the new fuel, followed in 1840 by a fourth, 
 and soon after by others. Danville rolling-mill was built in 1845, 
 Montour in 1845, and Rough-and-Ready in 1847 all at Danville. 
 
 A furnace and forge were in operation in Shamokin township, 
 Northumberland county, as early as 1830, probably Paxinas. A 
 furnace was built at Shamokin in 1841 to use anthracite. It was 
 followed by Chulasky furnace in 1846, also anthracite. A fur- 
 nace and forge were built near Hartleytown, in Union county, 
 in 1827, and called Berlin. They were followed by Forest, near 
 
48 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Milton, in 1846, and Beaver, near Middleburg, in 1848 both char- 
 coal furnaces. Union furnace, to use anthracite, was built in 
 1854 at Winfield, Union county, by Beaver, Geddes, Marsh & Co. 
 
 Nescopeck forge, near Berwick, in Luzerne county, was built in 
 1824, and abandoned about 1854. Shickshinny charcoal furnace 
 was built in 1846. In 1811 Francis McShane established a 
 small cut-nail manufactory in Wilkesbarre, "and used anthracite 
 coal in smelting the iron." The first rolling-mill in this county 
 was Wyoming, at Wilkesbarre, built in 1842, and followed by 
 Lackawanna, at Scranton, in 1844. Wyoming was abandoned 
 about 1850. Luzerne is now one of the most prominent iron 
 counties in the State. It owes most of this prominence to the 
 courage, energy, and business sagacity of two brothers, George W. 
 and Selden T. Scranton, and their cousin, Joseph H. Scranton. One 
 of the five furnaces of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company 
 at Scranton, in the organization of which they were the leading 
 spirits, is the widest in the State 23 feet at the bosh, and another 
 was the highest in the State 80 feet, but now reduced to 70 feet. 
 
 A forge was built at Stroudsburg, in Monroe county, in 1829, 
 called Analomink. In 1843 Day styled it a "large forge." 
 
 There is some obscurity concerning the early iron enterprises of 
 Dauphin county, arising partly from its connection with Lancaster 
 county down to 1785 and with Lebanon county down to 1813, ren- 
 dering it difficult to separate the enterprises of Dauphin county 
 from those of the other counties. Iron was doubtless made within 
 its limits as early as 1800, and probably by members of the Grubb 
 family. Henry Fulton established a "nailery" in Dauphin county 
 in 1785, probably at Harrisburg. It is said to have been " only a 
 little remote from a smithy." Lesley describes Mount Vernon fur- 
 nace, built in 1800, and a forge of the same name, on the Conewago 
 river, " on the borders of Dauphin county." In 1805 there were 
 two furnaces and two forges in the county. Oakdale forge, at 
 Elizabethville, appears to have been built in 1830. Victoria fur- 
 nace, on Clark's creek, was built in 1830. Gordon, in his Gazet- 
 teer of Pennsylvania, says there were three forges and two furnaces 
 in the county in 1832. Emeline furnace, at Dauphin, was built 
 about 1835. The first furnace at Middletown in this county was 
 built in 1833, and a second furnace was built in 1849, both cold- 
 blast charcoal. Manada furnace, at West Hanover, was built in 
 1837 by E. B. & C. B. Grubb. The first rolling-mill in the county 
 was the old Harrisburg mill, at Harrisburg, built in 1836. Fair- 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 49 
 
 view rolling-mill, on the Cumberland side of the Susquehanna, 
 two miles above Harrisburg, was built in 1831. The first anthra- 
 cite furnace in the county was built at Harrisburg in 1845 by 
 Governor David R. Porter. Hon. Simon Cameron has been promi- 
 nently identified with the iron interest of this county. The Penn- 
 sylvania steel works, the first Bessemer steel enterprise in the State, 
 are in this county. They went into operation in 1867. 
 
 Chestnut Grove furnace, at Whitestown, in Adams county, was 
 built in 1830. About 1830 there was a furnace in this county 
 named Maria, owned by Stevens & Paxton (Thaddeus Stevens). 
 
 Schuylkill county has had several forges, mainly at or near Port 
 Clinton, the first of which at that place appears to have been built 
 in 1801. In 1800 Messrs. Reese & Thomas made preparations 
 toward building a furnace and forge where Pottsville now stands. 
 Prior to 1804 a small charcoal furnace was built by them at this 
 place. In 1807 Greenwood furnace and forge were erected at 
 Pottsville by John Pott, the founder of the town, which was laid 
 out in 1816. In 1832 Gordon gave the ironworks then in opera- 
 tion in Schuylkill county as follows : Greenwood furnace and forge, 
 and Schuylkill, Brunswick, Pine Grove, Mahanoy, and Swatara 
 forges. A furnace called Swatara, six miles from Pine Grove, was 
 built in 1830, which was followed by Stanhope furnace, still nearer 
 to Pine Grove, in 1835. Other iron enterprises have since been 
 established in this county. 
 
 First Ironworks West of the Alleghenies. The first iron manu- 
 factured west of the Allegheny mountains was made in Fayette 
 county, Pennsylvania. F. H. Oliphant, of Uniontown, awards to 
 John Hayden, of Fayette county, the honor of having made " the 
 first iron in a smith's fire" as early as 1790. Taking a sample 
 on horseback to Philadelphia, he enlisted John Nicholson of that 
 city in a scheme for building Fairfield furnace, seven miles south 
 of Uniontown, on George's creek, and the two "then went on to 
 build the furnace." Mr. Oliphant thinks this was the first fur- 
 nace, the date of the erection of which he fixes at " about 1790," 
 but Bishop says that the first furnace "was built by Turnbull & 
 Marmie, of Philadelphia, on Jacob's creek, between Fayette and 
 Westmoreland counties, fifteen miles above its entrance into the 
 Youghiogheny river. It was first blown in November 1, 1790, 
 and produced a superior quality of metal both for castings and 
 bar iron, some of it having been tried the same day in a forge 
 
50 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 which the proprietors had erected at the place." The date given 
 here is correct, but the location given to the furnace is erroneous. 
 Craig, in his History of Pittsburgh, (1851,) gives currency to the 
 error in locating this furnace. It was built two and a half miles 
 above the mouth of Jacob's creek, on the Fayette bank, and called 
 the Alliance iron works. The stack is still standing, but in ruins. 
 The furnace was successfully operated for many years. John 
 Holkar, the French naval agent at Philadelphia, was a silent 
 partner with Turnbull & Marmie. The firm was dissolved August 
 22, 1793, Peter Marmie taking the works on Jacob's creek, and 
 William Turnbull retiring. Craig gives an extract from a letter 
 by Major Craig, Deputy Q. M. General and Military Storekeeper 
 at Fort Pitt, to General Knox, dated January 12, 1792, as follows: 
 "As there is no six-pound shot here, I have taken the liberty to 
 engage four hundred at Turnbull & Marmie's furnace, which is now 
 in blast." 
 
 Mr. Oliphant says : " I find by my father's books that he and 
 his brother Andrew (John and Andrew Oliphant) bought a half 
 interest in Fairfield in 1795, the parties carrying it on six months 
 alternately for a few years. It then fell into the hands of J. & A. 
 Oliphant." This proves that the furnace was built before 1795. 
 Hon. James Veech says that it was built in 1792. 
 
 On the 29th of March, 1871, Mr. Veech published in the Pitts- 
 burgh Commercial a communication concerning early ironmaking 
 in Fayette county, from which we quote the following notice of 
 the pioneer, John Hayden : 
 
 In the spring of 1789, John Hayden, who had lived in the red-ore iron 
 region of New Jersey, hauled over the mountains, from Hagerstown to 
 Brownsville, Fayette county, a four-horse wagon load of goods for Jacob 
 Bowman, who had come from the former to the latter place in 1787, at which 
 he was a prominent merchant and citizen for half a century. Hayden was 
 nearly a month in making the trip hauling 2,100 pounds at $3 per hundred. 
 Pleased with the beautiful valley at the western base of the Laurel Hill 
 Mountain the last of the chain south of the Youghiogheny, and tired of 
 teaming, he resolved to settle in " the West," and at once removed to near 
 Uniontown. He soon bought out a settler near to where is now " Fairchance 
 Oliphant's) ironworks," and fixed his abode upon it in the spring of 1790. 
 On the land was a log dwelling, not yet chunked and daubed ; and as winter 
 approached, Hayden betook himself to stopping the interstices. For this he 
 must needs have mortar, which, he thought, could not be well made without 
 lime or calcined oyster or clam shells. As the latter could not be had, he looked 
 around for limestone. In gathering what he supposed were limestones from 
 the bed of a stream, he gathered unwittingly " blue lump" iron ore, so 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 51 
 
 unlike the Jersey ores that he never suspected the cheat. He made up a pile 
 of it to burn, with wood, and, after supposing it well burnt, plunged lump after 
 lump of it into water and found it wouldn't slick, and that it was as heavy as 
 when he took it from the run. Coming to the conjecture that it was some 
 new form or color of iron ore, he resolved to test it. The expedient was 
 an improvised furnace upon a blacksmith's hearth ; but none of the smiths 
 in the neighborhood would entertain the experiment. Having a Jersey 
 acquaintance, a smith, in the vicinity of Connellsville, he had resort to him. 
 He had faith enough in the blue lumps to allow the experiment on his 
 hearth. After long and repeated efforts at heating and hammering, the 
 result was a piece of iron, as Hayden used to say, " about as big as a harrow- 
 tooth." Elated with his discovery, Hayden put his "harrow-tooth" and 
 some of the ore in his saddle-bags and rode off to New Jersey, to enlist some 
 of his iron acquaintances in the project of building a furnace and forge in 
 Fayette. None of them would join him in the enterprise. He came back to 
 Philadelphia, where, after his discovery became known, he succeeded in 
 securing the favor of the celebrated John Nicholson, then State Comptroller, 
 and in the zenith of his fame and speculations, which were ultimately so 
 disastrous to himself and the finances of the Commonwealth. Nicholson 
 soon after joined him, and thereupon "took up" large tracts of land in and 
 near the base of Laurel Hill, embracing the territory of Hayden's "blue 
 lump" discoveries. Hayden, about 1792, with the aid of Nicholson, built 
 a little furnace called Fairfield, near to where is now Fairchance ; but his 
 patron went down and John Hayden followed ; and in a few years the father 
 of F. H. Oliphant succeeded to his furnace and possessions. It may be set 
 down as certain that John Hayden, in 1790, made the first iron west of the 
 mountains. But his furnace was not in operation until after others, profiting 
 by his discovery, had built furnaces and begun the manufacture of castings. 
 
 Union furnace, now Dunbar furnace, was built by Colonel Isaac 
 Meason, on Dunbar creek, four miles south of Connellsville, in 1791. 
 The tradition is preserved that Union furnace was put in blast in 
 March, 1791. We have already stated that Turnbull & Marmie's 
 furnace was put in blast in November, 1790. Union furnace 
 was succeeded in 1793 by another and a larger furnace of the same 
 name, built near the same site by Colonel Meason and Moses Dil- 
 lon. Another early furnace was Fairchance, six miles south of 
 Uniontown, on George's creek, built by John Hayden, William 
 Squire, and Thomas Wynn in 1794. J. & A. Oliphant bought 
 it in a dilapidated condition about 1805. It was rebuilt two or 
 three times, and kept in operation until 1873. A forge was built 
 near the furnace about 1794. Another of Colonel Meason's enter- 
 prises was Mount Vernon furnace, on Mountz's creek, eight miles 
 east of its mouth, built before July, 1800, as appears from an 
 old advertisement. In 1801 it was rebuilt, as appears from an 
 
52 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 inscription which is yet preserved. The stack was built of large 
 blocks of sandstone, and is still standing. It is thirty-three feet 
 high and eight feet wide at the bosh. The furnace was last operated 
 in 1824. Laurel furnace, on Laurel run, near Union furnace, was 
 built by Mockbee & Wurts before 1800, and subsequently rebuilt by 
 James Paull on another site. The firm named also built Hampton 
 forge, to work up the pig metal of Laurel furnace. In May, 1800, 
 John Ferrel, manager, advertised for sale castings, "neat, light, 
 and tough," at $100 a ton ; also bar iron. He expected soon to 
 have "some rolled iron, nail rods, and cut nails," the latter at 
 eight cents a pound. Redstone furnace, three miles east of Union- 
 town, was built in 1800. Joseph Huston was one of its first 
 owners, and was followed by his nephew, Judge John Huston, and 
 afterwards by John Snyder. A forge on the head waters of 
 George's creek was owned by Thomas Lewis and Philip Jenkins 
 in 1800, when it was advertised for sale by the sheriff Spring 
 Hill furnace was built in 1805 by Robert Jones, and afterwards 
 fell into the hands of Jesse Evans. Mary Ann furnace, nine miles 
 from Uniontown, was built by Richard Lewis in 1800, and in 1818 
 was bought by the present owner, Joseph Victor, who lived on the 
 premises in 1877, at the age of about 90 years. He rebuilt or re- 
 paired the furnace, and changed its name to Fairview. 
 
 Other furnaces were built in Fayette county early in the present 
 century, among them the following : Pine Grove, eleven miles from 
 Uniontown, built about 1805, and owned in 1857 by Basil Brown- 
 field ; Mount Etna, one and a half miles above Connellsville ; Cen- 
 tre, nine miles from Uniontown, on Dunbar creek ; Fayette, twelve 
 miles from Connellsville ; Little Falls, twelve miles from Union- 
 town, by Nathaniel Gibson ; St. John's, built by James Paull, 
 eight miles from Connellsville. There was a forge at Little Falls 
 as early as 1809. Breakneck or Findley furnace was built about 
 1826, four miles northeast of Connellsville. In 1805 there were 
 five furnaces and six forges in Fayette county. In 1811 there 
 were ten blast furnaces, one air furnace, eight forges, three rolling 
 and slitting mills, one steel furnace, and five trip-hammers. The 
 steel furnace was owned by Morris Truman & Co., at Bridgeport, 
 adjoining Brownsville, and made good steel. In 1816 Colonel 
 Isaac Meason built a mill for puddling iron and rolling bars at 
 Plumsock, in this county, of which we shall speak hereafter. 
 
 It will be seen that Fayette county was a great iron centre at 
 the close of the last and the beginning of the present century. 
 
THE MANUFACTURE OF WROUGHT IRON IN FORGES. 53 
 
 For many years Pittsburgh and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys 
 were almost entirely supplied by it with castings of all kinds, and 
 with pig and bar iron. Long before 1850, however, the fires in 
 most of its furnaces and forges were suffered to die out. In 1849 
 only four of its furnaces made iron. In 1876 the county con- 
 tained five furnaces and one rolling-mill. 
 
 A furnace named Mary Ann was erected at a very early day 
 about twenty miles from Uniontown, in Greene county, on the 
 opposite side of Ten Mile creek from Clarksville. It was aban- 
 doned long before 1820. Hon. James Veech writes us that he 
 remembers the ruins of it well. The stack was visible for some 
 time after 1840. He has an advertisement by "Samuel Harper, 
 agent for the proprietors," dated July 23, 1810, for its sale, naming 
 it as " The Iron Works," late the property of Captain James Robin- 
 son. It was probably built about 1800. Gordon, in his Gazetteer, 
 (1832,) says that "there were formerly in operation on Ten-Mile 
 creek a forge and furnace, but they have been long idle and are 
 falling to decay." Day, in his Historical Collections, (1843,) says 
 " a forge and furnace were formerly in operation near the mouth 
 of Ten-Mile creek, but were suffered to decline." These references 
 are clearly to Robinson's works. We think that Greene county has 
 never had any other iron enterprise within Its limits. 
 
 From 1790 to 1800 it is probable that twenty furnaces were 
 built in Pennsylvania. One of these was located within about 
 three miles of Pittsburgh, near the present suburb of Shady Side. 
 It was soon abandoned. We shall refer to it farther on. The 
 first nail factory west of the Alleghenies was built at Browns- 
 ville, before 1800, by Jacob Bowman, at which wrought nails, made 
 by hand, were produced in large quantities. 
 
 Description of the Primitive Method of Manufacturing Wrought 
 Iron. From a letter received by us from Mr. Oliphant we quote 
 an interesting description of the early method of manufacturing 
 wrought iron from the ore in Western Pennsylvania. It is the 
 same that was in use at an earlier day in other sections of the State. 
 
 The first wrought iron made west of the Alleghenies was by blooming the 
 ore from the Fairfield mines, blue lump, by Mr. John Hayden, one of the 
 proprietors of Fairfield furnace. The process was to burn the ore and then 
 pulverize it by stamping very fine. Then it was placed in an open fire, 18 
 inches square by 15 inches deep, formed of stone, having a tuyere 5 inches 
 
54 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 below the top, one inch in diameter, supplied by blast from tubs, and water- 
 wheel to drive the tubs, making a half pound to the inch: fuel, charcoal. 
 Work commenced by filling the open fire with charcoal ; when lighted up 
 fully applying the blast in the tuyere ; then applying the pulverized ore with 
 a shovel by putting it on slowly above the blast, and as it melted the iron ran 
 down below the blast, the cinder being drawn off, and when the space below 
 the blast was filled up to the tuyere, being in a solid mass, it was raised out 
 by a bar 100 Ibs. in weight, and taken to a hammer weighing 500 Ibs., driven 
 by a water-wheel at the rate of from fifty to two hundred strokes per minute. 
 The chunk was hammered into a bloom ; then one end was heated in the same 
 fire to a welding heat, and drawn into what was called an anchony. When 
 some twenty or thirty of these were made, they then enlarged the fire to 20 
 inches square and 20 inches deep, and heated the bloom or large end, and drew 
 it out under the hammer into bars of various lengths, from five to ten feet long, 
 and various widths and thicknesses, ready for market. 
 
 When the furnaces were got under way, and pig metal was being made, old- 
 fashioned Dutch fires were made to work the pig metal into anchonies, and 
 draw it out into bars. Some ten or twelve of these forges were built up 
 through the county by the persons owning the furnaces, J. & A. Oliphant 
 putting up the first two on George's creek, six miles below the furnaces, and 
 called Sylvan forges. These forges were all built alike, four fires each, three 
 for making the anchonies and one a chaffery to draw them out into bars. 
 
 All the furnaces and forges dropped off one by one until all were stopped 
 in the county, except Fairchance and Redstone, the latter going occasionally 
 from 1832 up to 1856. Fairchance, building a rolling-mill in 1834, supplied 
 this whole section with iron, nails, etc., for twenty years, the only ironworks 
 in constant operation. Fairchance built the rolling-mill, making all the 
 machinery castings out of the furnace iron, even the large fly-wheels. The 
 steam cylinder and blast cylinder were brought from abroad. 
 
 The First Rolling -Mills West of the Alleghenies. Doubtless roll- 
 ing and slitting mills, for the manufacture of nail rods principally, 
 were established west of the Alleghenies soon after the first furnace 
 and forge were built in 1790, but specific information concerning the 
 first ventures of this kind is wanting. Cramer's Pittsburgh Alma- 
 nac for 1812 says that in 1811 there were three such mills in Fayette 
 county. The first rolling-mill of any kind west of the Allegheny 
 mountains of which we can obtain exact information is described 
 in the Almanac for 1813, issued in 1812, as follows: "Jackson & 
 Updegraif, on Cheat river, have in operation a furnace, forge, roll- 
 ing and slitting mill, and nail factory nails handsome, iron tough." 
 Like all the rolling and slitting mills of that day and of many 
 preceding days, the Cheat river mill neither puddled iron nor rolled 
 bar iron, but rolled only sheet iron and nail plates with plain rolls 
 
ROLLING-MILLS WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 55 
 
 from blooms heated in a hollow fire and hammered under a tilt- 
 hammer. The nail plates were slit into nail rods by a series of 
 revolving disks. In reference to the Cheat river enterprise, Mr. 
 Veech writes us that its location was in West Virginia, on the road 
 from Uniontown to Morgantown, about three miles south of the 
 Pennsylvania State line, and eight miles north of Morgantown. 
 
 The honor of having erected the first rolling-mill at Pittsburgh 
 is undoubtedly due to Christopher Cowan, an Englishman, who 
 built a mill here in 1812. But this mill had no puddling furna- 
 ces, nor was it built to roll bar iron. It was intended to and cer- 
 tainly did manufacture sheet iron, nail and spike rods, shovels, 
 spades, etc. The same number of the Pittsburgh Almanac from 
 which we have last quoted says of this enterprise : " Christopher 
 Cowan is erecting a powerful steam-engine, 70 horse-power, to run 
 a rolling-mill, slitting-mill, and tilt hammer ; to make iron, nails, 
 sheet iron, spike and nail rods, shovels and tongs, spades, scythes, 
 sickles, hoes, axes, frying pans, cutting knives, chains, plough irons, 
 hatchets, claw hammers, chizzels, augurs, spinning-wheel irons, and 
 smiths' vises capital $100,000." 
 
 The first rolling-mill erected west of the Alleghenies to puddle 
 iron and roll iron bars was built in 1816 and 1817 on Redstone 
 creek, about midway between Connellsville and Brownsville, at a 
 place called Middletown, better known as Plumsock, in Fayette 
 county. The enterprise was undertaken by Colonel Isaac Mea- 
 son, of Union furnace, who had forges at Plumsock. Thomas C. 
 Lewis was chief engineer in the erection of the mill, and George 
 Lewis, his brother, was turner and roller. They were Welshmen. 
 The project was conceived by Thomas C. Lewis, and by him pre- 
 sented to Colonel Meason. This mill was much more complete 
 than Cowan's. Mr. Oliphant tells us that it was built " for making 
 bars of all sizes and hoops for cutting into nails." He says further 
 that " the iron was refined by blast, and then puddled. It was 
 kept in operation up to 1824, the latter part of the time by Mr. 
 Palmer." A flood in the Redstone caused the partial destruction 
 of the mill, the machinery of which was subsequently taken to 
 Brownsville. 
 
 In an interview with Samuel C. Lewis, of Pittsburgh, the son 
 of Thomas C. Lewis, he informs us that his father and his uncle 
 George Lewis not only superintended the erection and put in 
 operation the mill for which these honors are claimed, but that 
 he himself as a boy assisted in rolling the first bar of iron, his 
 
56 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 uncle being the chief roller. In addition to Thomas C. and George 
 Lewis, two other brothers participated in the work of starting the 
 mill and in the rolling of the first bar Samuel Lewis, heater, and 
 James Lewis, catcher. At the same time Henry W. Lewis, another 
 brother, was a clerk in the office. Samuel C. Lewis, our informant, 
 was a boy of fifteen years, and " heaved up " behind the rolls. The 
 mill contained two puddling furnaces, one refinery, one heating 
 furnace, and one tilt-hammer. Raw coal was used in the puddling 
 and heating furnaces and coke in the refinery. James Pratt worked 
 the refinery, and David Adams was the puddler. The mill went 
 into operation in September, 1817. Mr. Lewis tells us that his father 
 and uncle, being skilled workmen, and therefore prohibited by an 
 English statute from leaving their native land, were compelled to 
 smuggle their passage across the Atlantic. He further informs us 
 that his father, before going to Plumsock, unsuccessfully endeavored 
 to induce Eastern ironmasters to introduce puddling furnaces and 
 rolls for bar iron. 
 
 Was Plumsock the First Mill to Roll Bars and Puddle Pig Iron f 
 We think it extremely probable that at this mill was done the 
 first puddling and that here was rolled the first bar iron in America. 
 Careful inquiry in well-informed quarters fails to discover the exist- 
 ence in the United States of any rolling-mill to roll bar iron and 
 puddle pig iron prior to the enterprise at Plumsock in 1816. Ralph 
 Crooker, of the Bay State ironworks, at Boston, the oldest rolling- 
 mill superintendent in the United States, writes us that the first 
 bar iron rolled in New England was rolled at the Boston iron- 
 works, on the Mill Dam in Boston, in 1825, and that the first pud- 
 dling done in New England was at Boston, on the Mill Dam, by 
 Lyman Ralston & Co., in 1835. We can not learn of any mill in 
 Eastern Pennsylvania that either puddled iron or rolled bars as 
 early as 1816. 
 
 We have, however, obtained the curious information that a patent 
 was granted to Clemens Rentgen, of Kimberton, Chester county, 
 Pa., as late as June 27, 1810, for a machine to roll iron in round 
 shapes, proving that Cort's rolls had not then been introduced into 
 the United States. Mr. Rentgen was a native of the Palatinate, 
 (now Bavaria,) in Germany, and emigrated from the town of 
 Zweibriicken in 1791 to Kimberton, about six miles from Phoenix- 
 ville, where he purchased a forge on French creek. At Knauer- 
 town he built steel works, at which he undertook to manufacture 
 
THE FIRST COMPLETE ROLLING-MILL IN PENNSYLVANIA. 57 
 
 steel. The steel works were, however, not successful. His forge 
 was continued, and to it he added a small rolling-mill. His various 
 enterprises were known as the "Pikeland works," Pikeland being 
 the name of the township in which they were situated. On the 
 17th day of November, 1796, he obtained a patent for "forging 
 bolts or round iron," which he described as follows : 
 
 This machine consists of a strong platform, of a given size, in which are 
 fixed two upright posts. In these posts is fixed an axle going through the 
 handle of a concave hammer or sledge, at the extreme end of which is fixed 
 a cogwheel, whose cogs, operating on the lever or handle of the said concave 
 hammer or sledge, cause it to operate upon a concave anvil upon which the 
 iron to be wrought is placed. The concavity of this anvil is about one-eighth 
 of the dimensions of that of the said hammer or sledge. This machine is set 
 in motion by water or any other adequate power, by wheels operating upon 
 the said cogwheel. 
 
 On the 27th day of June, 1810, Mr. Rentgen obtained a patent, 
 noticed above, for "rolling iron round, for ship bolts and other 
 uses," which he thus described : 
 
 This machine consists of two large iron rollers, fixed in a strong frame. 
 Each roller has concavities turned in them, meeting each other to form per- 
 fect round holes, of from half inch to one and three-quarter inches or any 
 other size in diameter, through which rollers the iron is drawn from the mouth 
 of the furnace with great dispatch, and the iron is then manufactured better 
 and more even than it is possible to forge it out. The force applied to the 
 end of these rollers is like that applied to mills. 
 
 The original patents of Mr. Rentgen have been shown to us by 
 his descendant, Professor William H. Wahl, of Philadelphia. We 
 learn from this gentleman that Mr. Rentgen made some use of his 
 patent anvil and hammer, and that, before obtaining the patent in 
 1810 for his method of rolling round iron, he built an experimental 
 set of rolls, which were replaced after the patent was granted by 
 a permanent set, with which he rolled round iron as early as 1812 
 or 1813, some of which was for the Navy Department of the United 
 States Government. We do not learn that he ever rolled bar iron, 
 and it is not claimed that he used puddling furnaces. 
 
 It is a curious fact, which may not be known to many of the 
 present generation of American ironmasters, that pig iron has been 
 puddled in this country with wood, as it is now at some places in 
 Sweden ; and by the term wood we do not mean charcoal. Prior 
 to 1850 puddling with wood was done at Horatio Ames's works, at 
 
58 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Falls Village, in Connecticut ; and the Katahdin ironworks, in 
 Maine, puddled with wood in that year. From 1821 to 1825 the 
 Fall River rolling-mill, in Massachusetts, used wood in heating 
 iron for nail plates in reverberatory furnaces. 
 
 Beginning of the Iron Industry at Pittsburgh. The iron industry 
 of Pittsburgh, the most important iron centre in the country, did 
 not have an existence in the last century, although a blast furnace 
 was built within a few miles of the town before its close, as already 
 stated. As the site of this blast furnace is now embraced within 
 the city limits, we give place here to a full account of it and of its 
 founder, which we have derived from trustworthy original sources. 
 
 George Anshutz, the pioneer in the manufacture of iron at Pitts- 
 burgh, was an Alsacian by birth, Alsace at the time being under 
 the control of France. He Avas born November 28, 1753. He 
 acquired some knowledge of the iron business by having the man- 
 agement of a foundry in the vicinity of Strasbiirg. In 1789 he 
 emigrated to the United States, and soon afterwards located at a 
 place now known as Shady Side, where he built a small furnace, 
 probably completing it in 1792. In 1794 the furnace was abandon- 
 ed. It had been expected that ore could be obtained in the vicin- 
 ity, but the expectation was not realized. The neighborhood produ- 
 ced little else than red shale. Recourse was next had to a deposit 
 of iron ore on Roaring run, an affluent of the Kiskiminetas, in the 
 southeastern corner of Armstrong county, from which supplies were 
 received in arks at a point on the Allegheny near to the furnace. 
 Some ore was also brought by difficult wagon transportation from 
 the vicinity of Fort Ligonier and Laughlinstown, in Westmoreland 
 county. But the expense entailed in bringing ore from localities so 
 difficult of access in those days was too great to justify the con- 
 tinued working of the furnace. After its abandonment Anshutz 
 accepted the management of John Probst's Westmoreland furnace, 
 near Laughlinstowu, and continued there about one year, whence he 
 removed to Huntingdon county, where, in connection with Judge 
 John Gloninger and Mordecai Massey, he built Huntingdon furnace 
 in 1796. Massey owned the land, Gloninger furnished the money, 
 and Anshutz supplied the necessary experience and skill, with an 
 understanding, we believe, that he was subsequently to become a 
 partner. In 1808 he became the owner of one-fourth interest in 
 the furnace. At this furnace most of the remaining years of his 
 
BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY AT PITTSBURGH. 59 
 
 long and useful and prosperous life were spent. When about 
 eighty years of age he retired from active business, and with his 
 family removed to the scene of his early trials, Pittsburgh, about 
 1833. Here he died, February 28, 1837, at the age of eighty- 
 three, in a house that had been built under his own directions, on 
 the bank of the Monongahela river. He was buried in the old 
 German burying-ground in Pittsburgh, but his remains were some 
 years afterwards removed to Allegheny cemetery. He left a large 
 number of descendants. 
 
 Anshutz's furnace at Pittsburgh was built at a point about four 
 miles east of the site of Fort Pitt, and midway between the Allegheny 
 and Monongahela rivers, on a stream known then and now as Two- 
 Mile run, on the bank of which Colonel Jonas Roup had previously 
 at an early period, after emigrating from the Cumberland valley, 
 erected a grist and saw mill. In 1794 the fire of the furnace lighted 
 up the camp of the participants in the whisky insurrection. There 
 was no forge connected with the furnace. The enterprise seems to 
 have been largely devoted to the casting of stoves and grates, which, 
 with the coal from the surrounding hills, gave comfort and cheer to 
 the people of the neighborhood. The ruins of the furnace disap- 
 peared about 1850 from the spot that had long known them, within 
 the eastern line of the Roup farm, and now within the enclosure of 
 William O'Hara Scully, at Shady Side. When the track of the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad was graded at Shady Side, in 1851, a por- 
 tion of the furnace building was demolished and a part of its founda- 
 tion was removed. Subsequently, in digging the cellar of Alexander 
 Pitcairn's house, a portion of the cinder bank was exposed. 
 
 Second Stage in the Development of the Iron Industry at Pitts- 
 burgh. The first iron foundry at Pittsburgh was established in 
 1803 by Joseph McClurg, on the site of the present post-office 
 and the city hall. In 1812 it was converted by him into a cannon 
 foundry. In 1807 there were three nail factories in existence in 
 Pittsburgh Porter's, Sturgeon's, and Stewart's, according to Cra- 
 mer's Almanac, one of which made 100 tons of cut and wrought 
 nails annually. In 1810 about 200 tons of cut and wrought 
 nails were made at Pittsburgh. The first steamboat on the Ohio 
 river, the New Orleans, was built at Pittsburgh in 1811. In 1813 
 there were two foundries in Pittsburgh, McClurg's and Anthony 
 Beelen's ; one steel furnace, owned by Tuper & McKowan ; and 
 
60 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 one rolling-mill, owned by Christopher Cowan. Cowan's rolling- 
 mill was known as the Pittsburgh rolling-mill. The first "patent" 
 nail machine introduced into Pittsburgh is said to have been used 
 in this rolling-mill in 1814. The second rolling-mill in Pitts- 
 burgh was the Union, on the Monongahela river, built in 1819, 
 and accidentally blown up and permanently dismantled in 1829, 
 the machinery being taken to Covington, Kentucky. This mill 
 had four puddling furnaces, the first in Pittsburgh. It was also 
 the first mill in Pittsburgh to roll bar iron. 
 
 The following rolling-mills were in operation at Pittsburgh in 
 1826: Sligo mill was erected where it now stands by Robert T. 
 Stewart and John Lyon in 1825, but was partly burned down that 
 year. The Juniata ironworks were owned by Dr. Peter Shoenber- 
 ger, and were erected in 1824. Grant's Hill works were erected 
 in 1821 by William B. Hays and David Adams. They stood near 
 where the court-house now stands. Water for the generation of 
 steam had to be hauled from the Monongahela river. The Union 
 rolling-mill, located east of Kensington, (Pipetown,) was the largest 
 and most extensive of the kind in the Western country. It was 
 built in 1819, and owned by Messrs. Baldwin, Robinson, McNickle 
 & Beltzhoover. The Dowlais works, in Kensington, were built by 
 George Lewis and Reuben Leonard in 1825. At Penn street and 
 Cecil's alley, where the Fourth Ward schoolhouse now stands, stood 
 the Pittsburgh rolling-mill, built in 1812, and in 1826 owned 
 by R. Bowen. On Pine creek was the mill of M. B. Belknap, 
 operated by both steam and water power. In 1817 this mill was 
 a scythe and sickle factory. All of these mills did not make bar 
 iron in 1826 : some only manipulated rolled and hammered iron. 
 In 1825 there were "eight air foundries and a cupola furnace" 
 in Pittsburgh. Pig metal for the supply of these foundries and the 
 rolling-mills was in part obtained from blast furnaces in the neigh- 
 boring counties, but much of it was brought from the Juniata 
 valley, which also supplied the mills with most of their blooms. 
 The Juniata pig iron and blooms were hauled over the Allegheny 
 mountains to Johnstown, usually on sleds in the winter season, 
 and taken down the Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas, and Allegheny riv- 
 ers to Pittsburgh with the spring and fall freshets. 
 
 In 1829 Pittsburgh had eight rolling-mills, using 6,000 tons of 
 blooms, chiefly from the Juniata valley, and 1,500 tons of pig metal. 
 In the same year there were nine foundries that consumed 3,500 
 tons of metal. In 1828 the iron rolled was 3,291 tons ; in 1829 it 
 
EARLY IRONWORKS IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY. 61 
 
 was 6,217 tons ; and in 1830 it was 9,282 tons. It is stated that 
 in 1830 one hundred steam-engines were built. In 1831 there were 
 two steel furnaces, and cast iron began to be used for pillars, the 
 caps and sills of windows, etc. In 1836 there were nine rolling- 
 mills in operation, and eighteen foundries, engine-factories, and 
 machine-shops. In 1856 there were in Pittsburgh and Allegheny 
 county twenty-five rolling-mills and thirty-three foundries. 
 
 There were no blast furnaces in Pittsburgh and Allegheny county 
 in 1858, but now there are twelve. Clinton furnace, built in 1859, 
 by Graff, Bennett & Co., and blown in on the last Monday of 
 October in that year, was the first furnace to be built in Allegheny 
 county after the abandonment in 1794 of George Anshutz's furnace 
 at Shady Side a surprisingly long interregnum. Clinton furnace 
 was followed in 1861 by the two Eliza furnaces of Laughlin & Co., 
 and soon afterwards by others. The Lucy and Isabella furnaces 
 have yielded larger weekly products of iron than any other fur- 
 naces in the country. The ores used at Pittsburgh are mainly 
 obtained from the Lake Superior mines, but those of Missouri 
 also furnish a large proportion. 
 
 There are thirty-two rolling-mills in Pittsburgh and Allegheny 
 county in 1876, four of which make steel as well as iron. There 
 are nine other establishments which make only steel. The Edgar 
 Thomson Bessemer steel works, completed in 1875, occupy the site 
 of Braddock's Field. The most surprising fact connected with the 
 iron industry of Pittsburgh is that it all should have had its 
 growth since the beginning of the present century. 
 
 Beginning of the Iron Industry in Other Western Counties. 
 Westmoreland furnace, near Laughlinstown, in Ligonier valley, 
 Westmoreland county, on Four Mile run, a branch of Loyal- 
 hanna creek, was built about 1792 by John Probst, who also 
 built a small forge about the same time. Neither the furnace nor 
 the forge was long in operation, both probably ceasing to make 
 iron about 1810. Colonel John McFarland, of Ligonier, informs 
 us that he has used iron made at these works. On the 1st of 
 August, 1795, George Anshutz, manager of Westmoreland furnace, 
 advertised stoves and castings for sale. General Arthur St. Clair 
 built Hermitage furnace, on Mill creek, two miles northeast of 
 Ligonier, on the road to Johnstown, about 1802. It was managed 
 for its owner by James Hamilton. The following advertisement 
 appeared in The Farmer's Register, printed at Greensburg, Pa., 
 
62 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 November 21, 1806, by John M. Snowden. This advertisement 
 had for its caption, " Hermitage Furnace in Blast," and was signed 
 by Henry Weaver & Son, and dated at " Greensburg, September 12, 
 1806." It read as follows : 
 
 The subscribers, being appointed agents by Gen. A. St. Glair, for the sale of 
 his castings generally, and for the Borough of Greensburg exclusively, give 
 notice that they will contract with any person or persons for the delivery of 
 castings and stoves, for any number of tons, on good terms. Samples of the 
 castings and stoves to be seen at their store, in Greensburg, any time after the 
 20th instant. 
 
 In 1810 Hermitage furnace passed out of the hands of General 
 St. Clair, and stood idle for some time. In 1816 it was started 
 again by O'Hara & Scully, under the management of John Henry 
 Hopkins, afterwards Bishop of Vermont. In October, 1817, Mr. 
 Hopkins left the furnace, himself a bankrupt, and it has never 
 since been in operation. The stack is yet standing, and a large 
 sycamore tree has grown out of the stone wall, about ten feet above 
 the ground. General St. Clair died a poor man in 1818, aged 
 eighty-four years, and is buried at Greensburg. Mount Hope fur- 
 nace was built about 1810, in Donegal township, Westmoreland 
 county, by Trevor & McClurg. Washington furnace, near Laugh- 
 linstown, in this county, was built about 1809, by Johnston, 
 McClurg & Co. It was abandoned in 1826, and rebuilt in 1848 
 by John Bell & Co. It was in blast as late as 1854, and in 1859 
 was owned by L. C. Hall. Jonathan Maybury & Co. owned 
 Fountain furnace, in Westmoreland county, before 1812, but where 
 this furnace was located we have been unable to learn. The firm 
 was dissolved August 19, 1812. Kingston forge, erected in 1811 
 on Loyalhanna creek, Westmoreland county, ten miles east of 
 Greensburg, by A. Johnston & Co., went into operation early in 
 1812. Ross furnace, on Tub Mill creek, in Fairfield township, 
 Westmoreland county, was built in 1815, by James Paull, Jr., Col. 
 J. D. Mathiot, and Isaac Meason, Jr., and abandoned about 1850. 
 It made pig iron, stoves, sugar-kettles, pots, ovens, skillets, etc. 
 Another furnace in Fairfield township was built a short distance 
 below Ross furnace, on Tub Mill creek, by John Beninger, about 
 1810. He also built a small forge on the same stream, where 
 the borough of Bolivar now stands. Both the furnace and forge 
 ceased to make iron soon after they were built, the forge running 
 until about 1816. When short rff pig iron it sometimes made bar 
 
EARLY IRONWORKS IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY. 63 
 
 iron direct from the ore, which was obtained near by. In 1834 
 a manufactory of axes and sickles was established at Covodesville, 
 on Tub Mill creek, above Bolivar, by Uri Updegraff. The business 
 was continued for eight years by Mr. UpdegrafF. Baldwin furnace, 
 on Laurel run, near Koss furnace, is said to have been built by 
 James Stewart about 1810. It ran but a short time. It was named 
 after Henry Baldwin, afterwards a Judge of the United States 
 Supreme Court, but then a leading lawyer of Pittsburgh. He may 
 have helped to build the furnace. 
 
 Gordon, in his Gazetteer of the State of Pennsylvania, states that 
 in 1832 there were in operation in Westmoreland county one 
 furnace, Ross, operated by Colonel Mathiot, and one forge, Kings- 
 ton, on Loyalhanna creek, operated by Alexander Johnston. The 
 latter gentleman, whose name appears above in connection with 
 two other iron enterprises, was the father of Governor William F. 
 Johnston. He was born in Ireland in July, 1772, and died July 
 15, 1872, one hundred years old. The early Westmoreland fur- 
 naces shipped pig iron by boats or arks on the Conemaugh and 
 Allegheny rivers to Pittsburgh, much of which found its way 
 down the Ohio river to Cincinnati and Louisville. 
 
 Other furnaces in Westmoreland county were, Mount Pleasant, a 
 very early furnace ; California, built by Col. J. D. Mathiot and S. 
 Cummins about 1852, on Furnace run branch of the Loyalhanna 
 creek, about a mile above the mouth of the run ; Oak Grove, built 
 in 1854 by Colonel John Clifford, near Ligonier, and owned in 
 1857 by James Tanner, of Pittsburgh ; Valley furnace, at Hills- 
 view, nine miles south of New Florence, built by L. C. Hall & 
 Co. in 1855 ; Laurel Hill, about three miles below Baldwin fur- 
 nace, on Laurel run, after its junction with Powder Mill run, 
 commenced in 1845 or 1846 by Hezekiah Reid and finished about 
 1849 by Judge J. T. Hale of Centre county, and subsequently 
 owned by various parties ; Conemaugh, on the stream of that name, 
 about eight miles west of Johnstown, built in 1847 by John C. 
 Magill, Hon. Henry D. Foster, and Hon. Thomas White, and sub- 
 sequently operated by George Rhey ; Lockport, built in 1844 by 
 William D. and Thomas McKernan, brothers, at the town of that 
 name, twenty miles west of Johnstown, subsequently owned by 
 William McKinney, of Lockport, and finally falling into the hands 
 of Dr. Peter Shoenberger; Ramsey, built in 1847, on the Kiski- 
 minetas, about four miles west of Saltsburg, Indiana county, by 
 Frederick Overman, for Dr. J. R. Speer, of Pittsburgh, its owner 
 
64 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 All of the above furnaces have been abandoned. There is only 
 one furnace in the county now in operation, Charlotte, built by 
 Everson, Knap & Co., at Scottdale, in 1873, where the firm of 
 Everson, Macrum & Co. built a rolling-mill in the same year. 
 
 Shade furnace was built in 1807 or 1808, and was the first iron 
 establishment in Somerset county. It was erected on the banks of 
 Shade creek, about forty rods below the junction of Clear Shade 
 and Dark Shade creeks. David Rodger, an old resident at Shade 
 furnace, informs us that it was built by Gerehart & Reynolds upon 
 land leased from Thomas Vickroy. Being in debt, their furnace 
 and lease were sold by the sheriff to Ogle & Kimmell, of Somerset, 
 who were succeeded by Thomas Gaghegan, who gave way to one 
 Dunlap, when the property reverted to Thomas Vickroy. In No- 
 vember, 1813, we learn that Vickroy advertised Shade furnace for 
 sale, at a great bargain, the advertisement appearing in the Pitts- 
 burgh Mercury, published by John M. Snowden. A sale was effected 
 in 1819 to Mark Richards, Anthony S. Earl, and Benjamin Johns, 
 of New Jersey, constituting the firm of Richards, Earl & Co., who 
 operated the furnace down to about 1830. In 1820 they built a 
 forge, called Shade, three-fourths of a mile below the furnace, which 
 was carried on by William Earl for four or five years, and afterwards 
 by John Hammer and others. In 1849 it made 30 tons of bars. 
 The furnace was continued, at intervals, by various proprietors to 
 the close of 1858. Daniel Weyand, Esq., of Somerset, at his death, 
 in September, 1877, was the last owner of the property. 
 
 About 1811 Joseph Vickroy and Conrad Piper built Mary Ann 
 forge, on Stony creek, about five miles below Shade furnace, and 
 a half mile below the mouth of Shade creek. The forge was named 
 after Mr. Piper's wife, who was a daughter of Thomas Vickroy and 
 sister of Joseph Vickroy. David Livingston was subsequently 
 the owner of the forge, and operated it for several years. Richard 
 Geary, the father of Governor John W. Geary, was the millwright 
 who built the forge for the owners. We have heard that pig iron 
 was sometimes packed on horseback to this forge from Bedford 
 county, the horses taking salt from the Conemaugh salt-works and 
 bar iron as a return load. 
 
 In the year 1809 or 1810 Peter Kimmell and Matthias Scott 
 built a forge for the manufacture of bar iron on Laurel Hill 
 creek, now in Jefferson township, in the western part of Somerset 
 county. Mr. Kimmell shortly after withdrew, and the establishment 
 was run by Mr. Scott. Subsequently it passed into the hands of 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN OTHER WESTERN COUNTIES. 65 
 
 Henry Benford and Jacob Ankeny, and ceased operations about 
 1815. Supplies of metal were obtained from Bedford and Fayette 
 counties. About the year 1810 Robert Philson erected a forge and 
 furnace on Casselman's river, in Turkeyfoot township. The ore 
 was mined in the immediate vicinity. The enterprise was a bad 
 investment, operations ceasing in three or four years. The next 
 furnace in the county was Jackson furnace, near the Pittsburgh 
 turnpike, on Laurel hill, built by Irvin Horrel, Philip Murphy, 
 and Charles Ogle about 1825. It was unsuccessful in their hands. 
 About 1833 Joseph and William Graham again put it in blast, only 
 to be overcome by speedy disaster. In 1832 Gordon stated that 
 there were three furnaces and three forges then in existence in 
 the county. Rockingham furnace, two miles above Shade furnace, 
 on Shade creek, was built in 1844 by John Foust, and subse- 
 quently operated by Ouster & Little; Somerset furnace, at For- 
 wardstown, was built by Huber, Linton & Myers in 1846, and 
 afterwards owned by G. Ross Forward ; and Wellersburg furnace 
 was built by the Union Coal and Iron Company, in 1856, under 
 the management of G. Ross Forward. All the furnaces and forges 
 in Somerset county have been abandoned. 
 
 The first iron enterprise in Cambria county was a forge at Johns- 
 town, built by John Buckwalter, of Chester county, on Stony creek, 
 in 1809, and subsequently removed to the Conemaugh river, also at 
 Johnstown, where it was operated with more or less regularity down 
 to about 1825, although it'was standing many years later. Its last 
 owner was Peter Levergood. It was used to hammer bars out of 
 Juniata pig iron. John Buckwalter was a descendant of Francis 
 Buckwalter, a Protestant refugee from Germany, who emigrated to 
 the vicinity of Phoenixville, in Chester county; in 1720, where he 
 purchased 650 acres of land for 195. In 1*810 it is recorded that 
 about 200 pounds of nails, valued at $30, were made at Johns- 
 town by one establishment. These nails may have been wholly 
 made by hand labor. About 1813 or 1814 an enterprise was 
 established at Johnstown by which nails were cut with a machine 
 worked by a treadle, but without heads, which were afterwards 
 added with another machine. The enterprise was established by 
 Robert Pierson, who died in 1818, and was buried in the Union 
 graveyard. His shop stood on the north side of Vine street, near 
 Franklin. Cambria county has been noted as an iron centre 
 since its first furnace, Cambria, was built by George S. King, 
 David Stewart, John K. Shryock, and William L. Shryock in 
 
66 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 1841, on Laurel run. It was followed by Mill Creek, built by 
 John Bell & Co. in 1845 ; Ben's Creek, built by George S. King & 
 Co. in 1846; Eliza, five miles west of Ebensburg, on Blacklick 
 creek, commenced by Bitter & Rodgers in 1846 and completed 
 by Bitter & Irvin in 1847 ; Mount Vernon, at Johnstown, built 
 by Peter Levergood & Co. in 1846, and subsequently owned by 
 Lintons & Galbreath ; and Ashland, six miles north of Gallitzin, 
 built by Joseph A. Conrad and Hugh McNeal in 1847. All these 
 furnaces have been abandoned. The division line between Cambria 
 and Indiana counties passed through the stack of Eliza furnace. 
 The Cambria ironworks, at Johnstown, the most extensive in the 
 United States, were commenced in 1853 by a company of which 
 Mr. King was the originator. They now embrace iron and steel 
 rolling-mills at Johnstown, and several large furnaces at Johns- 
 town and in Blair county. In 1832 Gordon referred to the pros- 
 pect of making iron from native ore in Cambria county as fol- 
 lows: "And there is iron, as it is said by some, but denied by 
 others." To the enterprise of George S. King is this county in- 
 debted for the development of the iron ore within its borders. 
 
 The first iron enterprise in Indiana county was Indiana forge, 
 on Findley's run, near the Conemaugh, built about 1837 by Henry 
 Noble, who also built a small furnace as early as 1840. Both 
 the furnace and forge were running in the last-named year. Pig 
 iron for the forge was at first obtained from Allegheny furnace, in 
 Blair county. Becoming embarrassed, Mr. Noble was succeeded 
 by William D. and Thomas McKernan about 1843. About 1846 
 the property passed into the hands of Elias Baker, who built a 
 new furnace and forge. Other furnaces in Indiana county were, 
 Blacklick, built by David Stewart in 1846 ; Buena Vista, built by 
 McClelland & Co. in 1847 ; and Loop, built by Hampton & Smith 
 in 1847. Blacklick and Buena Vista were located on Blacklick 
 creek, and Loop on the Little Mahoning, three miles below Smicks- 
 burg. All the Indiana furnaces and its solitary forge have been 
 abandoned. 
 
 Beginning of the Iron Industry in Northwestern Pennsylvania. 
 A blast furnace was built at Beaver Falls, on the west side of 
 Beaver river, in Beaver county, in 1802, by Hoopes, Townsend & 
 Co., and blown in in 1804. A forge was connected with it from the 
 beginning, and was in operation in 1806, according to Cramer's 
 Pittsburgh Almanac. Both the furnace and forge were in operation 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 67 
 
 in 1816. The whole enterprise was abandoned about 1826. The 
 ore used was picked out of gravel banks in the neighborhood in 
 very small lumps. It has been erroneously stated that this was 
 the only furnace erected in Beaver county. There was another 
 early furnace in this county, named Bassenheim, built by Detmar 
 Basse Miiller, the history of which is .so interesting that we make 
 room for the following letter we have received from Mr. Henry 
 Muntz, an aged citizen of Zelienople, in Butler county. 
 
 Bassenheim furnace was built and put into operation in the year 1814 by 
 Dettmar Basse, a German gentleman of education, much enterprise, and some 
 means. He carried it on to 1818, when he sold out to Daniel Beltzhoover, 
 Kobinson & McNickle, who worked it five or six years more. About that 
 time, viz., 1824, the charcoal and iron ore beginning to fail in the neighbor- 
 hood, and their capital being pretty much sunk, they ceased operations and 
 retired, leaving the furnace a ruin, and now there is nothing to mark the place 
 of its location except a large stack of stone overgrown with moss and bushes, 
 and also a great pile of cinders, clinkers, and ashes, to show where the furnace 
 had been. This furnace was not located in Butler county, but in the adjoin- 
 ing county of Beaver, between two and three miles from Zelienople and lower 
 down the Connoquenessing creek and about a mile west of the Butler county 
 line. Its owners, Dettmar Basse and also Daniel Beltzhoover, resided at 
 Bassenheim farm on the Butler side of the county line, and much of its 
 business was transacted at Zelienople. These circumstances will account for 
 the popular belief that this furnace was located in Butler county. There was 
 no forge connected with it, nor any other work except to convert iron ore into 
 pig metal, stoves, kettles, pots, fire irons, etc. The ore was mostly dug out of 
 the ground within a mile or two of the furnace in lumps weighing from one 
 pound to fifty, generally of a blue color. At first the bellows was blown by 
 water-power, but, after the high water of the creek had washed one of the 
 abutments of the dam away and let the water out, the owners were obliged to 
 apply a steam-engine at considerable expense, by which it was afterwards 
 operated with much trouble and little profit. After the war of 1812 times 
 were very hard and money exceedingly scarce. One other reason that this 
 work did not succeed and pay better was the great expense of getting its 
 metal and wares to a market. I remember well that in February, 1818, $12 
 per ton were paid for hauling the pig metal to Pittsburgh, thirty miles, over 
 a bad road. 
 
 John Henry Hopkins, afterwards Bishop of Vermont, and already 
 mentioned in connection with General St. Glair's furnace near Ligo- 
 nier, was engaged as a clerk at Bassenheim furnace about 1815. 
 
 Still another furnace in Beaver county was Homewood, in the 
 northwestern part of the county, on the Beaver Canal, near the 
 mouth of the Connoquenessing creek, and two miles from Home- 
 wood station on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway. 
 
68 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 It was built by James Wood, of Pittsburgh, to use coke or bitumi- 
 nous coal, and was put in blast in 1858. It was finally blown out 
 in 1867 or 1868. 
 
 Prior to 1845 there were only a few furnaces in the Shenango 
 valley, all charcoal, one of the oldest of which was Springfield 
 furnace, half a mile from Leesburg, and seven miles southeast of 
 Mercer, built in 1837 and active in 1849. Day, in 1843, says : 
 " two furnaces were wrought formerly, but have since been aban- 
 doned," and in confirmation of this statement we may quote the 
 geographer, Joseph Scott, who says that in 1806 " a forge and 
 furnace are now nearly erected " at New Castle. The first furnace 
 in Lawrence county of which we have satisfactory information was 
 Martha, at New Castle, built in 1844 to use charcoal. In 1849 
 it was owned by Power & Sons, and was soon afterwards aban- 
 doned. Cossallo rolling-mill was built at New Castle in 1842, by 
 the Cossallo Iron Company, and Orizaba, at the same place, in 
 1847, by Peebles & Co. In 1845, and soon afterwards, several 
 furnaces were built in this valley to use its splint coal in the raw 
 state, particular mention of which, owing to their modern origin, 
 is not deemed necessary. In 1876 there were 32 such furnaces 
 in the valley, besides several rolling-mills. 
 
 We are able to fix the date of the erection of the first furnace 
 in the once important but now neglected ironmaking district com- 
 posed of Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Venango, and other north- 
 western counties. This event took place in the year 1818, when 
 Bear Creek furnace, in Armstrong county, one mile from Lawrence- 
 burg in Butler county, was commenced by Ruggles, Stackpole & 
 Whiting, who then owned the Pittsburgh rolling-mill. In the 
 following year, owing to the failure of this firm, it passed uncom- 
 pleted into the hands of Baldwin, Robinson, McNickle & Beltz- 
 hoover, and was probably purchased by them to supply pig metal 
 to their rolling-mill at Pittsburgh. The furnace went into opera- 
 tion in 1819. It was abandoned long before 1850, but was run- 
 ning in 1832, in which year Gordon says it was owned by Henry 
 Baldwin, Esq., and was reputed to be the largest furnace in the 
 United States, having made forty tons of iron a week. The build- 
 ing of this furnace was superintended by Thomas C. Lewis, the 
 projector of Colonel Isaac Meason's rolling-mill on Redstone creek, 
 in Fayette county. The furnace was built to use coke, with steam- 
 power. Its first blast was with this fuel, but the blast was too weak, 
 and the furnace chilled after two or three tons of iron had been 
 
FIRST IRONWORKS IN NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 69 
 
 made. Charcoal was then substituted. This furnace had a tram- 
 road, with wooden rails, in 1818. It is due to the memory of the 
 pioneer, Thomas C. Lewis, that we should state that it was against 
 his earnest advice that the blast used in blowing in Bear Creek 
 furnace with coke was insufficient. He predicted the failure which 
 occurred. The blast was cold, and was about five pounds to the 
 square inch. 
 
 The number of ironworks erected in the State in the ten years 
 ending with 1830 was forty-nine, of which thirty were forges and 
 rolling-mills and nineteen were blast furnaces. Some of these fur- 
 naces were in Butler and adjoining counties. After the manufacture 
 of iron at Pittsburgh was fairly started about 1825, a demand was 
 created for more pig iron than the Juniata valley and Fayette 
 county could supply. This led to the development of the iron-ore 
 beds in Clarion, Butler, Armstrong, and Venango counties. Rock 
 furnace, on Roaring run, a tributary of the Kiskiminetas, four miles 
 east of Apollo, in Armstrong county, was built about 1825 by James 
 W. Biddle, of Pittsburgh, and others. In 1832 Biddle is said by 
 Gordon to have owned this furnace, which produced about fifteen 
 tons of iron a week. It has been abandoned since 1855. Slippery 
 Rock furnace, in Butler county, and Clarion furnace, in Clarion 
 county, were built in 1828 the latter by Hon. Christian Myers, a 
 native of Lancaster county. Allegheny furnace, at Kittanning, in 
 Armstrong county, and Venango furnace, on Oil creek, in Venango 
 county, were built in 1830. In 1832 the former was owned by A. 
 McNickle, and made about fourteen tons of iron weekly. From 
 1830 to 1850, but particularly after the passage of the tariff of 
 1842, this section of the State produced large quantities of char- 
 coal pig iron. We particularize a few of the furnaces built soon 
 after 1830 : Beaver, five miles south of Shippenville, Clarion county, 
 in 1835 ; Madison, on Piney creek, same county, in 1836 ; Shippen, 
 near Shippenville, same county, in 1832 ; Lucinda, eight miles north 
 of Clarion, in 1833 ; Clay, on Horse creek, Venango county, in 1832 ; 
 Van Buren, on the Allegheny river, two miles southeast of Frank- 
 lin, same county, in 1832 ; Rockland, in the same county, in 1832 ; 
 Slab, on East Sandy creek, same county, in 1834; Mill Creek, in 
 the same county, in 1835. There was no forge in Armstrong county 
 in 1832, but there were a few forges in Butler and Venango counties. 
 A forge was built at Shippenville in 1833. 
 
 In 1850 there were 11 furnaces existing in Armstrong county, 
 6 in Butler, 28 in Clarion, and 18 in Venango 63 in all. In 1858 
 
70 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 there were 18 in Armstrong, 6 in Butler, 27 in Clarion, and 24 in 
 Venango 75 in all. Many of these furnaces had, however, been 
 abandoned at the latter date. Nearly every one has since then 
 been abandoned. The discovery that bituminous coal could be 
 profitably used in the manufacture of pig iron, and the subse- 
 quent discovery of the rich ores of Lake Superior, were influences 
 which tended greatly to destroy the business of making charcoal 
 pig iron in the counties named, and in Fayette, Westmoreland, 
 Somerset, Cambria, and Indiana counties, and correspondingly to 
 develop the iron business in the Shenango valley and elsewhere. 
 But the distance of many of these furnaces from market, the lack 
 of cheap means of transportation, and the growing scarcity of char- 
 coal timber also had much to do with the abandonment of Western 
 and Northwestern Pennsylvania charcoal furnaces. It is not im- 
 probable that the manufacture of pig iron in the Allegheny valley 
 and in Fayette county may yet be revived by the general substitu- 
 tion of Connellsville coke for charcoal, as iron ore is still abundant. 
 
 The Great Western ironworks at Brady's Bend were commenced 
 in 1840, embracing a rolling-mill and four furnaces to use coke. 
 They have not been in operation for several years. 
 
 The iron manufactured in the Allegheny valley was taken down 
 the Allegheny river on keel-boats and arks, the business of trans- 
 porting it, as may readily be conjectured, being quite extensive. 
 
 Erie charcoal furnace, at Erie, was built in 1842, and abandoned 
 in 1849. It used bog ore. It was owned by Charles M. Heed. 
 Liberty furnace, on the north side of French creek, in Crawford 
 county, was built in 1842 by Lowry & Co., of Meadville, and 
 abandoned in 1849. 
 
 At the Siberian rolling-mill of Rogers & Burchfield, at Leech- 
 burg, Armstrong county, natural gas, taken from a well 1,200 feet 
 deep, was first used as a fuel in the puddling furnace. In the fall 
 of 1874 it was announced that during the preceding six months 
 the gas had furnished all the fuel required for puddling, heating, 
 and making steam, not one bushel of coal having been used. 
 
 Iron Ore has been found in Elk, Potter, Bradford, Juniata, and 
 Wayne counties, but it has not been developed. Ore has recently 
 been mined at Austinville, in Columbia township, Bradford county. 
 Should it ever become necessary, Pennsylvania can add greatly to 
 her present production of iron ore, and of fuel to smelt it there 
 never can be any scarcity. 
 
FIRST COKE PIG IRON IN THE UNITED STATES. 71 
 
 First Use of Bituminous Coke in the Manufacture of American 
 Pig Iron. Pig iron manufactured from bituminous coke is claimed 
 to have been first made as a regular product in the United States 
 by F. H. Oliphant, at Fairchance furnace, near Uniontown, Fayette 
 county, Pennsylvania, in 1836. Mr. Oliphant sent to the Frank- 
 lin Institute of Philadelphia samples of the metal produced and of 
 the various materials used at his furnace. He did not, however, 
 long continue to make coke iron, and resumed the manufacture of 
 iron with charcoal. William Firmstone was successful in 1835 in 
 making good gray forge iron for about one month at the end of a 
 blast at Mary Ann furnace, in Trough Creek valley, Tod township, 
 Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, from coke made from Broad 
 Top coal. This iron was taken to a forge two miles distant and 
 made into blooms. We have been unable to verify the statement 
 in French's Iron Trade of the United States (1858) that "coke was 
 employed a few years before the Revolution in the manufacture 
 of pig and refined bar iron." Undoubtedly, however, various at- 
 tempts were made to use it before the successful experiments of 
 Mr. Firmstone and Mr. Oliphant were made. We have recorded 
 an unsuccessful attempt to use coke at Bear Creek furnace in 
 1819. 
 
 The Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act June 16, 1836, 
 " to encourage the manufacture of iron with coke or mineral coal," 
 which authorized the organization of companies for the manufac- 
 ture, transportation, and sale of iron made with coke or coal. Be- 
 tween 1835 and 1839 attempts were made at Karthaus, in Clear- 
 field county, at Farrandsville, in Clinton county, on the west branch 
 of the Susquehanna river, and at Astonville furnace, near Frozen 
 run, in Lycoming county, to use coke, but the experiment was 
 unfortunate in each instance. At Karthaus several hundred tons 
 in all of white iron were produced at irregular intervals in a fur- 
 nace which was built in 1836 by Peter Ritner (a brother of Gover- 
 nor Ritner) and John Say, and it ran spasmodically upon coke with 
 cold blast until 1838. In that year Henry C. Carey, Burd Patter- 
 son, John White, and others, constituting the Clearfield Coal and 
 Iron Company, employed William Firmstone to take charge of the 
 furnace. In 1839 he put in a hot blast and raised the stack nine 
 feet, making it 45 feet high, with boshes 13 feet in diameter. The 
 furnace was blown in in September, and made several hundred tons 
 of good foundry iron by the close of the year, when the whole en- 
 terprise was abandoned, owing to the lack of proper transportation 
 
72 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 facilities. At Farrandsville, as we are informed by General Daniel 
 Tyler, 3,500 tons of iron were made, but at such great cost, owing to 
 the impurity of the coal and the distance of the ore, that further 
 efforts to make iron with coke were abandoned. The furnace was 
 blown in, according to General Tyler, in the summer of 1837, and 
 ran probably until 1839. It was fitted up with a hot-blast apparatus, 
 made in Glasgow, and the best known at that time in Scotland. The 
 furnace at Frozen run made some iron from coke, but how much is 
 not stated. In September, 1839, it was using charcoal. Lonaconing 
 furnace, in Alleghany county, Maryland, was built in 1837, by the 
 George's Creek Company, to use coke, and in June, 1839, it was 
 making about 70 tons per week of good foundry iron. In the Frost- 
 burg coal basin of Maryland, nine miles northwest of Cumberland, 
 two large blast furnaces were built in 1840, by the Mount Savage 
 Company, to use coke. This enterprise was also successful. But 
 the use of coke did not come rapidly into favor, and many experi- 
 ments with it were attended with loss. 
 
 In 1849 there were only four furnaces in Pennsylvania which 
 were classed as coke furnaces those of the Brady's Bend Iron 
 Company, and they made no iron in that year. In 1853 the 
 Cambria Iron Company built four coke furnaces at Johnstown, 
 which were blown in successfully, and have been in almost constant 
 operation to this day. In 1854, so slowly had the whole country 
 progressed in the manufacture of pig iron from raw bituminous 
 coal and coke, that the total production from these two kinds of 
 fuel in that year was only 54,485 net tons, Pennsylvania making 
 29,941 tons; Ohio, 15,000 tons; and other States, 9,544 tons. In 
 1876 the make of bituminous coal and coke pig iron in the whole 
 country exceeded that of anthracite, and was more than treble 
 that of charcoal. In that year the production of pig iron was as 
 follows : bituminous coal and coke, 990,009 net tons ; anthracite, 
 794,578 tons; charcoal, 308,649 tons: total, 2,093,236 net tons. 
 
 First Use of Anthracite Coal in the Manufacture of Pig Iron. 
 Down to 1838 all the blast furnaces in the United States, with 
 the exception of a few coke furnaces, used charcoal for fuel. In 
 that year pig iron was successfully made in Pennsylvania from 
 anthracite coal. We present below a complete account of the first 
 steps that were taken to use the new fuel in blast furnaces. 
 
 In 1840 Jesse B. Quinby testified, in the suit of Farr & Kunzi 
 against the Schuylkill Navigation Company, that he used anthra- 
 
FIRST ANTHRACITE PIG IRON IN THE UNITED STATES. 73 
 
 cite coal at Harford furnace, Maryland, mixed with one-half char- 
 coal, in 1815. He believed himself to be the first person in the 
 United States to use anthracite coal in smelting iron. In 1826 the 
 Lehigh Goal and Navigation Company erected near Mauch Chunk 
 a small furnace intended to use anthracite in smelting iron. The 
 enterprise was not successful. In 1827 unsuccessful experiments 
 in smelting iron with anthracite coal from Rhode Island were made 
 at one of the small blast furnaces in Kingston, Plymouth county, 
 Massachusetts. These experiments failed because the blast used 
 was cold. About 1827 a similar failure in the use of anthracite 
 took place at Vizille, in France. Doubtless other unsuccessful 
 attempts than those here recorded were made to smelt iron ore 
 with anthracite coal, but these were probably the earliest. 
 
 In 1828 Ja'mes B. Neilson, of Scotland, obtained a patent for the 
 use of hot air in the smelting of iron ore in blast furnaces, and in 
 1837 the smelting of iron ore with anthracite coal by means of the 
 Neilson hot-blast was successfully accomplished by George Crane, 
 at his ironworks at Ynyscedwin, in Wales. Mr. Crane began the 
 use of anthracite with hot blast on the 7th of February, 1837, in a 
 blast furnace, obtaining 36 tons a week. In May of that year Solo- 
 mon W. Roberts of Philadelphia visited his works and witnessed 
 the complete success of the experiment. Mr. Crane had taken out 
 a patent on the 28th of September, 1836, for smelting iron ore with 
 anthracite coal. Upon the recommendation of Mr. Roberts, after 
 his return from Wales, the Lehigh Crane Iron Company was organ- 
 ized in 1838 to manufacture pig iron from the anthracite coal of the 
 Lehigh valley. In that year Erskine Hazard went to Wales for 
 the company, and there made himself acquainted with the process 
 of making anthracite iron. He ordered to be made such machin- 
 ery as was necessary, under the direction of George Crane, the 
 inventor, and engaged David Thomas, who was familiar with the 
 process, to take charge of the erection of the works and the manu- 
 facture of the iron. Mr. Thomas arrived in the summer of 1839, and 
 to his faithful and intelligent management much of the success of 
 the enterprise is due. The first furnace of this company was suc- 
 cessfully blown in on the 4th of July, 1840. But it was not the 
 first successful anthracite furnace in this country, as will presently 
 appear. 
 
 On the 19th of December, 1833, a patent was granted to Dr. F. 
 W. Geissenheimer, of New York, for smelting iron ore with anthra- 
 cite coal, by the application of heated air. Dr. Geissenheimer made 
 
74 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 experiments in smelting iron ore with anthracite at the Valley 
 furnace, northeast of Pottsville, but they were not successful, 
 although the results achieved were highly encouraging. 
 
 In 1836-7 John Pott experimented at Manheim furnace, at 
 Cressona, in Schuylkill county, with anthracite coal as a fuel for 
 smelting iron ore. The experiment was so far successful as to 
 satisfy Mr. Pott that the scheme was practicable, but for some un- 
 explained reason the furnace was not operated for some time after 
 the experiment was made. It was then remodeled and enlarged to 
 better adapt it to the use of anthracite coal, but before the furnace 
 was quite ready to be blown in an ice freshet in the early spring of 
 1841 swept away furnace, forge, and all. This was the end of 
 Manheim ironworks. Mr. Pott is certainly entitled to the honor of 
 having been one of the first to satisfactorily experiment with 
 anthracite coal in the blast furnace. Of the character of the blast 
 used by him we are not advised. 
 
 In 1837 Jar vis Van Buren, acting for a company, built a furnace 
 at South Easton, in Northampton county, for the purpose of experi- 
 menting with anthracite coal as a fuel. Early in 1838 he was suc- 
 cessful in making twenty tons of pig iron, when further operations 
 were stopped in consequence of the blast being too weak. We are 
 not informed whether the blast was hot or cold. 
 
 Late in 1837 Messrs. Joseph Baughman, Julius Guiteau, and 
 Henry High, of Reading, experimented in smelting iron ore with 
 anthracite coal in the old furnace of the Lehigh Coal and Navi- 
 gation Company at Mauch Chunk, using about eighty per cent, 
 of anthracite. The results were so encouraging that they built a 
 small water-power furnace near the Mauch Chunk weigh-lock, 
 which was completed in July, 1838. Blast was applied to this 
 furnace August 27, and discontinued September 10, the tempera- 
 ture being heated up to about 200 F. The fuel used was mainly 
 anthracite, but not exclusively. A new heating apparatus was 
 procured, consisting of 200 feet of cast-iron pipe, 1 2 inches thick, 
 placed in a brick chamber at the tunnel head, and heated by a 
 flame therefrom. Blast was applied late in November, 1838, the 
 fuel used being anthracite exclusively, and " the furnace worked 
 remarkably well for five weeks," up to January 12, 1839, when it 
 was blown out for want of ore. Some improvements were made, and 
 on July 26, 1839, the furnace was again put in blast and so con- 
 tinued until November 2, 1839, Mr. F. C. Lowthrop, of Trenton, 
 being one of the partners at this time. For " about three months " 
 
FIRST ANTHRACITE PIG IRON IN THE UNITED STATES. 75 
 
 no other fuel than anthracite was used, the temperature of the blast 
 being 400 to 600 F. Open tuyeres were used. About 100 tons of 
 iron were made. 
 
 The next furnace to use anthracite was the Pioneer, built in 1837 
 and 1838 at Pottsville, by William Lyman, of Boston, under the 
 auspices of Burd Patterson, and blast was unsuccessfully applied 
 July 10, 1839. Benjamin Perry, who had blown in the coke fur- 
 nace at Farrandsville, then took charge of it, and blew it in 
 October 19, 1839, with complete success. This furnace was blown 
 by steam-power. The blast was heated in ovens at the base of the 
 furnace, with anthracite, to a temperature of 600, and supplied 
 through three tuyeres at a pressure of 2 to 2 2 Ibs. per square inch. 
 The product was about 28 tons a week of good foundry iron. The 
 furnace continued in blast for some time. A premium of $5,000 
 was paid by Nicholas Biddle and others to Mr. Lyman, as the first 
 person in the United States who had made anthracite pig iron 
 continuously for one hundred days. Danville furnace, in Montour 
 county, was built by Biddle, Chambers & Co., and was success- 
 fully blown in with anthracite in April, 1840, producing 35 tons of 
 iron weekly with steam-power. Roaring Creek furnace, in Montour 
 county, built in 1839 by Burd Patterson & Co., was next blown in 
 with anthracite, May 18, 1840, and produced 40 tons of iron weekly 
 with water-power. A charcoal furnace at Phoenixville, built in 
 1837 by Reeves, Buck & Co., was blown in with anthracite, June 17, 
 1840, by William Firmstone, and produced from 28 to 30 tons of 
 pig iron weekly with water-power. The hot-blast stove, which was 
 planned and erected by Julius Guiteau, of the Mauch Chunk fur- 
 nace, was situated on one side of the tunnel head, and heated by 
 the escaping flame of the furnace. This furnace continued in blast 
 until 1841. Columbia furnace, at Danville, was built in 1839 by 
 George Patterson, and blown in with anthracite by Mr. Perry on 
 July 2d, 1840, and made from 30 to 32 tons of iron weekly, using 
 steam-power. The next furnace to use anthracite, and the last one 
 we shall mention, was built at Catasauqua, for the Lehigh Crane 
 Iron Company, in 1839, by David Thomas. It was successfully 
 blown in by him on the 4th of July, 1840, as we have stated, and 
 produced 50 tons a week of good foundry iron, water-power being 
 used. Mr. Thomas was born in Wales in 1794, and is still living in 
 the full enjoyment of all his faculties. 
 
 Mr. Firrnstone writes that, at three of the above-mentioned fur- 
 naces, the Mauch Chunk, Phoenixville, and Columbia, the hot-blast 
 
IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 ovens were heated by the flame escaping from the furnace ; at the 
 others the ovens and boilers were on the ground, and heated by inde- 
 pendent fires. At that early day the plan, now so general, of con- 
 veying the escaping gas in air-tight conduits to the boilers and ovens 
 was not adopted. It was introduced by C. E. Detmold, a German 
 engineer, now of New York, two or three years later. This method y 
 which has since been greatly improved in American practice, was 
 patented in France by Thomas & Laurens, and in Germany by Faber 
 du Faur. Mr. Detmold was the agent of the last-named gentleman. 
 
 It will be observed that, while Mr. Neilson invented the hot blast, 
 Dr. Geissenheimer was the first to propose the use of anthracite coal 
 by means of heated air for the manufacture of pig iron, and that 
 Mr. Crane was the first to successfully apply the hot blast of Mr. 
 Neil son to this purpose. Dr. Geissenheimer experimented as early 
 as 1833 with ovens for heating air before its introduction into the 
 blast furnace in which anthracite was used as a fuel, and his patent 
 bears date in that year; but his invention was not successfully 
 applied until after Mr. Crane had made iron at Ynyscedwin. Dr. 
 Geissenheimer is entitled to the honor of having proposed what 
 Mr. Crane was the first to accomplish. His patent, limited to the 
 United States, was purchased by Mr. Crane, who, in November, 
 1838, patented some additions to it in this country. The patent 
 was never enforced here, but Mr. Crane compelled the ironmasters 
 of Great Britain to pay him tribute. Dr. Geissenheimer died at 
 Lebanon, Pa., where he had long resided. 
 
 The discovery, in 1839 and 1840, that anthracite coal could be 
 successfully used in the manufacture of pig iron gave a great 
 impetus to the iron industry in Maryland, New Jersey, and New 
 York, as well as in Pennsylvania. The rich magnetic ores of New 
 Jersey were first smelted with anthracite coal by Edwin Post, Esq., 
 at Stanhope, in 1840. On the 1st of January, 1876, there were 
 225 anthracite furnaces in the country ; 161 in Pennsylvania. 
 
 It is claimed that anthracite coal for the generation of steam was 
 first used in this country in 1825 under the boilers of the rolling- 
 mill at Phoenixville. It is also claimed that, two years later, in 
 1827, the first use of anthracite coal in the puddling furnace in this 
 country was at the same rolling-mill. Jonah and George Thomp- 
 son were the proprietors at the time. The use of anthracite for 
 puddling did not become general until about 1840. In 1839 Ralph 
 Crooker puddled with anthracite at the Boston Iron Company's 
 works. About 1836 Thomas and Peter Cooper, brothers, used an- 
 
FIEST BITUMINOUS PIG IRON IN THE UNITED STATES. 77 
 
 thracite in a heating furnace at their rolling-mill in Thirty-third 
 street, near Third avenue, New York, and about 1840 they began to 
 puddle with anthracite. 
 
 First Use of Raw Bituminous Coal in the Manufacture of Pig 
 Iron. The bituminous coal of Eastern Ohio and Western Penn- 
 sylvania was the first that was successfully used in this country in 
 its raw state for the reduction of iron ore in the blast furnace. 
 In 1843 Day writes that the coal in the vicinity of Sharon, without 
 coking, " has been tried successfully for smelting iron in a common 
 charcoal furnace." Doubtless only an experimental trial is here 
 alluded to. The further history of the beginning of this branch 
 of our iron industry is circumstantially and we believe correctly 
 stated in the following extract from a pamphlet entitled Youngs- 
 town, Past and Present, printed in 1875. 
 
 In July, 1845, Himrod & Vincent, of Mercer county, Pa., blew in the Clay 
 furnace, not many miles from the Ohio line, on the waters of the Shenango. 
 About three months afterwards, in consequence of a short supply of charcoal, 
 as stated by Mr. Davis, their founder, a portion of coke was used to charge 
 the furnace. Their coal belongs to seam No. 1, the seam which is now used 
 at Sharon and Youngstown, in its raw state, variously known as " free-burning 
 splint," or "block coal," and which never makes solid coke. A difficulty 
 soon occurred with the cokers, and, as Mr. Himrod states, he conceived the 
 plan of trying his coal without coking. The furnace continued to work well, 
 and to produce a fair quality of metal. At the same time Messrs. Wilkinson, 
 Wilkes & Co. were building a furnace on the Mahoning, at Lowell, Mahoning 
 county, Ohio, intending to use mineral coal from seam No. 1, on which they 
 owned a mine near Lowell. The credit of making the first iron with raw 
 bituminous or semi-bituminous coal, in the United States, belongs to one of 
 these firms. An account of the blowing in of the Lowell furnace, on the 8th 
 of August, 1846, may be seen in the Trumbull Democrat, of Warren, dated 
 August 15, 1846, where it is stated that to "these gentlemen (Wilkinson, 
 Wilkes & Co.) belongs the honor of being the first persons in the United States 
 who have succeeded in putting a furnace in blast with raw bituminous coal." 
 According to Mr. Wilkes, writing from Painesville, April 2, 1869, this furnace 
 was run with coke several months, but at what time it does not state. It is 
 admitted that Mr. David Himrod, late of Youngstown, produced the first metal 
 with raw coal, about the close of the year 1845, and has continued to use it ever 
 since. The friends of Wilkinson & Co. claim that it was an accident, and a 
 necessity, while their works were built and intended for raw coal. 
 
 In 1850 there were only four furnaces in the Mahoning valley 
 and only seven in Pennsylvania (in Mercer county) which used raw 
 bituminous coal. In 1876 there were in the country 206 furna- 
 ces using either raw or coked bituminous coal when in blast. 
 
78 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 First Use of Lake Superior Iron Ore in the Blast Furnace. 
 The honor of having first used the iron ore of Lake Superior in 
 a blast furnace is clearly due to David and John P. Agnew,, 
 brothers, proprietors of the Sharps ville furnace, at Sharpsville, 
 Mercer county, Pennsylvania. This occurred in 1853, the same 
 year in which three or four tons of the ore were shipped to the 
 World's Fair at New York. The ore used at Sharpsville was 
 procured from the Jackson mine, the pioneer of all the Lake 
 Superior iron mines, and was mined and shipped before the com- 
 pletion of the railroad to the mine or the building of the docks 
 at Marquette. The following extract from a letter which we have 
 received from Mr. David Agnew gives the leading facts of the 
 important experiment : 
 
 I claim that D. & J. P. Agnew were the first to use Lake Superior iron ore 
 in a blast furnace, (the Sharpsville,) and that the experiment was successful. 
 The facts are as follows: A small amount of Lake Superior ore was brought 
 from Lake Superior before the completion of the canal and locks at the outlet 
 of the lake, at a heavy expense, merely for trial. The first small canal-boat 
 load from Erie was by request brought to the Sharpsville furnace, and there 
 used as stated. The second boat-load was intended to be left at Clay furnace 
 but in mistake was brought on to Sharpsville, and the next day was reshipped 
 back to Clay furnace. The Sharon Iron Company, owning and controlling 
 this ore, (the Jackson mine,) had purchased the Clay furnace, and very natur- 
 ally wished to try it in their own furnace. These two small boat-loads carried 
 all the ore received from Lake Superior until the following year. (1854,) when 
 our connection with the Sharpsville furnace had ceased. The quantity used 
 by us was small, yet sufficient to establish our claim. 
 
 Mr. Frank Allen, who was the manager of Clay furnace in 
 1853, has published a statement which corroborates the above in 
 all essential particulars, but also shows that the Clay furnace was 
 the first in the country to make the manufacture of iron from 
 Lake Superior ore a regular business and a commercial success. 
 This result was not accomplished until 1856. Mr. Allen says : 
 
 On the last day of November, in 1853, Samuel Clark boated a load of said 
 ore from the Sharpsville furnace to the Clay furnace landing. We put it 
 through the furnace and sent the product to Sharon. The next season all 
 the Lake Superior ore left .over at the Sharpsville furnace was sent to us, and 
 during the years 1854-5, and until August, 1856, we had used in all about 
 400 tons of Lake Superior ore some of it alone, but most of it mixed with 
 other ores, and up to that date the working of it was not a success. 
 
 In October, 1856, we gave the Clay furnace a general overhauling, put in a 
 new lining and hearth, and made material changes in the construction of the 
 
FIKST CAST STEEL IN THE UNITED STATES. 79 
 
 same, put her in blast late in the fall, and in a few days were making a beau- 
 tiful article of iron from Lake Superior ore alone, and this was then consid- 
 ered to be the first real and successful working of said ore in a blast furnace. 
 
 Beginning of the Manufacture of Cast Steel in the United States. 
 German or blister steel was made at an early day in several of the 
 American colonies, and the steel made in Pennsylvania during the 
 last century and the early years of the present century was of this 
 description. Steel of this quality was used in the manufacture of 
 plowshares, scythes, shovels, spades, cross-cut and mill saws, etc. 
 In 1805 there were two steel furnaces in Pennsylvania, producing 
 annually 150 tons of steel. One of these was in Philadelphia coun- 
 ty. In 1810 there were produced in the country 917 tons of steel, of 
 which Pennsylvania produced 531 tons in five furnaces one each 
 in Philadelphia city, and in Philadelphia, Lancaster, Dauphin, and 
 Fayette counties. In 1813 there was a steel furnace at Pittsburgh, 
 owned by Tuper & McKowan. In 1829 an Englishman named 
 Broadmeadow and his son made blister steel at Pittsburgh, and 
 about 1831 they melted cast steel of low grade in pots of their own 
 manufacture. Their establishment was located at Bayardstown, 
 near the old Fifth Ward market-house. Josiah Ankrim & Son, file- 
 makers, at Pittsburgh, are said to have succeeded in making their 
 own steel about 1830. In 1831 Messrs. Whitmore & Havens suc- 
 cessfully produced blister steel at Pittsburgh. In this year there 
 were in the country fourteen steel furnaces for the manufacture 
 of low-grade steel two in Pittsburgh, one in Baltimore, three 
 in Philadelphia, three in New York, one in York, Pa., one in Troy, 
 two in New Jersey, and one in Boston. Their united capacity was 
 1,600 tons of steel annually. No crucible cast steel was then made 
 in the United States, although there had been various unsuccessful 
 attempts to make it. In 1833 the firm of G. & J. H. Shoenberger 
 commenced to manufacture blister steel at Pittsburgh, and in 1841 
 they attempted the manufacture of crucible cast steel, but only to 
 add another to the list of failures. About 1840 the firm of Isaac 
 Jones & William Coleman was formed at Pittsburgh to manufac- 
 ture blister and spring steel, which business they successfully 
 prosecuted until 1845, when they were succeeded by Jones & 
 Quigg, who built the Pittsburgh steel works. In 1846 Coleman, 
 Hailman & Co. commenced the manufacture of blister and plow 
 steel at Pittsburgh. Both of these firms were successful in making 
 
80 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 all but first quality cast steel. The first slab of cast plow steel 
 ever rolled in America was rolled by William Woods, at the steel 
 works of Jones & Quigg, in 1846, and shipped to John Deere, of 
 Moline, Illinois. About 1846 the firm of Tingle & Sugden, file- 
 makers, at Pittsburgh, made their own steel. In 1850 the manu- 
 facture of American steel, all of low-grade quality, cast and blister, 
 was confined to a few establishments, nearly all of which were in 
 Pennsylvania. In that year thirteen establishments in Pennsyl- 
 vania made 6,078 tons of steel, of which only 44 tons were cast 
 steel. Of the thirteen establishments, six were in Pittsburgh. 
 
 The following is a list of all the works in the State engaged in 
 the conversion of steel in 1850, with their product : James Row- 
 land & Co., Kensington, Philadelphia, 600 tons ; J. Robbins, Ken- 
 sington, 500 tons ; Earp & Brink, Kensington, 100 tons ; Robert S. 
 Johnson, Kensington, 400 tons ; W. & H. Rowland, Oxford, Phila- 
 delphia, 700 tons ; R. & G. D. Coleman, Martic, Lancaster county, 
 400 tons ; R. H. & W. Coleman, Castlefin, York county, 100 tons ; 
 Singer, Hartman & Co., Pittsburgh, Allegheny county, 700 tons ; 
 Coleman, Hailman & Co. , Pittsburgh, 800 tons ; Jones & Quigg, 
 Pittsburgh, 1,200 tons; Spang & Co., Pittsburgh, 200 tons; G. & 
 J. H. Shoenberger, Pittsburgh, 200 tons; S. McKelvy, Pittsburgh, 
 178 tons, these works having been in operation only six months : 
 total, 13 works, with an annual product of 6,078 tons. Of this 
 quantity only 44 tons were cast steel, as already stated. 
 
 In 1852 McKelvy & Blair, of Pittsburgh, made cast steel of 
 good quality, but not of the best. In 1853 the firm of Singer, Nim- 
 ick & Co., of Pittsburgh, which had been organized in 1848, and 
 in 1855 Isaac Jones, then doing business in his own name, were 
 successful in producing the higher grades of cast steel for saw, 
 machinery, and agricultural purposes, but they did not make tool 
 steel of the best quality as a regular product. That honor was 
 reserved for a new firm, beginning business in 1859. In that year 
 the firm of Hussey, Wells & Co. was successful in making cruci- 
 ble cast steel of best quality as a regular product at Pittsburgh, 
 and three years later the firm of Park, Brother & Co., also of 
 Pittsburgh, accomplished the same achievement. These were, we 
 believe, the first firms in the country to meet with complete success 
 in this difficult department of American manufacturing enterprise. 
 Hussey, Wells & Co. were also the first in the country to fully 
 demonstrate the fact that American iron is equal to the best 
 Swedish iron in the manufacture of best cast steel. 
 
INTRODUCTION OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS. 81 
 
 The manufacture of crucible and other steel in this country has 
 received an immense impetus since 1860. In that year there were 
 thirteen steel-making establishments in the country, and in 1870 
 there were thirty, all devoted to the manufacture of steel other 
 than Bessemer. In 1876, omitting Bessemer works, there were 
 sixty steel works in the United States, of which thirty-nine made 
 crucible cast steel, and the remainder made puddled steel, open- 
 hearth steel, or steel from steel scrap. Of the thirty-nine which 
 made crucible steel, seven also made German or blister steel. Of 
 these thirty-nine works, nineteen were located in Pennsylvania, 
 most of them in Pittsburgh and its vicinity. 
 
 Introduction of the Bessemer Process into the United States. The 
 origin of the pneumatic or Bessemer process for converting pig iron 
 into steel, through which a complete revolution in the manufacture 
 of iron has already been effected, is scarcely twenty years old, al- 
 though experiments looking to this result were commenced about 
 twenty-six years ago. The process has been briefly explained to 
 consist in forcing into molten pig iron, contained in a suitable vessel 
 called a converter, streams of air under a high pressure, and, by the 
 combination thus effected between the oxygen of the air and the 
 carbon and silicon in the iron, decarburizing and desiliconizing the 
 metal to the extent necessary to produce the desired temper of steel ; 
 the product thus made being cast into ingots or other forms, and 
 treated in like manner as is customary in working cast steel. 
 
 The first person to suggest and to experiment upon the blowing of 
 air into and through molten crude iron in a crucible or vessel with- 
 out the use of fuel to retain the metal in the molten condition is 
 believed to have been William Kelly, an ironmaster of Eddyville, 
 Kentucky, who began at his furnace (Suwaunee) a series of experi- 
 ments based upon this theory as early as 1851, a theory or principle 
 which he patented in 1857. Henry Bessemer, of England, whose 
 name has been given to the pneumatic process, secured his first pat- 
 ents for the manufacture of steel in 1855, but he did not announce 
 his discovery of the pneumatic process until February 12, 1856, when 
 it was patented. Mr. Bessemer secured patents in this country in 
 the same year, but Mr. Kelly's claim of priority of invention was 
 subsequently allowed by the Patent Office. But neither Mr. Kelly 
 nor Mr. Bessemer was successful in making steel by the method 
 each had respectively adopted. 
 
82 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Mr. Bessemer's process having failed to produce any successful 
 result in the manufacture of steel, Robert F. Mushet, then of the 
 Forest steel works, and now of Cheltenham, England, took out, on 
 the 22d of September, 1856, a patent for his process of adding to 
 molten pneumatized iron a molten triple compound of iron, carbon, 
 and manganese, of which compound spiegeleisen was at that time 
 the cheapest and most convenient form. The addition of from one 
 to five per cent, of this compound to Bessemerized cast iron at once 
 overcame the obstacle which had been fatal to the success of Mr. 
 Bessemer's invention. Pending the publication of Mr. Mushet's 
 patent, early in 1857, and during the erection for him of a blowing 
 apparatus and small converter, provided by the late Samuel Holdeii 
 Blackwell, of Dudley, Mr. Mushet obtained from the Ebbw Vale 
 Iron Company a supply of Bessemerized hematite cast iron. This 
 he melted in ordinary steel melting-pots, adding to the forty-four 
 pounds' charge of each pot, when melted, two pounds of melted 
 spiegeleisen. From this mixture ingots of from 500 to 800 pounds 
 were cast, and one of these ingots was rolled at the Ebbw Vale iron- 
 works into a double-headed rail, which was sent to Derby railway 
 station, on the Midland Railroad, to be laid down there at a place 
 where iron rails had sometimes to be renewed within three months. 
 This was early in 1857. Sixteen years afterwards, in June, 1873, 
 the rail referred to was taken out. This was the first Bessemer steel 
 rail ever laid down, and during its life-time about 1,250,000 trains 
 and a like number of detached engines and tenders passed over it. 
 
 Having, early in 1857, obtained the already-mentioned blowing 
 apparatus and converter, Mr. Mushet was enabled in that year to 
 cast small ingots of tool steel by the direct Bessemer process, with 
 the addition of spiegeleisen by his own process. The first charge of 
 Bessemer steel ever made with the addition of spiegeleisen was tapped 
 from the small converter at Mr. Mushet's Forest steel works by a 
 young workman, William Phelps, an iron miner, who is now, if 
 living, a citizen of the United States. 
 
 In 1858 Mr. Goran Goransson, a Swedish ironmaster, operating 
 upon fine manganesic Swedish pig iron, w r as enabled to produce 
 Bessemer steel of excellent quality without adding spiegeleisen. 
 Since then the Bessemer process has made rapid progress. Except 
 in a few instances, when pure manganesic pig iron can be obtained, 
 Mr. Mushet's process still continues to be absolutely essential in 
 the manufacture of Bessemer steel. But Mr. Mushet, from adverse 
 causes, over which he had no control, never received in his own 
 
INTRODUCTION OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS. 83 
 
 country, nor in any European country, the reward which was fairly 
 due to him. The Iron and Steel Institute of England, however, in 
 1876 awarded to him the Bessemer gold medal for that year, in 
 recognition of the great value of his discovery. 
 
 While the Bessemer process was being perfected abroad, Mr, 
 Kelly was experimenting with his invention in this country. These 
 experiments were largely conducted in 1857-8-9 at the Cambria 
 ironworks, at Johnstown. The first pneumatic converter in Amer- 
 ica was built at Johnstown for Mr. Kelly, but no true steel was con- 
 verted in it, although refined iron was successfully produced. 
 
 In May, 1863, E. B. Ward, of Detroit, Hon. Daniel J. Morrell, 
 of Johnstown, William M. Lyon and James Park, Jr., of Pittsburgh, 
 and Z. S. Durfee, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, having obtained 
 control of the patents of William Kelly, organized the Kelly Pro- 
 cess Company, under an agreement which gave the inventor and 
 his representatives an interest which has proved to be valuable. 
 The company resolved to establish experimental works, and also to 
 acquire the patents in this country of Mr. Mushet for the use of 
 spiegeleisen. Experimental works were accordingly established at 
 Wyandotte, Michigan, and Mr. Durfee was sent to England to 
 procure an assignment of Mr. Mushet's patents. The latter pur- 
 pose was effected on the 24th of October, 1864, upon terms which 
 admitted Mr. Mushet, Thomas D. Clare, and John N. Brown, of 
 England, to membership in the Kelly Process Company. On the 
 5th of September, 1865, the company was further enlarged by the 
 admission to membership of Charles P. Chouteau, James Harrison, 
 and Felix Valle, all of St. Louis. 
 
 The control in this country of Mr. Bessemer's original process, 
 with all of the machinery necessary to its application, was obtained 
 in 1864 by John F. Winslow, John A. Griswold, and Alexander L. 
 Holley, all of Troy, New York, Mr. Holley visiting England in the 
 interest of himself and associates. In the fall of that year the licen- 
 sees of the Kelly patents succeeded in making Bessemer steel at 
 their experimental works at Wyandotte, the works being under the 
 general direction of William F. Durfee, who then made the first 
 Bessemer steel in America. In February, 1865, Mr. Holley was 
 successful at Troy in producing Bessemer steel at experimental 
 works which he had constructed at that place in 1864 for the 
 licensees of the Bessemer patents, Messrs. Winslow, Griswold and 
 Holley. But as the licensees of the Kelly patents could not achieve 
 success without Mr. Bessemer's machinery, and as the owners of 
 
34 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 the right to use this machinery could not make steel without Mr. 
 Mushet's improvement, an arrangement was effected by which all 
 the patents were consolidated early in 1866. Under this arrange- 
 ment, the titles to the Kelly, Bessemer, and Mushet patents were 
 vested in Messrs. Winslow, Griswold, and Morrell, the first two 
 being owners of two-thirds of the property, and Mr. Morrell hold- 
 ing the other third in trust for the members of the Kelly Process 
 Company. This arrangement continued until the formation of the 
 Pneumatic Steel Association, a joint-stock company organized under 
 the laws of New York, in which the ownership of the consolidated 
 patents was continued, Mr. Morrell being the president and Z. S. 
 Durfee the secretary and treasurer. The consolidation, in 1866, of 
 the various interests, which was effected mainly through the exer- 
 tions of Mr. Morrell, was followed by a large reduction in the fees 
 and royalties charged to licensees, and thenceforward the business of 
 making Bessemer steel was rapidly extended in this country. The 
 Pennsylvania steel works, at Harrisburg, were the first works in 
 the country, after those at Troy, to make Bessemer steel as a com- 
 mercial product, their first blow taking place in June, 1867. The 
 fourth Bessemer steel works in the country were erected near Lew- 
 istown, Pa., and were known as the Freedom iron and steel works. 
 They made their first blow May 1, 1868. They did not produce 
 a good quality of steel, and in 1870 the company failed and the 
 works were abandoned. To-day Pennsylvania possesses five out of 
 eleven Bessemer steel establishments in the United States. 
 
 Important improvements upon Mr. Bessemer's machinery have 
 been invented and patented by Mr. Holley and other American en- 
 gineers, and the blooming mill for the reduction of steel ingots, 
 erected first at the Cambria ironworks by George Fritz and patent- 
 ed by him, has proved to be of great value. The Bessemer process 
 has also been improved by the professional chemists connected 
 with the American works, who are gradually emancipating the do- 
 mestic manufacture from all dependence upon foreign metals and 
 ores. It is universally admitted that in the United States this 
 industry has been brought to a higher state of perfection than it 
 has attained in any other country. 
 
 The first Bessemer steel rails ever rolled in this country were 
 rolled at the North Chicago rolling-mill, on the 24th day of May, 
 1865, from hammered blooms made at the Wyandotte rolling-mill 
 from ingots of steel made at the experimental steel works at Wyan- 
 dotte. The American Iron and Steel Association was in session at 
 
INTRODUCTION OF THE SIEMENS GAS FURNACE. 85 
 
 Chicago at the time, and several of its members witnessed the roll- 
 ing of these rails. One of the rails was taken to the hall occupied 
 by the Association, and exhibited, and was subsequently placed on 
 exhibition in the lobby of the Tremont House. The rolls upon 
 which the blooms were rolled at the North Chicago rolling-mill 
 were those which had been in use for rolling iron rails, and, though 
 the reduction was quite too rapid for steel, the rails came out sound 
 and well shaped. Several of these rails were laid in the track of 
 one of the railroads running out of Chicago, and were still in use 
 in 1875. The first steel rails rolled in the United States upon 
 order, in the way of regular business, were rolled by the Cambria 
 Iron Company, at Johnstown, Pa., in August, 1867, from ingots 
 made at the works of the Pennsylvania Steel Company, at Harris- 
 burg, Pa. ; and by the Spuyten Duyvil Rolling-Mill Company, at 
 Spuyten Duyvil, N. Y., early in September of that year, from ingots 
 made at the Bessemer steel works, at Troy, N. Y., then owned by 
 Messrs. Winslow & Griswold. 
 
 Introduction of the Siemens Gas Furnace and Siemens- Martin Pro- 
 cess into the United States. In 1856 Dr. C. W. Siemens, of London, 
 England, the present president of the Iron and Steel Institute of 
 that country, gave his attention, in conjunction with his brother, 
 Frederick Siemens, both of whom were natives of Hanover, in Ger- 
 many, to the construction of a gas furnace for the manufacture 
 of iron, steel, glass, and other products which require a high and 
 uniform heat. These gentlemen were successful in inventing the 
 Siemens regenerative gas furnace, which has since been largely 
 adopted in Europe and in this country. In 1864 Messrs. Emile and 
 Pierre Martin, of the Sireuil Works, in France, with the assistance of 
 Dr. Siemens, erected one of these furnaces to melt steel. In this 
 furnace they produced cast steel of good quality and various tempers, 
 and at the Paris Exposition of 1867 their product secured for them 
 a gold medal. The Messrs. Martin subsequently obtained patents for 
 various inventions of their own which were applicable to the manu- 
 facture of steel by the Siemens furnace. 
 
 Dr. Siemens had given his attention to the production of cast 
 steel upon the hearth of a Siemens furnace since 1861, but had en- 
 countered great practical difficulties in establishing the process at 
 the works of licensees of his furnace, namely, Charles Attwood, at 
 Tow Law, in 1862, and the Barrow hematite works and the Four- 
 chambault works in 1863 and 1864. Dr. Siemens claims, in a letter 
 
IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 that is now before us, that, both at Tow Law and Fourchambault, 
 oast steel had been produced upon the open hearth of a Siemens 
 furnace, which had been specially constructed by himself for that 
 purpose, from pig metal, spiegeleisen, and scrap iron, previous to 
 Messrs. Martins' connection with the process. The furnace at Tow 
 Law was a small one, and several such furnaces are still working 
 there in the manner originally designed by Dr. Siemens. 
 
 In 1865 Dr. Siemens commenced the erection at Birmingham, 
 in England, of steel works of his own, in which the regenerative 
 furnace should be used in producing steel. These works, which 
 were fully equipped for service in 1867, have produced most satis- 
 factory results. The Messrs. Martin gave their attention, in the 
 language of Dr. Siemens, to the production of steel by the dissolu- 
 tion of wrought iron and steel scrap in a bath of pig metal, while 
 his efforts were more especially directed to the production of steel 
 by the use of pig metal and iron ores, either in the raw state or in 
 a more or less reduced condition, which latter process is the one 
 mostly employed in the United Kingdom to-day. The former, or 
 Siemens-Martin process, is the one that is chiefly used in this 
 country, and the credit of introducing it is due to Hon. Abram S. 
 Hewitt, of New York, who was favorably impressed with it when 
 visiting the Paris Exposition in 1867 as a commissioner of the 
 United States. By his request, Mr. Frederick J. Slade, his busi- 
 ness associate, went to Sireuil to study the process in order to put it 
 into practice in this country. 
 
 On the 1st of December, 1862, Park, McCurdy & Co., of Pitts- 
 burgh, sent Mr. Lewis Powe, the manager of their copper mill, to 
 England to study the manufacture of tin plates. While there he 
 visited Birmingham, and saw a Siemens gas furnace and procured 
 one of the Siemens pamphlets containing a full description of it. 
 On his return home he called the attention of Mr. James Park, 
 Jr., to the advantages of the furnace. Immediately after July 
 4, 1863, the erection of a Siemens gas furnace was commenced at 
 the copper works. This furnace was erected for the purpose of 
 melting and refining copper, and was completed on the 14th day 
 of August, 1863. It worked well. It was constructed after the 
 drawings contained in the Siemens pamphlet. In the fall of 1863 
 Mr. Powe revisited England, and while there had an interview 
 with Dr. Siemens. Soon afterwards the firm of Park, Brother & 
 Co. built a Siemens furnace to heat steel, but it was not long in 
 use. In 1864 James B. Lyon & Co., of Pittsburgh, built a 
 
INTRODUCTION OF THE SIEMENS GAS FURNACE. 87 
 
 Siemens gas furnace for making glass. The enterprise, however, 
 although mechanically successful, met with an accident which 
 suddenly brought it to an end. It is proper to state that the 
 introduction into this country of the Siemens furnace by the 
 above-named firms was accomplished in an irregular manner, 
 without first obtaining a license from Dr. Siemens, who had pat- 
 ented his invention. 
 
 The first Siemens gas furnace which was regularly introduced 
 into this country for any purpose was built by John A. Griswold 
 & Co., at Troy, New York, and used as a heating furnace in their 
 rolling-mill, the license having been granted on the 18th of Septem- 
 ber, 1867. The next gas furnace which was regularly introduced 
 was used as a heating furnace by the Nashua Iron and Steel Com- 
 pany, of New Hampshire, the license for which was granted on the 
 26th of September, 1867. The next furnace which was regularly 
 introduced was built by Anderson & Woods, of Pittsburgh, for 
 melting steel in pots, the license for which was dated in November, 
 1867. About 1869 the Lenox plate-glass works in Massachusetts 
 also built a Siemens gas furnace. All of these furnaces gave 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The first open-hearth furnace introduced into this country for the 
 manufacture of steel by the Siemens-Martin process was built in 
 1868 by Cooper, Hewitt & Co., proprietors of the works of the 
 New Jersey Steel and Iron Company at Trenton, New Jersey. 
 The building of this furnace was commenced by this company in 
 the spring of 1868, and in December of the same year it was put 
 in operation. 
 
 The first successful application in this country of the Siemens 
 furnace to the puddling of iron was under the direction of Mr. 
 William F. Durfee, at the rolling-mill of the American Silver Steel 
 Company, at Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1869. Prior to this an 
 unsuccessful attempt was made to accomplish the same result at 
 the Eagle rolling-mill of James Wood & Company, at Saw Mill 
 run, near Pittsburgh. 
 
 On the 1st of May, 1877, there had been built in this country 
 187 Siemens gas furnaces for use in the manufacture of steel and 
 of iron and steel products, 88 of which were in Pennsylvania. Of 
 the whole number, 35 were used in the production of crucible 
 steel, 30 of which were in Pennsylvania, and 21 were used in 
 the production of open-hearth steel, of which 5 were in Pennsyl- 
 vania. In the year 1876 there were produced in the United States 
 
88 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 21,490 net tons of open-hearth steel, of which Pennsylvania made 
 7,547 tons. 
 
 Experimental works have been erected at Pittsburgh in 1877, by 
 Messrs. Park, Brother & Co., in conjunction with Messrs. Miller, 
 Metcalf & Parkin, for the manufacture of wrought iron by a direct 
 process invented by Dr. Siemens, and successfully tested by him at 
 his experimental works at Towcester, England. The process em- 
 bodies the application of the Siemens gas furnace. 
 
 The Whitwell Hot Blast was first applied in this country to the 
 Rising Fawn furnace, in Dade county, Georgia, June 18th, 1875. 
 The first application of this hot-blast in Pennsylvania was made at 
 the Dunbar furnace, in Fayette county, in February, 1877. 
 
 First Iron Rails Made in the United States. It has been stated 
 by an English writer that the first rails used upon the Stockton 
 and Darlington Railroad, the first complete railroad in the world, 
 which was opened in 1825, were of wrought iron, rolled fish-bellied, 
 with half-lap joints and weighing 28 pounds per yard : a small 
 portion of the line was laid with cast-iron fish-bellied rails. 
 
 The first iron rails of any kind that were made in this country 
 were made of cast iron. Solomon W. Roberts gives us this infor- 
 mation concerning them: "The Lehigh Coal and Navigation 
 Company made a short section of experimental railroad in the 
 summer of 1826, at its foundry at the upper end of the town of 
 Mauch Chunk, and a car was run upon it. The idea then was to 
 make a road with rails and chairs of cast iron, like those in use at 
 the coal mines in the North of England. After casting a good 
 many rails, each about four feet long, the plan was given up on 
 account of its being too expensive." 
 
 Many years elapsed after the first railroad was built in this coun- 
 try before iron rails were made in American rolling-mills. Among 
 the proposals to furnish rails for the Columbia and Philadelphia 
 Railroad, received in May, 1831, there were none for American 
 iron, and the whole quantity was purchased in England. Previous 
 to the passage of the tariff act of 1842, rails were admitted into 
 this country virtually free of duty. On the passage of that act 
 some American capitalists began to think about making our own 
 rails. 
 
 A few flat rails had been rolled prior to 1842, but such rails 
 were only bar iron. On the Mauch Chunk Railroad, built in 1827, 
 
FIRST IRON RAILS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES. 89 
 
 the wooden stringers were strapped with common merchant bar 
 iron, the flat bars being about one inch and a half wide and three- 
 eighths of an inch thick. The holes for the spikes were drilled by 
 hand. The flat rails which were afterwards made differed from 
 merchant bars of the same size only in this, that the rail in its last 
 passage through the rolls became indented, or countersunk, at regu- 
 lar distances. The centre of the countersunk surface was after- 
 wards punched through for admitting the spike. As late as 1837, 
 when the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad was in course of construc- 
 tion from Toledo to Adrian, it was proposed to put down wooden 
 rails, of oak studding four inches square, and to draw the cars by 
 horses. But wiser counsels prevailed, and by great exertions suffi- 
 cient funds were obtained to enable the management to iron the road 
 with flat rails five-eighths of an inch thick. Flat rails continued 
 in use in this country, notwithstanding the introduction of heavier 
 rails, down to about 1850. "It was not until 1850 that the longitu- 
 dinal sill and the flat rail were entirely removed from the Utica and 
 Schenectady Railroad, the most important link in the New York 
 Central line." 
 
 In 1844 the manufacture of heavy iron rails in this country was 
 commenced at the Mount Savage rolling-mill, in Alleghany county, 
 Maryland, erected in 1843 especially for rolling these rails. The 
 first rail rolled at the Mount Savage rolling-mill, and for which 
 the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia struck a silver medal, was 
 a U rail, known in Wales as the Evans patent, of Dowlais iron- 
 works, Merthyr Tydvil. It was intended to be laid on a wooden 
 longitudinal sill, and was fastened to it by an iron wedge, keying 
 under the sill, thus doing away with outside fastenings. This rail 
 weighed 42 Ibs. to the yard, and about 500 tons of it were laid in 
 1844 on a part of the road then being built between Mount Sav- 
 age and Cumberland, a distance of nine miles. It was understood 
 at the time to be the first heavy railroad iron made in America. 
 
 The Montour rolling-mill, at Danville, Pa., was built in 1845 
 expressly to roll rails, and here were rolled in October of that year 
 the first T rails made in the country. The first T rail rolls made 
 in this country were made for the Montour Iron Company by the 
 firm of Haywood & Snider, proprietors of the Colliery ironworks 
 at Pottsville, the work being done at their branch establishment at 
 Danville. The Boston ironworks were started in January, 1824, 
 to manufacture cut nails, hoops, and tack plates, but they subse- 
 quently rolled rails, and on the 6th of May, 1846, they rolled the 
 
90 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 first T rails in Massachusetts, Ralph Crocker being superintendent. 
 In 1845 the rolling-mill of Cooper & Hewitt was built at Tren- 
 ton, N. J., to roll heavy rails, and on the 19th of June, 1846, 
 their first rail was rolled. About the 1st of September, 1846, 
 the New England Iron Company, at Providence, Rhode Island, 
 commenced to roll T rails. The first lot of these rails rolled 
 by the company was delivered to the Providence and Worcester 
 Railroad, September 11, 1846. T rails were rolled in November, 
 1846, at Phoenixville, Pa.; in the fall of the same year at the 
 Great Western ironworks at Brady's Bend, Pa.; early in 1847 
 at the Bay State rolling-mill, in Massachusetts, then owned by 
 the Massachusetts Iron Company; in January, 1848, at the Rough- 
 and-Ready rolling-mill at Danville, Pa. ; and in the same year at 
 Safe Harbor, Pa. All the T rails made at the mills above men- 
 tioned were rolled with a base or flange similar to that of the 
 present T rail. A few other mills rolled heavy rails before 1850, 
 but at the beginning of that year, owing to low duties, only two out 
 of fifteen rail-mills in the country were in operation. It has been 
 claimed that heavy rails in this country were first made at 
 Brady's Bend; but this is a mistake, as the dates above fully 
 show. The mill at this place was built in 1841, as a merchant 
 bar mill, and any rails that it may have made prior to the fall 
 of 1846 were flat rails. The first shipment of T rails made by 
 the company was in June, 1847, by keel-boat on the Allegheny 
 river to Pittsburgh. 
 
 The first T rails imported into this country were made to be fitted 
 into cast-iron chairs, resting upon square stone blocks, but in a few 
 years wooden cross-ties were used instead of the blocks. On the 
 Boston and Lowell Railroad, which was completed in 1835, stone 
 cross-ties were at first laid, some of which were in use as late as 
 1852. A thin wedge or key of wrought iron was driven between 
 the inside of the chair and the rail, to keep the latter firmly in 
 its place, and the operation of " driving keys " had to be repeated 
 almost every day, owing to the tendency of moving trains to loosen 
 them. Rails of this pattern were used for many years upon the 
 Allegheny Portage Railroad in Pennsylvania, and many of the 
 stone blocks can now be seen in its abandoned bed. A writer on 
 railroads, in Johnson's Cyclopaedia, states that the first T rails intro- 
 duced into this country were laid on the New Orleans and Pont- 
 chartrain Railroad in 1831. Assuming that the statement is cor- 
 rect, the pattern used was undoubtedly that which we have just 
 
IRON SHIPBUILDING IN THE UNITED STATES. 91 
 
 described. Rails made with the broad base now found in all T 
 rails are said to have been first made in England about 1836, for 
 the Camden and Amboy Railroad of New Jersey, and the inno- 
 vation is also said to have been the result of a futile effort to 
 roll a rail and chair in one piece. In a notice of Robert Livings- 
 ton Stevens, in the American Cyclopaedia, it is stated that " in 
 1836 he introduced the T rail on the Camden and Amboy Rail- 
 road, of which he was president for many years." The refer- 
 ence here is doubtless to the present form of the T rail. It 
 seems strange that this form of rail should not have become 
 generally popular in this country until many years after 1836. 
 
 The first thirty-foot rail rolled in this country is claimed to have 
 been rolled at the Cambria ironworks at Johnstown, Pa., in 1855. 
 These rails were perfectly made, but there being no demand for them 
 they were used in the company's tracks. It is claimed that the first 
 thirty-foot rails rolled in the country on order were rolled at the 
 Montour rolling-mill, in January, 1859, for the Sunbury and Erie 
 Railroad Company. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that, in 1876, one rolling-mill in Pennsyl- 
 vania, the Cambria ironworks, rolled the largest aggregate of rails 
 ever rolled in one year by one mill in this country. Its produc- 
 tion of rails in that year was 103,743 net tons, of which 47,643 tons 
 were iron rails and 56,100 tons were steel rails. Beginning busi- 
 ness in 1853, it has since that year manufactured one-tenth of the 
 total product of American rails. 
 
 Iron Shipbuilding in the United States. The business of iron 
 shipbuilding in this country may properly be said to date from the 
 year 1839, when an iron steamboat was built at Pittsburgh, being 
 the first enterprise of the kind in the United States. The vessel 
 was called the Valley Forge. For general navigation purposes it 
 was completely successful. Other iron vessels were subsequently 
 built at Pittsburgh which fully realized the hopes of their builders, 
 among them an iron schooner for ocean service, and an iron steam- 
 er, the Michigan, for service on the lakes both built by order of the 
 government about 1842. In that year Captain John Ericsson, of 
 New York, furnished designs for four freight propeller iron steamers 
 which were built for the Delaware and Raritan Canal, each 96 feet 
 long, 24 feet beam, and 7 feet deep. In 1843 there were also built 
 after his designs the propeller iron steamer Legare, for the revenue 
 
92 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 service, 150 feet long, 26 feet beam, and 10 feet deep, and four pro- 
 peller boats for the Erie Canal, each 80 feet long, 14 feet beam, and 
 6 feet deep. In the same year Captain Ericsson built two steam 
 passenger boats of iron to run on the James River Canal, in Vir- 
 ginia, and about the same time other small iron vessels were built 
 after his designs. In 1846 an iron passenger steamer, the Iron 
 Witch, 220 feet long, 27 feet beam, and 13 feet deep, was built at 
 New York, after a design furnished by Captain Ericsson, to run on 
 the Hudson river to Albany. About 1844 R. B. Forbes, of Boston, 
 built a powerful iron wrecking vessel of 1,200 tons burden. The 
 building of iron vessels made but slow progress, however, until after 
 1860. 
 
 During the civil war monitors and other iron vessels were 
 built by the government, and Pittsburgh furnished many of the 
 armor-plates which were required for them. The contract for 
 the construction of the first turreted iron-clad vessel in the world, 
 Ericsson's Monitor, was made by the United States Navy Depart- 
 ment on the 4th of October, 1861, with Captain Ericsson, and on 
 the 9th of March following it met and vanquished the Confederate 
 iron-clad Merrimack. The Monitor foundered on the 13th of De- 
 cember, 1862, in a storm off Cape Hatteras, the accident being 
 caused by mismanagement of the turret. 
 
 The history of the construction of this historic vessel and of 
 other monitors built during the war is worthy of preservation, 
 although not embracing all the monitors, and we give it as follows 
 in an extract from a letter we have received from Captain Ericsson. 
 We sought in vain for this information in all the histories of the war. 
 
 The Monitor was built under contract between the Secretary of the Navy 
 and John Ericsson, whose sureties were John F. Winslow and John A. 
 Griswold of Troy, and C. S. Bushnell of New Haven. The Monitor in all its 
 parts was designed by me hull, turret, steam machinery, anchor-hoister, gun- 
 carriages, etc., all were built from working drawings made by my own hands, 
 furnishing the rare instance of such a structure in all its details emanating 
 from a single person. In carrying out the contract I employed the N Novelty 
 ironworks to build the turret; the Delamater ironworks to build the 
 motive-engines, propeller, boilers, turret-gear, anchor-hoister, gun-carriages, 
 and all other machinery ; while I employed Thomas F. Rowland, of Green- 
 point, to build the hull, attach the side armor, and launch the vessel a 
 difficult undertaking, which he carried out with much skill. The turret- 
 plating and armor-plating, composed of a series of plates one inch thick, 
 were rolled by H. Abbott & Son, of Baltimore. 
 
 Six monitor iron-clads of the Passaic class, viz., the Passaic, Montauk, 
 
IRON SHIPBUILDING IN THE UNITED STATES. 93 
 
 Catskill, Patapsco, Sangamon, and Lehigh, were also built under contract 
 between the Secretary of the Navy and myself, the sureties being the gentle- 
 men already mentioned. Of these six vessels, three were built in New York 
 and three on the Delaware. I also built, under direct contract with the 
 Secretary of the Navy, the large monitor iron-clads, Dictator and Puritan, 
 the hull of the latter being built by Thomas F. Kowland, at Greenpoint, 
 while the hull of the Dictator was built in New York by the Delamater iron- 
 works. This establishment also built the turrets and furnished the entire 
 machinery for both vessels, likewise from working drawings prepared by me. 
 Four other monitor iron-clads of the Passaic class were also built by other 
 parties, viz., Weehawken and Camanche, built at Jersey City, and the Nahant 
 and Nantucket at Boston. The working drawings were, however, furnished 
 by myself. The entire armor-plating and nearly the whole of the hull- 
 plating of the several monitor iron-clads built by me were rolled by H. Abbott 
 <& Son, of Baltimore. The heavy forgings employed in constructing the 
 turrets and steam machinery of the foregoing iron-clads were furnished by 
 the Bridgewater ironworks, of Massachusetts. 
 
 The following monitor iron-clads were also built after my plans : Catawba 
 and Oneota, built at Niles Works, Cincinnati; Tippecanoe, built by Miles 
 Greenwood, Cincinnati ; Mahopac and Tecumseh, built by Secor & Co., Jersey 
 City ; Manhattan, by Ferine, Secor & Co., Jersey City ; Canonicus, by Harrison 
 Loring, Boston, Mass. ; Manayunk, by Snowden & Mason, Pittsburgh ; 
 JSaugus, by Harlan & Hollingsworth, Wilmington, Del. 
 
 The Umpqua, another monitor, was built at Pittsburgh in 1863. 
 Among the iron vessels additional to the monitors which were 
 built during the war may be mentioned the New Ironsides and the 
 Dunderberg, the armor-plates for which were rolled at Pittsburgh. 
 
 In 1868 five iron steamships were built for ocean service. Since 
 that year over two hundred iron vessels have been built in this 
 country, and of these Pennsylvania has furnished the largest ton- 
 nage. The total tonnage of all the vessels built up to the begin- 
 ning of 1877 is officially stated to be 197,500, the whole number 
 of vessels being 251. Of these, 61 were rated from 1,000 to 2,000 
 tons; 9 from 2,000 to 3,000 tons; 8 from 3,000 to 4,000 tons; 
 and 2 over 5,000 tons; the remaining 171 were under 1,000 tons. 
 One firm, that of John Roach & Son, at Chester, Pa., has built 
 33 iron steamers since 1872, having a total tonnage of 68,150. 
 The same firm has in the same time paid $14,890,000 for ma- 
 terials and labor. 
 
 Some of the finest iron steamships the world has yet seen have 
 been built on the Delaware. The only line of passenger steamships 
 plying between this country and Europe which is wholly owned by 
 Americans, and carries the American flag, is the American Steam- 
 ship Company's line, composed of four magnificent iron vessels, the 
 
94 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, built at Philadelphia of 
 Pennsylvania iron by Cramp & Sons, and running regularly be- 
 tween that port and Liverpool. No finer passenger vessels plow 
 the Atlantic. Their length is 355 feet, breadth of beam, 43 feet, 
 and depth of hold, 33 feet. They can accommodate 76 first-class 
 passengers and about 800 intermediate and steerage passengers. 
 Their tonnage capacity is 3,100 tons each ; capacity of coal-bunk- 
 ers, 720 tons each. Most of the European visitors to the Centennial 
 Exhibition came to Philadelphia and returned to their homes in 
 the vessels of this line. They have made so favorable an impression 
 on the English underwriters that they have been accorded a rate of 
 insurance lower than that of any other steamers in the Transatlan- 
 tic trade, except two of the Cunard ships, and these two pay the 
 same rate as the American line. In 1874 John Roach & Son built 
 at Chester, Pa., for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, two iron 
 steamships of immense size and superior equipment, which fully 
 equal in all respects the best of British-built iron steamers. These 
 were the City of Peking and the City of Tolcio twin vessels in every 
 respect. Their registered tonnage is 5,000 tons each. Each ship 
 will accommodate 150 cabin passengers and 1,800 steerage passen- 
 gers, and each vessel's coal-bunkers will carry 1,500 tons. The 
 total weight of iron used in constructing each steamship was 
 5,400,000 pounds, and the cost of each was over $1,000,000. 
 
 The cost of building iron steamships on the Delaware is now as 
 low as vessels of equal excellence can be built on the Clyde. In 
 addition to the firms above named, the Harlan & Hollingsworth 
 Company, and Pusey, Jones & Co., of Wilmington, and others on 
 the Delaware, have extensive iron shipyards, and have built many 
 iron vessels for ocean service. Up to 1876, owing to the popu- 
 larity of iron steamships, only one iron sailing ship had been 
 built in the United States. The statement that iron vessels can 
 be built as cheaply in this country as abroad has attracted wide 
 attention, and an increase in the orders for their construction 
 may be speedily expected to follow. 
 
 Exports of Pennsylvania Iron Before the Revolution. The ex- 
 portation of pig iron from the colonies to Great Britain began in 
 the years 1728-9, according to the most reliable records. In these 
 years the colonies exported to England 1,156 tons, of which Penn- 
 sylvania contributed 274 tons. From 1728-9 to 1755 the exports 
 to England from the iron-producing colonies aggregated 57,404 
 
BRITISH OPPOSITION TO AMERICAN IRON MANUFACTURES. 95 
 
 tons, including shipments to Scotland. Of this total, Pennsylvania 
 shipped 4,604 tons. The exportation of bar iron from America 
 began in 1717, when 2 tons of bars were sent to England from 
 the British West India Islands of Nevis and St. Christopher, but 
 which had evidently been taken there from the colonies. In 1718, 
 3 tons and 7 cwt. of bars were shipped from Virginia and Mary- 
 land to England. In 1735 Pennsylvania exported 10 tons, 17 
 cwt., and 3 qrs. of bar iron. From 1735 to 1755 the total ex- 
 ports of bar iron from the colonies to England and Scotland were 
 1,430 tons, of which Pennsylvania's share was 416 tons. From 
 1761 to 1776 the colonies exported 54,453 tons of pig iron and 
 18,723 tons of bar iron to England, of which the quantity exported 
 by Pennsylvania can not now be ascertained. The amount of iron 
 exported from Philadelphia in the year ending April 5, 1766, was 
 882 tons of bar iron at 26 per ton, and 813 tons of pig iron at 7 
 10s. per ton. In the three years preceding the war, ending January 
 5, 1774, the total exports from Pennsylvania were respectively 2,358, 
 2,205, and 1,5<64 tons. The proportions of pig and bar iron are not 
 stated. 
 
 The above figures represent only colonial shipments of iron to 
 the mother country, and no other export figures are obtainable- 
 But it is known that the colonies also exported iron to the British 
 West Indies, in exchange for their products, some of which iron 
 found its way to the mother country, as we have seen above. Some 
 of the colonies also exported iron to sister colonies. All of the 
 colonies were prohibited, by acts of Parliament, from exporting 
 their products to any foreign country except Great Britain. In 
 1756 Acrelius, the Swedish historian, wrote as follows : 
 
 Pennsylvania, in regard to its ironworks, is the most advanced of all the 
 American colonies. When New Jersey is added to it, one can safely say that 
 from the Delaware the greatest part of the iron in America is taken. Here- 
 with, however, the provinces of Maryland, Virginia, and New York deserve 
 to be mentioned. . . . Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland supply 
 more iron than their inhabitants need. From Maryland some pig iron is 
 carried to Philadelphia in exchange for West India goods, as Maryland has 
 but little commerce with the Islands, and no other offset against Philadelphia. 
 The export is made to London, the West India Islands, and other English 
 colonies on the continent of America. 
 
 British Measures to Prevent the Manufacture of Iron and Steel in 
 the United States. In 1749 an act of the British Parliament was 
 
96 IRONWORKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 passed which encouraged the importation of American pig and bar 
 iron into Great Britain by repealing the duties thereon, the object 
 being to aid in the development of the finished iron trade of the 
 mother country by supplying it with cheap raw iron, and to stimu- 
 late the exportation of woolen and other British manufactures to 
 the colonies in exchange for their iron. The act did not contem- 
 plate the encouragement of finished iron manufactures in the colo- 
 nies, but just the reverse, for it provided as follows : 
 
 "That from and after the twenty-fourth day of June, 1750, no mill or 
 other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, or any plating forge to work with 
 a tilt-hammer, or any furnace for making steel, shall be erected, or, after such 
 erection, continued in any of His Majesty's colonies in America ; and if any 
 person or persons shall erect, or cause to be erected, or, after such erection, 
 continue, or cause to be continued, in any of the said colonies, any such mill, 
 engine, forge, or furnace, every person or persons so offending shall, for every 
 such mill, engine, forge, or furnace, forfeit the sum of two hundred pounds 
 of lawful money of Great Britain." And further : " That every such mill, 
 engine, forge, or furnace so erected or continued, contrary to the directions 
 of this act, shall be deemed a common nuisance," to be abated by " every 
 governor, lieutenant-governor, or commander-in-chief of any of His Majesty's 
 colonies in America, where any such mill, engine, forge, or furnace shall be 
 erected or continued." 
 
 This oppressive and tyrannical act was enforced. In Pennsyl- 
 vania the' Lieutenant-Governor, James Hamilton, Esq., issued a 
 proclamation, dated August 16, 1750, commanding the owners of 
 every rolling and slitting mill, plating forge, and steel furnace in 
 the province to appear before him, on or before the following 21st 
 day of September, with " sufficient proofs whether the said mills, 
 engines, forges, and furnaces respectively were used on the said 
 24th day of June, or not ; " also commanding the sheriffs of all the 
 counties in the province to furnish lists, on or before the 21st of 
 September, of all such establishments within their respective juris- 
 dictions, and to certify " whether they or any of them were used on 
 the said 24th day of June, or not, as they and each of them will 
 answer the contrary at their peril." Responses to this proclamation 
 were made and are preserved. We have been shown in the library 
 of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania an original copy of the 
 proclamation, which was printed by Benjamin Franklin. In 1756, 
 six years after this proclamation was issued, Acrelius stated that 
 the Vincent steel works were not then in operation, and he after- 
 wards added : " No one is allowed to make nails. The trip-hammers 
 
BRITISH OPPOSITION TO AMERICAN IRON MANUFACTURES. 97 
 
 which were erected some years since were condemned on account of 
 their interference with the importation from England." 
 
 The enactment of this law, which will forever remain a stain 
 upon the good name of the British people, was only one of a series 
 of oppressive measures which eventually led to independence. They 
 all interfered with the development of the manufactures of this 
 country, the act from which we have quoted exercising a depressing 
 effect upon the iron industry of Pennsylvania and other colonies 
 down to the Revolution. 
 
 When the war of the Revolution was over, and the political in- 
 dependence of the United States was secured, Great Britain still 
 sought, by means of restrictive measures, already enacted or spe- 
 cially devised, to prevent the industrial development of this country, 
 so that its people might continue to be dependent upon the mother 
 country for many crude and manufactured articles which, with 
 proper encouragement from their own government, they could them- 
 selves produce. These restrictive measures, it is true, applied to other 
 countries as well as to the United States, but upon no other country 
 did they operate with such oppressive influence as upon this country. 
 Skilled mechanics were prohibited from emigrating from Great 
 Britain to other countries, and the exportation of tools or utensils 
 used in the silk, linen, cotton, or woolen manufacture was also 
 prohibited the penalties in both cases being severe. In 1785 the 
 emigration from Great Britain of iron and steel artificers and 
 workmen and the exportation of tools used in the manufacture 
 of iron and steel were specifically prohibited, and in 1795 the 
 prohibition of the exportation of tools and machinery used in the 
 manufacture of iron and steel was reaffirmed with emphasis. In 
 the same act the prohibition of the exportation of tools and ma- 
 chinery was extended to other manufactures. The first of these 
 restrictions was not wholly repealed until 1825, and the exporta- 
 tion of machinery for manufacturing was not relieved of all 
 restrictions until 1842. The alien efforts that have been made to 
 control the legislation of this country in the interest of British 
 manufacturers are well known and need not be recited. They 
 have been more or less successful until this day, and but for the 
 courage and patriotism of Pennsylvania ironmasters, who have 
 steadily opposed them, they would have been completely so, and 
 the manufacturing and all the other industries of the country 
 would have failed of the magnificent achievements that astonished 
 the world at the close of the first century of our national existence. 
 
98 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Statistics of the Production of Iron and Steel in Pennsylvania in 
 1805. In 1806 Joseph Scott published A Geographical Description 
 of Pennsylvania, in which an attempt was made to collect the 
 statistics of the iron industry of the State in the preceding year. 
 Palpable errors and omissions appear in this part of Mr. Scott's 
 book, but his statements are nevertheless worthy of preservation 
 because of their antiquity. We condense them as follows, correct- 
 ing transparent errors. 
 
 There were in the State, in 1805, 31 furnaces, 72 forges, 12 tilt-hammers, 
 2 steel furnaces, 11 slitting-mills, besides the slitting and rolling machinery, 
 then abandoned, connected with the water-works of Philadelphia. The fur- 
 naces manufacture annually upwards of 21,000 tons of pig and castings, con- 
 sisting of stoves, kettles, pots, pans, ladles, etc. The forges manufacture 
 12,960 tons of bar iron, and the slitting-mills upwards of 2,750 tons annually. 
 About 150 tons of steel are yearly manufactured. The distribution of the 
 ironworks of the State by counties was in part as follows ' Philadelphia 
 county (1805) 1 small forge, 2 furnaces, 1 tilt-hammer, 1 steel works. Chester 
 county (1800) 4 slitting-mills, 2 furnaces, 8 forges, 12 tilt-hammers. Lancas- 
 ter county (1805) 3 furnaces and 8 forges in the north end of the county. 
 The furnaces usually manufacture about 1,200 tons annually of pigs, and the 
 forges an equal number of tons of bar iron. Two of the forges were in the 
 neighborhood of Church town. York county (1805) 2 forges. Cumberland 
 county (1805) 2 slitting-mills and 3 furnaces. Berks county (1805) 1 slit- 
 ting-mill, 8 furnaces, 20 forges, and 9 tilt-hammers. Fayette county (1805) 
 In the mountains are found large quantities of iron ore, for the manufacturing 
 of which several furnaces and forges have been erected. They manufacture 
 pig, bar iron, hollow ware, etc. Four forges and 3 furnaces are near Con- 
 nellsville, and 2 forges and 2 furnaces are on George's creek. Franklin county 
 (1805) furnaces and forges have been erected, which manufacture pig, bar 
 iron, hollow ware, etc. Montgomery county (1805) 4 forges. Dauphin county 
 (1805) 2 furnaces and 2 forges have been erected. Luzerne county (1805) 
 2 forges have been erected, using bog iron ore. Allegheny county (1805) 
 a furnace has been erected within a few miles of Pittsburgh. Delaware county 
 (1805) 7 forges and 1 slitting-mill. Greene county (1805) a furnace in the 
 neighborhood of Waynesborough. Centre county (1805) in the mountains 
 are found abundance of iron ore, which is manufactured into pig, bar iron, 
 and hollow ware. Mercer county (1805) a forge and furnace are now nearly 
 erected at New Castle. 
 
 Statistics of the Production of Iron and Steel in 1810. In 1814 
 there was published A Statement of the Arts and Manufactures of 
 the United States of America, as they existed in 1810, prepared by 
 Tench Coxe, under the authority of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of 
 the Treasury. From this document we glean the following infor- 
 
STATISTICS OF THE PRODUCTION OF IRON AND STEEL. 
 
 99 
 
 mation concerning the condition of the iron industry of Pennsyl- 
 vania and of the country at large in 1810. In the totals for the 
 United States we believe the values to be correct, as they include 
 returns from every State, but some of the quantities given are not 
 strictly accurate, because some of the States did not report quanti- 
 ties, although at the same time they reported values. We believe, 
 however, that the quantities are approximately correct. 
 
 Number of Blast Furnaces in U. S., ~ 
 Number of Air Furnaces in U. S., / 
 Tons of Cast Iron made in U. S., 
 
 153 
 
 in Pennsylvania, 44 
 
 in Pennsylvania, 6 
 
 53,908; in Pennsylvania, 26,878 
 
 Value of Cast Iron made in U. S., $2,981,277 ; in Pennsylvania, $1,301,343 
 
 $16,000 
 
 78 
 
 10,969 
 
 in Pennsylvania, 
 in Pennsylvania, 
 in Pennsylvania, 
 330; in Pennsylvania, 
 24,541 ; in Pennsylvania, 
 
 in Pennsylvania, $1,156,405 
 in Pennsylvania, 50 
 
 600; in Pennsylvania 
 
 $327,898; in Pennsylvania, 
 34 ; in Pennsylvania, 
 in Pennsylvania, 
 
 9,280 ; : 
 
 in Pennsylvania, 
 
 Number of Bloomaries in U. S ...... 135 
 
 Tons of Iron made in U. S .......... 2,564 
 
 Value of Iron made in U. S ........ $226,034 
 
 Number of Forges in U. S ............ 
 
 Tons Bar Iron, etc., made in U. S., 
 
 Value of Bar Iron, etc., made in U. S. $2,874,063 
 
 Number of Trip Hammers in U. S., 316 
 
 Product of Trip Hammers in tons, 
 
 Value of Product of Trip Hammers, 
 
 Rolling and Slitting Mills in U. S., 
 
 Tons of Rolled Iron made in U. S., 
 
 Product in Tons of Slit Iron in U. S., 
 
 Value of Rolled and Slit Iron in U. S., $1,215,946 ; in Pennsylvania, 
 
 Number of Naileries in U. S ......... 410; in Pennsylvania, 
 
 Pounds of Nails made in U. S ...... 15,727,914; in Pennsylvania, 
 
 Value of Nails made in U. S ....... $2,478,139; in Pennsylvania, 
 
 The product of Steel Furnaces in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina was 917 tons, valued at 
 $144,736. Of the whole number of Steel Furnaces, Pennsylvania contained 
 5, of which Philadelphia City, and Philadelphia, Lancaster, Dauphin, and 
 Fayette counties each contained one. The product of Pennsylvania was 
 531 tons, valued at $81,147. 
 
 The following-named counties in Pennsylvania produced the iron 
 accredited in this table to this State : Philadelphia, Montgomery, 
 Bucks, Northampton, Delaware, Chester, Lancaster, Dauphin, Berks, 
 Luzerne, Northumberland, Lycoming, Erie, Armstrong, Centre, Mif- 
 flin, Cumberland, York, Adams, Franklin, Bedford, Huntingdon, 
 Cambria, Fayette, Westmoreland, Washington, Beaver, Butler, Alle- 
 gheny, Mercer, and Crawford : thirty-one counties in all. 
 
 $73,496 
 18 
 
 4,502 
 98 
 
 $606,426 
 175 
 
 7,270,825 
 $760,862 
 
 Statistics of the Production of Iron and Steel after 1810, and 
 down to 1870. In 1820 the value of all the manufactures of pig 
 
100 
 
 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 iron and castings in the United States was $2,230,275, of which Penn- 
 sylvania produced $563,810 worth. In the same year the country 
 produced "manufactures of wrought iron" to the amount of .$4,640,- 
 669, of which Pennsylvania's share was $1,156,266. 
 
 In 1830 the value of the pig iron and castings manufactured in 
 the United States was $4,757,403, of which the share of Pennsylva- 
 nia was $1,643,702. In the same year the country's production of 
 "manufactures of wrought iron" amounted in value to $16,737,251, 
 of which Pennsylvania produced $3,762,847 worth. Gordon in 1832 
 claimed about 60 furnaces and a production of 50,000 tons of cast 
 iron and 40,000 tons of bar iron in Pennsylvania. 
 
 In 1840 there were in the United States 804 furnaces, which pro- 
 duced in that year 286,903 tons of "cast iron." Pennsylvania had 
 213 furnaces, and produced 98,395 tons of " cast iron." In the 
 same year there were 795 bloomaries, forges, and rolling-mills in 
 the country, of which Pennsylvania had 169. The number of tons 
 of bar iron produced in that year was 197,233, of which Pennsyl- 
 vania's share was 87,244. 
 
 In 1842 there were 213 blast furnaces in the State, 169 forges 
 and rolling-mills, and 151,885 tons of pig iron were produced. 
 The production of pig iron in the State in 1843 was 190,000 tons, 
 and in 1844 it was 246,000 tons. In 1846 there were 317 blast 
 furnaces in the State, producing 368,056 tons of pig iron, and in 
 1847 there were the same number, producing 389,350 tons of pig 
 iron. In 1849 the pig iron product of the State fell to 253,000 
 tons. The following statistics for that year are compiled from the 
 valuable report of Charles E. Smith, Esq., published in 1850. 
 
 BLAST FURNACES IN 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 No. 
 
 Investment. 
 
 Present 
 capacity. 
 Tons. 
 
 Make 1847. 
 Tons. 
 
 Make 1849. 
 Tons. 
 
 Anthracite coal . . 
 
 57 
 7 
 4 
 85 
 145 
 6 
 
 $3,221,000 
 223,000 
 800,000 
 3,478,500 
 5,170,376 
 28,700 
 
 $12,921,576 
 
 221,400 
 12,600 
 12,000 
 130,705 
 173,654 
 600 
 
 151,331 
 7,800 
 10,000 
 94,519 
 125,155 
 545 
 
 109,168 
 4,900 
 
 58,302 
 80,665 
 335 
 
 
 Coke 
 
 Charcoal hot blast . 
 
 " cold blast 
 
 
 Totals 
 
 304 
 
 550,959 
 
 389,350 
 
 253,370 
 
 
 FORGES AND 
 ROLLING-MILLS IN 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 No. 
 works. 
 
 Investment. 
 
 No. 
 
 forge 
 fires. 
 
 No. 
 pud- 
 dling 
 fur. 
 
 Capacity. 
 Tons. 
 
 Actual 
 make 1847. 
 Tons. 
 
 Actual 
 make 1849. 
 Tons. 
 
 Charcoal forges 
 Rolling-mills 
 
 Totals/ 
 
 121 
 79 
 
 $2,026,300 
 5,554,200 
 
 402 
 
 436 
 
 50,250 
 174,400 
 
 39,967 
 163,760 
 
 28,495 
 108,358 
 
 
 200 
 
 $7,580,500 
 
 402 
 
 436 
 
 224,650 
 
 203,727 
 
 136,853 
 
 
STATISTICS OF THE PRODUCTION OF IRON AND STEEL. 101 
 
 The six bloomaries mentioned in the tal?le; wefts 'ali in 
 Monroe, and Northampton counties, and all Used 'the rich magnetic 
 ores of New Jersey. They had 12 fires,r,7 hammei^ajld:,]ft$46. ,6$^,, 
 tons of bars in 1849. They have all been abandoned. 
 
 In 1850 there were produced in the United States 563,755 tons 
 of pig iron by 377 " establishments," of which Pennsylvania pro- 
 duced 285,702 tons of pig iron in 180 " establishments." In the 
 same year the country produced " wr ought-iron manufactures" to 
 the amount of $22,629,271 in 552 "establishments," of which Penn- 
 sylvania produced $9,224,256 worth in 162 "establishments." These 
 meagre statistics of production of iron in 1850 are from the census 
 for that year, and the word "establishment" must not be con- 
 founded with single furnaces, forges, or rolling-mills. One estab- 
 lishment might embrace several separate ironworks. 
 
 In 1860 the United States, in 97 establishments, produced 51,290 
 tons of blooms, worth $2,623,178 ; Pennsylvania, in 57 establish- 
 ments, produced 24,700 tons of blooms, worth $1,467,450. In the 
 same year the United States, in 286 establishments, produced 987,- 
 559 tons of pig iron, worth $20,870,120; Pennsylvania, in 125 estab- 
 lishments, produced 580,049 tons of pig iron, worth $11,262,974. 
 In 256 establishments the United States produced 513,213 tons of 
 rolled iron worth $31,888,705 ; Pennsylvania, in 87 establishments, 
 produced 266,253 tons of rolled iron worth $15,122,842. In 13 
 establishments the United States produced 11,838 tons of steel, worth 
 $1,778,240; Pennsylvania, in 9 establishments, produced 9,890 tons 
 of steel, worth $1,338,200. 
 
 In 1870 the United States, in 82 establishments, produced 110,808 
 tons of blooms, worth $7,647,054; Pennsylvania, in 43 establish- 
 ments, produced 68,238 tons of blooms, worth $4,881,431. In 386 
 establishments the United States produced 2,052,821 tons of pig 
 iron, worth $69,640,498 ; Pennsylvania, in 136 establishments, pro- 
 duced 1,033,272 tons of pig iron, worth $32,636,410. In 310 estab- 
 lishments the United States produced 1,468,312 tons of rolled 
 iron, worth $120,311,158 ; Pennsylvania, in 120 establishments, 
 produced 713,331 tons of rolled iron, worth $56,811,975. In 2 
 establishments the United States produced 19,403 tons of Bessemer 
 steel, worth $1,818,220; Pennsylvania, in 1 establishment, produced 
 13,500 tons of Bessemer steel, worth $1,405,000. In 28 establish- 
 ments, not including Bessemer steel works, the United States pro- 
 duced 30,354 tons of steel, worth $7,791,766; Pennsylvania, in 17 
 establishments, produced 21,806 tons of steel, worth $5,560,238. 
 
102 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 gt&tistics of the Pfoilwtion of Iron and Steel in 1876. In 1876 the 
 United States, in '39 bloomaries, produced 20,784 net tons of blooms 
 aiicL-hUjecs from; the Q-PB, and in 59 forges produced 23,844 net tons 
 of blooms from pig and scrap iron : total, 98 forges and bloom- 
 aries, producing 44,628 net tons of blooms and billets of all kinds. 
 Pennsylvania, in 39 forges, produced 13,401 net tons of blooms 
 from pig and scrap iron, and none from the ore. In 714 blast fur- 
 naces the United States produced 990,009 net tons of bituminous 
 coal and coke pig iron, 794,578 net tons of anthracite pig iron, and 
 308,649 net tons of charcoal pig iron : total production, 2,093,236 
 net tons of pig iron. It is proper to state, however, that in 1876, 
 in consequence of the panic of 1873, only a part of the ironworks 
 of the United States were in operation. Pennsylvania, in 279 blast 
 furnaces, produced 1,009,613 net tons of pig iron. Of this total, 
 588,829 net tons were anthracite pig iron, of which the Lehigh 
 valley produced 261,274 net tons ; the Schuylkill valley, 144,969 
 net tons; the Upper Susquehanna district, 79,217 net tons; and 
 the Lower Susquehanna district, 103,369 net tons: 397,685 net 
 tons were bituminous coal and coke pig iron, of which the Shenango 
 valley produced 138,495 net tons ; Pittsburgh and Allegheny coun- 
 ty, 128,555 net tons ; and districts outside of Allegheny county and 
 the Shenango valley, 130,635 net tons : 23,099 net tons were char- 
 coal pig iron, made in various localities. 
 
 In the United States in 1876 there were 338 rolling-mills, con- 
 taining 4,488 single puddling furnaces, counting each double fur- 
 nace as two single ones. Of these, 98 were built to make rails 60 
 heavy and 38 light rails, and 64 included cut-nail factories. The 
 total production of rolled iron was 1,921,730 net tons, classified as 
 follows : bar, angle, bolt, rod, and hoop iron, 668,956 net tons ; plate 
 and sheet iron, 165,255 net tons ; cut nails and spikes, 207,890 net 
 tons, or 4,157,814 kegs of 100 pounds each ; and rails, 879,629 net 
 tons, of which 412,461 net tons were Bessemer steel rails, and 467,- 
 168 net tons were iron and all other kinds. In Pennsylvania in 
 1876 there were 137 rolling-mills, containing 2,153 single puddling 
 furnaces, counting each double furnace as two single ones. Of 
 these, 35 were built to make rails 20 heavy and 15 light rails, 
 and 25 included cut-nail factories. The total production of rolled 
 iron in the State was 824,260 net tons, classified as follows: bar, 
 angle, bolt, rod, and hoop iron, 301,350 net tons ; plate and sheet 
 iron, 100,576 net tons ; cut nails and spikes, 68,409 net tons, or 
 1,368,163 kegs of 100 pounds each ; and rails, 353,925 net tons, of 
 
STATISTICS OF THE PRODUCTION OF IRON AND STEEL. 103 
 
 which 203,750 net tons were Bessemer steel rails, and 150,175 net 
 tons were iron and all other kinds. Few mills ran full time. 
 
 In the United States there were 11 Bessemer steel establishments, 
 which produced 525,996 net tons of ingots and rolled 412,461 net 
 tons of rails, consuming 539,474 net tons of pig iron, of which 
 45,980 net tons were spiegeleisen. In Pennsylvania there were 5 
 Bessemer steel establishments, which produced 258,452 net tons of 
 ingots and rolled 203,750 net tons of rails, consuming 260,487 net 
 tons of pig iron, of which 25,180 net tons were spiegeleisen. 
 
 In 60 establishments, only 47 of which were active, however, the 
 United States produced 71,178 net tons of puddled, open-hearth, 
 blister, and crucible steel, of which 39,382 net tons were crucible 
 steel, 21,490 net tons were open-hearth steel, and 10,306 net tons 
 were puddled and blister steel. Including 525,996 net tons of 
 Bessemer steel ingots, the total production of steel of all kinds in 
 the United States in 1876 was 597,174 net tons. In 24 establish- 
 ments Pennsylvania produced 43,365 net tons of puddled, open- 
 hearth, blister, and crucible steel, of which 28,217 net tons were 
 crucible steel, 7,547 net tons were open-hearth steel, and 7,601 net 
 tons were puddled and blister steel. Including 258,452 net tons of 
 Bessemer steel ingots, the total production of steel of all kinds in 
 Pennsylvania in 1876 was 301,817 net tons. 
 
 The average price per gross ton in Philadelphia in 1876 of No. 1 
 anthracite foundry pig iron was $22.25. The average price per 
 gross ton in Philadelphia of American iron rails was $41.25. 
 The average price per gross ton of American Bessemer steel rails 
 at the works in Pennsylvania was $52. The average price per 
 gross ton of American best refined rolled bar iron in Philadelphia 
 was $49.28. 
 
 The following-named counties in Pennsylvania contained iron or 
 steel-making establishments in 1876, which were either in operation 
 in that year or were ready to be put into operation : Adams, Alle- 
 gheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Bedford, Berks, Blair, Bradford, Bucks, 
 Cambria, Carbon, Centre, Chester, Clarion, Clinton, Columbia, Cum- 
 berland, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Fayette, Franklin, Huntingdon, 
 Lancaster, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, Mercer, 
 Mifflin, Montgomery, Montour, Northampton, Northumberland, 
 Perry, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Tioga, Union, Westmoreland, and 
 York : total, 42 counties. The counties containing no iron or steel 
 making establishments in 1876 were as follows : Butler, Cameron, 
 Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Forest, Fulton, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson, 
 
104 
 
 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Juniata, McKean, Monroe, Pike, Potter, Snyder, Somerset, Sul- 
 livan, Susquehanna, Venango, Warren, Washington, Wayne, and 
 Wyoming : total, 24 counties. 
 
 Table of States and Territories containing Iron and Steel Works in 
 1876, with their Production, showing the Position of Pennsylvania. 
 In the following table is presented a statement showing the number 
 of iron and steel works in 1876 in each of the United States and 
 Territories which made iron or steel in that year, together with the 
 quantity of iron and steel produced by each State or Territory. 
 The position of Pennsylvania in the list is so prominent that fur- 
 ther attention need not be called to it. 
 
 STATES. 
 
 Number of Iron and Steel 
 Works in 1876. 
 
 Production of Iron and Steel in 1876, 
 in net tons. 
 
 Forges 
 and 
 Bloom- 
 aries. 
 
 Blast 
 Furnaces 
 
 Rolling- 
 Hills. 
 
 Steel 
 Works, 
 including 
 Bessemer 
 
 Blooms. 
 
 Pig Iron. 
 
 Rolled Iron 
 of all kinds. 
 
 Steel, inclu- 
 ding Besse- 
 mer Ingots. 
 
 Maine 
 
 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 
 27 
 5 
 39 
 
 1 
 7 
 9 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 6 
 
 10 
 57 
 18 
 279 
 
 24 
 33 
 8 
 11 
 13 
 1 
 12 
 23 
 24 
 100 
 9 
 12 
 34 
 14 
 1 
 19 
 
 ! 
 ! 
 
 
 
 2 
 1 
 1 
 22 
 2 
 7 
 23 
 17 
 137 
 8 
 5 
 5 
 
 o' 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 8 
 10 
 5 
 48 
 10 
 10 
 3 
 1 
 
 6 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 1 
 4 
 4 
 8 
 29 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 1 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 151 
 
 
 20,202 
 2,828 
 13,401 
 
 4,256 
 1,800 
 493 
 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,397 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3.002 
 
 550 
 5,040 
 
 10,160 
 181,620 
 25,349 
 1,009,613 
 
 19,876 
 13,046 
 400 
 10,518 
 24,732 
 426 
 41,165 
 34,686 
 24,585 
 403,277 
 14,547 
 54,168 
 95,177 
 51,261 
 
 68,223 
 
 1,750 
 
 65 
 
 
 10,814 
 1,900 
 9,183 
 78,576 
 7,394 
 10,114 
 130,707 
 52,411 
 824,260 
 17,598 
 31,181 
 17,306 
 
 12,001 
 1,000 
 
 49,636 
 30,874 
 23,274 
 249,328 
 55,262 
 191,421 
 5,325 
 29,980 
 
 39,693 
 14,707 
 
 15,465 
 
 12,320 
 
 
 1,000 
 
 5,085 
 
 1,098 
 35,859 
 7,458 
 301,817 
 
 470 
 Q 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 59,936 
 
 171,963 
 
 
 
 12,483 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 New Hampshire 
 Vermont 
 
 Massachusetts 
 Rhode Island 
 
 Connecticut 
 New York 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 Delaware 
 
 Maryland 
 
 Virginia 
 
 North Carolina 
 Georgia .. > 
 
 
 Texas 
 
 West Virginia 
 Kentucky 
 
 
 Ohio 
 
 
 Illinois 
 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 Minnesota 
 Missouri 
 
 Kansas 
 
 
 California 
 
 Utah Territory 
 Wyoming Territory 
 
 Total 
 
 98 
 
 714 
 
 338 
 
 69 
 
 44,628 
 
 2,093,236 
 
 1,921,730 
 
 597,174 
 
 It is proper to state that the 338 rolling-mills above enumerated 
 include 19 works which both roll iron and make cast steel, one 
 establishment which makes open-hearth steel and Bessemer steel > 
 one which makes open-hearth steel and Bessemer steel and rolls 
 iron and 8 which both roll iron and make Bessemer steel. All 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 105 
 
 these establishments which make steel and the Bessemer one which 
 makes nothing but steel are included in the column of steel works. 
 The total production of rolled iron, 1,921,730 net tons, includes 
 412,461 net tons of Bessemer steel rails. The ingots of which these 
 rails were made are also included in the column giving the total 
 product of all kinds of steel. We have made the best possible anal- 
 ysis of the nature and extent of the iron enterprises of the country. 
 
 Comparative Statement by Counties of Pennsylvania Ironworks in 
 1850 and 1876. The following table shows the number of iron 
 and steel works existing in Pennsylvania in 1850 and 1876, with 
 the names of the counties in which they were situated : 
 
 COUNTIES. 
 
 Blast 
 Furnaces 
 
 Forges 
 and 
 Bloom- 
 aries. 
 
 Rolling- 
 Mills 
 and Steel 
 Works. 
 
 COUNTIES. 
 
 Blast 
 Furnaces 
 
 Forges 
 and 
 Bloom- 
 aries. 
 
 Ilolling- 
 Mills 
 and Steel 
 Works. 
 
 1850 
 
 1 
 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 13 
 12 
 
 2 
 6 
 6 
 4 
 10 
 5 
 29 
 
 5 
 16 
 7 
 6 
 
 1 
 5 
 8 
 15 
 
 1876 
 
 1850 
 
 1876 
 
 1850 
 
 1876 
 
 1850 
 
 4 
 16 
 2 
 6 
 9 
 5 
 3 
 16 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 3 
 5 
 
 5 
 3 
 1 
 3 
 20 
 6 
 5 
 
 298 
 
 1876 
 
 
 15 
 10 
 10 
 28 
 5 
 1 
 23 
 3 
 
 15 
 7 
 18 
 2 
 3 
 1 
 9 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 1850 
 
 1 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 3 
 
 2 
 1 
 2 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 3 
 6 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 3 
 
 127 
 
 1876 
 
 1850 
 
 1876 
 
 
 1 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 27 
 14 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 4 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 
 1 
 3 
 3 
 12 
 
 1 
 5 
 4 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 23 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 5 
 6 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 2 
 
 
 
 8 
 11 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 6 
 
 
 1 
 1 
 2 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 
 16 
 2 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 14 
 
 
 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 2 
 1 
 2 
 
 
 43 
 3 
 
 
 10 
 4 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 5 
 2 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 
 Indiana 
 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 8 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 79 
 
 
 6 
 3 
 2 
 3 
 1 
 2 
 6 
 2 
 
 9 
 4 
 3 
 3 
 1 
 14 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 156 
 
 
 
 Armstrong 
 Beaver 
 
 Lawrence 
 
 Lebanon 
 
 Bedford 
 
 Lehigh 
 
 Berks 
 Blair 
 
 
 Lycoming 
 
 Bradford 
 Bucks 
 
 Mifflin 
 
 Butler 
 
 
 Cambria 
 
 Montgomery 
 
 Carbon 
 
 Centre 
 
 j Northampton 
 Northumberland 
 j Perry 
 
 Chester 
 Clarion 
 
 Clearfield 
 
 Philadelphia 
 Schuylkill 
 
 Clinton 
 
 Columbia 
 Cumberland 
 
 Tioga 
 
 I Union 
 Venango 
 
 Delaware 
 
 Erie. 
 
 Westmoreland ... 
 York . . 
 
 Fayette 
 Franklin 
 
 
 Huntingdon 
 
 Total 
 
 279 
 
 39 
 
 Conclusion. Such is a brief sketch of the progress of ironma- 
 king in Pennsylvania down to the close of the first century of our 
 national existence in the year 1876. If we have seemed to give 
 undue prominence to the iron enterprises of some sections of the 
 State, and to give to others less prominence than they deserve, the 
 explanation is that in the one case we have had ample informa- 
 tion and in the other case all desirable information could not be 
 obtained. All apparently unnecessary details have been discarded, 
 and due diligence has been exercised in seeking for valuable facts 
 that were hard to find. The statistics we have given are reliable. 
 
106 IRONMAKING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 The development of the iron industry of Pennsylvania has kept 
 pace with the progress made in the settlement of the State. It 
 commenced in the Schuylkill valley, forty miles from Philadelphia, 
 and soon after extended to the northward and southward of the 
 city, and to the westward into Lancaster county. As the Indians 
 retired but slowly, many years elapsed after Philadelphia was 
 founded before the interior of the State was settled even by 
 pioneers, and it was not until after the Revolution a hundred 
 years from the time when Penn sailed up the Delaware that 
 iron was made as far westward as the Juniata valley. But settle- 
 ments in the extreme western and southwestern parts of the State 
 were made almost simultaneously with those in the Juniata valley, 
 and we find that iron was made in Fayette and Westmoreland 
 counties about the same time that it was made within its bound- 
 aries. In the Susquehanna and Allegheny valleys iron was made 
 soon after the tide of immigration rolled over their borders. 
 Pittsburgh early became noted for its iron enterprises, although 
 iron ore was not found in its immediate vicinity. Wherever the 
 adventurous Pennsylvanians went the iron business took root if 
 there was the least encouragement to establish it. Their furnaces 
 and forges, and afterwards their rolling-mills, were conducted with 
 as much skill and with as satisfactory results as characterized like 
 establishments in the Old World. They showed themselves to be 
 enterprising and progressively scientific iron makers, so that at 
 the beginning of the second half of the last century the State 
 was far in advance of any other in the extent and variety of its 
 iron manufactures a position which has been steadily strength- 
 ened until this day, and which for generations to come it must 
 continue to hold. Not only this, but Pennsylvania enterprise and 
 capital have aided largely in establishing the iron manufacture in 
 other States and Territories. But for the part taken by Pennsylva- 
 nians toward the middle of the last century, the iron industry of 
 New Jersey would not have had an early and a healthy growth. 
 But for their example and substantial assistance, the iron industry 
 of the West and South would not have prospered as it has. But 
 for their courage in resisting the arrogant trade pretensions of 
 Great Britain, our own government would have withheld the en- 
 couragement that was necessary to the development of the iron 
 industry of the whole country. 
 
 There are many features of the iron history of Pennsylvania 
 which are not only curious but startling. But for the thinning 
 
CONCLUSION. 107 
 
 of its dense forests to supply charcoal for its forges and furnaces, 
 the agriculture of the State would have lagged behind, from lack 
 of tillable land as well as from lack of purchasers of agricultural 
 products. But for the building of forges and furnaces and rolling- 
 mills, which followed closely upon the building of pioneer cabins, 
 the turnpikes and canals and railroads of the State would not so 
 soon have become a necessity, for it is a remarkable fact that the 
 making of iron preceded all of them. The forgeman and the 
 furnaceman of Pennsylvania have never been far in the rear of 
 the pioneer with his rifle. But for the great progress made in 
 the manufacture of iron with charcoal in Pennsylvania, the way 
 would not have been opened for the magnificent development of 
 the coal fields of the State. The changes that have taken place 
 in the iron manufacture of the State within the memory of men 
 who are yet young astonish us by their magnitude. Down to 
 about 1840 all the iron in the State was made with charcoal : 
 now far less iron is made with charcoal than with any other fuel. 
 Down to about 1835, in addition to making pig iron, many of the 
 furnaces in the State, cast stoves, pots, kettles, andirons, sadirons, 
 railroad chairs, and other articles as a regular business : now none 
 of them do. Down to about 1830 very little iron in the State 
 was rolled; nearly all was hammered at the forges: now no bar 
 iron is made at the forges and but little of any other shape. The 
 first iron made in the State was made in bloomaries : in 1810 but 
 four were reported ; in 1850 six were reported ; and long before 
 1876 the last one had disappeared. The introduction of the Besse- 
 mer and Siemens-Martin processes into the State, and into the 
 country, dates since the close of the civil war, and the cast-steel 
 industry of the State and country scarcely had an existence when 
 the war commenced. As late as 1850 the furnace that would make 
 fifty tons of pig iron a week with any kind of fuel was doing good 
 work : now there are many furnaces in the State that make that 
 much iron in a day, while a few can make seventy-five tons a day 
 as a regular product, and two the Isabella and Lucy furnaces at 
 Pittsburgh have made over a hundred tons a day for a week at 
 a time. The changes that we have noted and others that might 
 be mentioned have not been the result of accident nor the crea- 
 tion of necessity, but have resulted from the enterprise and skill 
 of Pennsylvanians a people who were not born to wait, with halt- 
 ing steps and timid hearts, with no touch of inspiration and no 
 whisper of destiny, for others to lead where they could follow. 
 
COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 First Mention of the Existence of Coal in the United States. In 
 the Statistics of Coal, by Richard Cowling Taylor, (1848), it is stated 
 that the earliest historic mention of coal in this country is by the 
 French Jesuit missionary, Father Hennepin, who saw traces of bitu- 
 minous coal on the Illinois river in 1679. In his journal he marks 
 the site of a " cole mine," above Fort Crevecoeur, near the present 
 town of Ottawa. In 1763, nearly a hundred years later, Colonel 
 Croghan, a British officer, noticed on the south side of the Wabash 
 river " a high bank in which are several fine coal mines," which is 
 the earliest reference, says Taylor, to coal in that region. In the 
 map of the Middle Colonies, published by Lewis Evans in 1755, 
 we find mention of coal in Ohio, but no mention of it is made any- 
 where within the present limits of Pennsylvania. In Nicholas 
 Scull's map of Pennsylvania, published in 1759, coal is not marked. 
 In William Scull's map of Pennsylvania, published in 1770, coal is 
 marked in Berks county and at Pittsburgh. In the map of Captain 
 Hutchins, published at London in 1777, coal deposits are marked 
 at various places in the basin of the Ohio river. A coal seam near 
 Pittsburgh took fire in 1765, and is said to have burned for sixteen 
 years. 
 
 Anthracite coal was discovered in Rhode Island and Massachu- 
 setts about 1760. It has since then been discovered in Virginia, 
 Arkansas, Oregon, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania in the United 
 States, and in the State of Sonora in Mexico. It is also claimed 
 that it has been discovered in Kansas and in Nova Scotia. But in 
 none of the States named has the mining of anthracite ever been 
 successfully prosecuted, except in Pennsylvania. In 1840 Virginia 
 produced 200 tons of anthracite, and down to 1873 the total amount 
 mined is estimated not to have exceeded 10,000 tons. In 1860 an- 
 thracite coal in the United States was produced only in Pennsyl- 
 
 (109) 
 
110 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 vania and Rhode Island, and in the latter State the yield was only 
 1,000 net tons. In 1870 Rhode Island produced 14,000 net tons 
 of anthracite, and Pennsylvania all the remainder that was mined 
 in this country. Virtually, the American supply of anthracite coal 
 is producjed Jby Pennsylvania alone. ""The anthracite deposits In the 
 other sections of iKe^colifiiient, alluded to above, are small in ex- 
 tent, unfavorably situated, or inferior in quality. 
 
 In 1804 the first discovery of coal west of the Mississippi was 
 made by the exploring expedition under the leadership of Lewis 
 and Clarke, who traced brown coal or lignite from about twenty 
 miles above the Mandan villages, on the Missouri, nearly to the 
 base of the Rocky mountains, and also upon the Yellowstone and 
 other streams. In one of the exploring expeditions led by Captain 
 Z. M. Pike "fine seams of coal" were discovered "far up the Osage 
 river" in 1806. The existence of coal in Alabama was first noticed 
 in 1834 by Dr. Alexander Jones, of Mobile. In 1870 coal was 
 mined in twenty States and Territories of the United States. 
 
 The First Coal Mines in the United States Opened in Virginia. 
 The Virginia coal mines were undoubtedly the first that were worked 
 in America. Mines of bituminous coal were opened and worked on 
 the James river, in Chesterfield county, a few miles from Richmond, 
 probably about 1750. Virginia coal was extensively used during 
 the Revolution. An air-furnace was built at Westham, on the 
 James river, six miles above Richmond, which used coal in the 
 manufacture of shot and shell for the Revolutionary army until the 
 furnace was destroyed by Benedict Arnold in 1781. Virginia coal 
 was exported to various cities on the Atlantic coast before the 
 Revolution. On the 31st of August, 1776, Thomas Wharton, Jr., 
 and Owen Biddle, of Philadelphia, were authorized to employ proper 
 persons to bring coal from Virginia which had been contracted for 
 by the Committee of Safety. In 1789 Virginia coal sold in Phila- 
 delphia at Is. Qd. a bushel. In 1846 the price at the same city was 
 20 to 22 cents a bushel, which was two or three cents per bushel 
 higher than Allegheny bituminous coal. It was the scarcity of Vir- 
 ginia coal in the Philadelphia market, especially during the war with 
 Great Britain, from 1812 to 1815, which largely contributed in the 
 early part of the present century to the development of the vast an- 
 thracite coal deposits of Pennsylvania. The exportation of Virginia 
 coal amounted to 42,000 tons in 1822, and it reached its culmination 
 in 1833, when 142,000 tons were shipped to neighboring States. In 
 
EARLY COAL MINING IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 Ill 
 
 1842 the shipments had fallen to 65,000 tons. Up to about that 
 year it was the principal source of domestic supply of mineral fuel 
 in this country, and down to about 1850 it contributed the principal 
 supply to the gas-works of Philadelphia and other American cities, 
 for which use it was well adapted. For about twenty years after 
 1833 the importation of bituminous coal from Great Britain and 
 the British Provinces into Philadelphia, principally for the gas- 
 works, steadily increased, owing to the growing scarcity of Virginia 
 coal. About 1856 the gas coals of Western Pennsylvania began 
 to be used in Philadelphia, to the practical exclusion of the foreign 
 supply. 
 
 Discovery of Coal in Maryland Statistics of Cumberland Coal. 
 Coal is improbably said to have been discovered six miles north- 
 east of Baltimore, by Benjamin Henfrey, in 1801. The Western 
 Maryland coal basin was soon afterwards opened, and in 1820 the 
 first shipment of coal from Alleghany county, Maryland, seems to 
 have been made, when a few thousand tons were sent down the 
 Potomac in boats. In 1832 the annual shipment of Cumberland 
 coal down the Potomac had increased to about 300,000 bushels, 
 most of which was not sent below Harper's Ferry. The price of 
 Cumberland coal at tidewater at Georgetown in 1838 was 20 cents 
 a bushel. In 1842 the shipment of Cumberland coal to Baltimore, 
 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, commenced, with a total ton- 
 nage for the year of 1,708 tons. The total shipments of Cumber- 
 land coal by all routes to the seaboard amounted in 1873 to 2,674,- 
 101 gross tons, and in 1876 to 1,835,081 tons. The growth of this 
 trade is shown in the following official table of shipments : 
 
 Year. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 I 
 Year. ! Tons. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 1842 
 
 1,708 
 
 1851 ! 257,679 
 
 1860 
 
 788,909 
 
 1869 
 
 1,882,669 
 
 1843 
 
 10,082 
 
 1852 , 334,178 
 
 1861 
 
 269 674 
 
 1870 
 
 1,717,075 
 
 1844 
 
 14,890 
 
 1853 i 533,979 
 
 1862 
 
 317,634 
 
 1871 
 
 2,345,153 
 
 1845 
 
 24.653 
 
 1854 ! 659,681 
 
 1863 
 
 748,345 
 
 1872 
 
 2,355,471 
 
 1846 
 
 29,795 
 
 1855 ! 662,272 
 
 1864 
 
 657,996 
 
 1873 
 
 2,674,101 
 
 1847 
 
 52.940 
 
 1856 ! 706,450 
 
 1865 
 
 903,495 
 
 1874 
 
 2,410,895 
 
 1848 
 
 79,571 
 
 1857 ' 582,486 
 
 1866 
 
 1,079,331 
 
 1875 
 
 2,342,773 
 
 1849 
 
 142,449 
 
 1858 i 649,656 
 
 1867 
 
 1,193,822 
 
 1876 
 
 1,835,081 
 
 1850 
 
 196,848 
 
 1859 724,354 
 
 1868 
 
 1,330,443 
 
 Total, 
 
 30,516,538 
 
 Development of the Great Coal Seam at Pittsburgh by Thomas 
 Penn. William J. Buck, in a paper read before the Historical So- 
 ciety of Pennsylvania on the 4th day of January, 1875, quotes from 
 the Penn manuscripts to show that the Penns were fully aware as 
 
112 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 early as 1769 of the existence of coal at Pittsburgh. Thomas Perm, 
 in a letter of instructions, dated London, January 31, 1769, to his 
 nephew, Lieutenant-Governor John Penn, says : " We desire you will 
 order 5,000 acres of land to be laid out about Pittsburgh, including 
 the town, which may now be laid out, and I think from its situation 
 will become considerable in time ; and that the land may be laid 
 out to Colonel Francis and his associates, and other gentlemen of 
 whom I wrote, as contiguous as it may be, and in regular right-an- 
 gled tracts, if possible." On the following 12th of May he writes 
 to Mr. Tilghman respecting this survey, and says : " I would not 
 engross all the coal-hills, but rather leave the greater part to others 
 who may work them." The difficulties between the mother coun- 
 try and her colonies prevented these instructions from being obeyed. 
 In 1784, however, the Penns, who retained their proprietary in- 
 terest in large tracts of Pennsylvania after the close of the Revolu- 
 tion, including the manor of Pittsburgh, surveyed into building 
 lots the town of Pittsburgh, and in the same year the privilege 
 of mining coal in the "great seam" opposite the town was sold 
 at the rate of 30 for each mining lot, extending back to the 
 centre of the hill. This event may be regarded as forming the be- 
 ginning of the coal trade of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh seam of 
 bituminous coal is probably the most extensively accessible seam in 
 this country. H. D. Rogers says of it that it spreads uninterrupt- 
 edly over the whole valley of the Monongahela, from the base of 
 the Chestnut ridge to the western boundary of the State, and west 
 of the Ohio river. 
 
 The West&rn Pennsylvania Coal Trade Statistics of Shipments. 
 The supply of the towns and cities on the Ohio and Mississippi 
 rivers with Pittsburgh coal became an established business at a 
 very early day after the close of the Revolutionary war. Down to 
 1850 all the coal shipped westward from Pittsburgh was floated 
 down the Ohio in large flat-bottomed boats with the spring and 
 fall freshets, each boat holding about 15,000 bushels of coal. The 
 boats were usually lashed in pairs, and were sold and broken up 
 when their destination was reached. In 1850 steam tow-boats 
 were introduced, by means of which coal barges were towed down 
 the river, and brought back when empty. This method of trans- 
 porting coal from Pittsburgh by water has almost entirely super- 
 seded the primitive method. One tow-boat now tows or pushes 
 a dozen barges, each barge holding about 12,000 bushels of coal. 
 
THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA COAL TRADE. 
 
 113 
 
 Some Pittsburgh coal and large quantities of Connellsville coke 
 are also shipped westward by railroad. Nearly all the coal now 
 shipped from Pittsburgh is taken from the collieries on the Monon- 
 gahela river, which is improved by slackwater navigation a distance 
 of 85 miles from Pittsburgh to New Geneva, the Monongahela 
 Navigation Company making its first shipments of coal in 1844. 
 Since that year the total shipments of coal and coke by this com- 
 pany have been as follows in bushels, each thousand bushels being 
 regarded as the equivalent of thirty-eight gross tons, which makes 
 the weight of a bushel 85.12 pounds. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Year. 
 
 1853 
 1854 
 1855 
 1856 
 1857 
 1858 
 1859 
 1860 
 1861 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 1844 
 1845 
 1846 
 1847 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 
 737,150 
 4,605.185 
 7,778,911 
 9,645,127 
 9,819,361 
 9,708,507 
 12,297,967 
 12,521,228 
 14,630,841 
 
 15,716,367 
 17,331,946 
 22,234,009 
 8,584,095 
 28,973,596 
 25,696,669 
 28,286,671 
 37,947,732 
 20,865,722 
 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 
 1870 
 
 18,583,956 
 26,444,252 
 35,070,917 
 39,522,792 
 42,605,300 
 30,072,700 
 45,301,000 
 52,512,600 
 57,596,400 
 
 1871 
 1872 
 1873 
 1874 
 1875 
 1876 
 1877 
 Total, 
 
 48,621,300 
 57,280,500 
 58,276,995 
 65,881,700 
 63,707,500 
 68,481,000 
 79,480,918 
 
 1,076,820,914 
 
 Large quantities of Western Pennsylvania coal have annually 
 been shipped eastward by the Pennsylvania Canal and the Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad, and of late years Connellsville and Westmore- 
 land coke is finding a market east of the Alleghenies. Below is an 
 official statement of the number of net tons of bituminous coal and 
 coke forwarded to market over the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 
 years 1875 and 1876. 
 
 
 
 1875. 
 
 
 
 1876. 
 
 
 
 Coal. 
 
 Coke. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Coal. 
 
 Coke. 
 
 Total. 
 
 East Broad Top 
 
 53567 
 
 
 53567 
 
 65,999 
 
 
 65 999 
 
 
 137 684 
 
 
 137 684 
 
 93881 
 
 
 93*881 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 177,081 
 
 
 177,081 
 
 147,784 
 
 
 147,784 
 
 
 2870 
 
 
 2 870 
 
 574 
 
 
 574 
 
 Snow Shoe 
 Tyrone and Clearfield 
 
 62*,426 
 915 288 
 
 286' 
 
 62,426 
 915,574 
 
 51,329 
 1,190,418 
 
 
 
 51,329 
 1 190 418 
 
 Gallitzin & Mountain regi'n 
 
 224 143 
 
 74 
 
 224 217 
 
 210,315 
 
 
 210 315 
 
 West Pennsylvania Railr'd. 
 Southwest " 
 Westmoreland region 
 Pittsburgh " 
 
 223,184 
 29,262 
 733,671 
 430,572 
 
 52,780 
 549,382 
 36,273 
 120,282 
 
 275,964 
 578,644 
 769,944 
 550,854 
 
 203,354 
 57,169 
 896,810 
 309,846 
 
 57,798 
 539,630 
 60,465 
 162,132 
 
 261,152 
 596,799 
 957,275 
 471,978 
 
 Totals 
 
 2.989,748 
 
 759,077 
 
 3,748,825 
 
 3,227,479 
 
 820.025 
 
 4.047.504 
 
 Beginning of the Business of Manufacturing Connellsville Coke. 
 Small quantities of coke were made in the Connellsville region 
 early in the present century, and in 1836 pig iron was made with 
 
114 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 coke by F. H. Oliphant at Fairchance furnace, near Uniontown, in 
 Fayette county. The beginning of the regular manufacture of 
 Connellsville coke, celebrated for its excellence and cheapness as a 
 fuel for blast furnaces and for other manufacturing purposes, and 
 for locomotives, is said by Dr. Frank Cowan to date from the sum- 
 mer of 1841, when William Turner, Sr., P. McCormick, and James 
 Campbell employed John Taylor to erect two ovens for making 
 coke on his farm lying on the Youghiogheny river, a few miles 
 below Connellsville. The ovens were built of the bee-hive pattern. 
 After repeated failures a fair quality of coke was produced in the 
 early part of the winter of 1841-2. By the spring of 1842 enough 
 coke had been made to load a coal boat ninety feet long. This 
 boat was run down the Youghiogheny, down the Monongahela, 
 and down the Ohio to Cincinnati, where a purchaser was obtained 
 for the coke after some difficulty. This purchaser was Mr. Green- 
 wood, a wealthy foundryman, and the price paid was 61 cents a 
 bushel, half cash and half old mill irons. Others embarked in the 
 business of manufacturing coke in 1842, Mordecai Cochran and 
 Richard Brookius among the number, both of whom were success- 
 ful. In 1844 improved ovens were introduced by Col. A. M. Hill, 
 whose energy and success gave great impetus to the coke business. 
 In 1855 there were only twenty-six coke ovens at work on the 
 Monongahela river, and in all Western Pennsylvania there were 
 probably not over a hundred ; now their number may be counted 
 by thousands, most of which are built upon improved models. 
 To-day Connellsville coke is extensively used in many States and 
 Territories, its use extending even to Utah and California. It is 
 free from sulphur. One hundred pounds of Connellsville coal 
 make sixty-two and a half pounds of coke. Good coke is also 
 made largely in Westmoreland county and in other sections of the 
 western part of the State, the quality of which, like that of Con- 
 nellsville coke, is nowhere surpassed outside of Pennsylvania, not 
 even by that of the celebrated Durham coke of England. 
 
 Beginning of the Bituminous Coal Trade of Clearfield County. 
 On the 1st of November, 1785, Samuel Boyd patented a tract of 
 bituminous coal land near Oldtown, in Clearfield county, Pennsyl- 
 vania, but no coal from this tract was sent east of the Alleghenies 
 until 1804. In that year William Boyd shipped the first ark-load 
 of Clearfield county coal down the Susquehanna to Columbia, in 
 Lancaster county, a distance of 260 miles. The new fuel, we are 
 
BEGINNING OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE. 115 
 
 told, " was a matter of great surprise " to the good people of that 
 county. Other ark-loads followed the first venture, and all the 
 towns along the Susquehanna were soon familiar with bituminous 
 coal. In 1828 the first cargo of Pennsylvania bituminous coal 
 reached Philadelphia from Karthaus, in Clearfield county. The 
 coal was taken down the Susquehanna to Port Deposit, at the 
 head of Chesapeake bay, and thence by vessel to Philadelphia. 
 About the same time coal was sent to Baltimore from the same 
 place. The distance from market was too great, however, and the 
 means of transportation too imperfect to permit the building up of 
 a large trade in bituminous coal between the Alleghenies and the 
 seaboard, and the situation was not materially changed for many 
 years after the completion in 1834 of the Pennsylvania system of 
 internal improvements. The competition of domestic anthracite, 
 and of foreign and domestic bituminous coal, the last from Virginia 
 and Maryland, was too great to be easily overcome, and in the case 
 of anthracite it has never yet been overcome, although the ship- 
 ments of Western Pennsylvania coal and coke to the seaboard are 
 steadily increasing. _ 
 
 Description of the Anthracite Coal Fields of Pennsylvania. & 
 Daddow^in the American Cyclopaedia, (1873), gives the total area 
 of the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania as 472 square miles, 
 divided into the Wyoming field, 198 miles; the Schuylkill, 146 
 miles; the Lehigh, 37 miles; and the Middle, 91 miles. We pre- 
 sent a brief description of the development of each of these divis- 
 ions, which has been carefully collated from the highest authorities. 
 
 The Wyoming Field. Anthracite coal was discovered in the Wy- 
 oming valley as early as 1766, as appears from a statement by Mr. 
 Buck. He says that James Tilghman, of Philadelphia, addressed 
 a letter to the Proprietaries, Thomas and Richard Penn, at Spring 
 Garden, London, on the 14th day of August, 1766, in which he 
 stated that his brother-in-law, Colonel Francis, had gone " up the 
 N. E. Branch as far as Wyoming, where he says there is a consid- 
 erable body of good land and a very great fund of coal in the hills, 
 which surround a very fine and extensive bottom there. This coal 
 is thought to be very fine. With his compliments he sends you a 
 piece of the coal. This bed of coal, situate as it is on the side of the 
 river, may some time or other be a thing of great value." By way 
 of postscript he adds: "The coal is in a small package of the 
 
116 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Governor's." In a reply from Thomas Penn, dated London, the fol- 
 lowing 7th of November, to Mr. Tilghman, he says, in acknowledg- 
 ment : " I desire you will return my thanks to Colonel Francis for 
 his good services in removing the intruders that were settled on the 
 Indians' land, and for the piece of coal, which we shall have exam- 
 ined by some persons skillful in that article, and send their observa- 
 tions on it." It is further stated by Mr. Buck that the next men- 
 tion of coal in this section is in a draft by Charles Stewart, from a 
 survey made in 1768 of a large tract of land on the west side of 
 the Susquehanna, opposite the present borough of Wilkesbarre, 
 which has " stone coal " marked thereon. The traveler, Dr. Schopf, 
 tells us that in 1783 he found specimens of coal in the Swatara 
 creek, in Lebanon county, and learned of its existence up the west 
 branch of the Susquehanna. 
 
 The Wyoming valley was partly settled by a colony of Connecti- 
 cut people in 1762, representing "The Susquehanna Company." In 
 the same year the Indians murdered about twenty of the colony, and 
 the remainder of the settlers were driven away. Gradually the sur- 
 vivors and others associated with them returned to the valley, and 
 in 1768-9 it is claimed that two of the settlers, being two brothers 
 named Gore, from Connecticut, who were blacksmiths, were the first 
 in this country to use anthracite coal. This they did in their forge 
 fire. 
 
 In 1776, and throughout the Revolutionary war, anthracite coal 
 was taken in arks from the Wyoming mines above Wilkesbarre 
 down the Susquehanna to the United States armory at Carlisle. 
 Dr. Schopf visited Carlisle in 1783, where he informs us that 
 just outside the town were situated four rows of old and new build- 
 ings, in which during the war a number of workmen were engaged 
 in the manufacture of muskets, swords, and wrought-iron cannon of 
 great strength. Mr. Buck says of the first shipment, that " two 
 Durham boats were sent from Harris's Ferry, now Harrisburg, up 
 the Susquehanna to Wyoming for anthracite coal, and about twenty 
 tons were purchased from Mr. Geer and brought down to that place, 
 whence it was hauled to Carlisle in wagons, and which appears was 
 done annually during the Revolutionary war. This coal, we learn, 
 was obtained from a bed belonging to Judge Hollenback, one mile 
 above Wilkesbarre, near the mouth of Mill creek." Mr. Daddow 
 says that some of it also came from the old Smith mine in the vicin- 
 ity of Plymouth. The shipment of Wyoming coal down the Sus- 
 quehanna in arks continued until the completion of the North 
 
BEGINNING OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE. 117 
 
 Branch Canal in July, 1834. The first cargo sent down the Sus- 
 quehanna constituted the first shipment of anthracite coal that was 
 made in this country. The price of coal at Wilkebarre in 1790 
 was $3 a ton. 
 
 At Carbondale, in the northeastern section of the Wyoming coal 
 field, coal was discovered in 1804 by a surveyor named Samuel 
 Preston, and in 1814 William and Maurice Wurtz commenced to 
 make arrangements for its development. In 1815 they succeeded, 
 after many discouraging adventures, in sending one ark-load of coal 
 to Philadelphia, through the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers, but 
 the experiment was not repeated until 1823, after which shipments 
 to Philadelphia were successfully made. 
 
 In 1829 the Delaware and Hudson Canal, 124 miles long, from 
 Carbondale to the Hudson river, including 16 miles of railroad, was 
 completed at a cost of $7,000,000, expressly to carry to Eastern 
 markets the anthracite coal of the Wyoming valley. The railroad 
 extends from Carbondale to Honesdale, and the canal extends from 
 Honesdale to the Hudson river. In the same year 7,000 tons of 
 coal were sent to New York by this route. 
 
 The Schuylkill Field. Within the limits of the Schuylkill coal 
 field anthracite coal appears to have been known to the settlers as 
 early as 1770. In Scull's map of Pennsylvania, published in that 
 year, "coal" is marked about the head waters of Schuylkill creek, 
 thence stretching westward to those of the Swatara, and to "the 
 wilderness of St. Anthony." This "wilderness," we may mention, 
 extended from Peters's mountain, in Dauphin county, westward to 
 the Kittatinny or Blue mountains. 
 
 The act of March 15, 1784, for the improvement of the naviga- 
 tion of the Schuylkill, mentions "the coal mines at Basler's saw- 
 mill" in Schuylkill county. A Yankee hunter, named Nicholas 
 Allen, is said to have discovered coal in 1790 at the foot of Broad 
 mountain, in the same county. No attempt to mine the coal which 
 Allen had discovered seems to have been made. Reading Howell, 
 in his map of Pennsylvania, published in 1792, marks the existence 
 of " coal " near the source of Panther creek, about five miles east of 
 the present town of Tamaqua, and on the border of Carbon county. 
 We read that in 1795 a blacksmith named Whetstone used anthra- 
 cite coal in his "smithery," near Pottsville, while others attempted 
 to use it and abandoned it in disgust. About 1800 William Morris 
 took a wagon-load of coal from near Port Carbon to Philadelphia, 
 
118 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 but nobody wanted it, and Mr. Morris made no further efforts to 
 mine or sell coal. About 1806 coal was found at Valley Forge, on 
 the Schuylkill river, and a blacksmith named David Berlin and 
 others successfully used it. In 1812 Col. George Shoemaker, of 
 Pottsville, loaded nine wagons with coal from his mines at Centre- 
 ville, and hauled it to Philadelphia, where with great difficulty he 
 sold two loads at the cost of transportation, and gave the other seven 
 loads away. He was by many regarded as an impostor for attempt- 
 ing to sell stone to the public as coal. Of the two loads sold, one 
 was purchased by White & Hazard, for use at their wire-works at 
 the Falls of Schuylkill, and the other was purchased by Malm & 
 Bishop, for use at the Delaware County rolling-mill. By the 
 merest accident of closing the furnace doors, Mr. White obtained a 
 hot fire from the coal, and from this occurrence, happening in 1812, 
 we may date the first successful use of anthracite coal in the manu- 
 factures of this country. Up to that time bituminous coal from 
 Virginia had been exclusively used for manufacturing purposes in 
 Philadelphia, and largely for domestic purposes. The war with 
 Great Britain had, however, made Virginia coal very scarce, and it 
 was very desirable that a substitute should be found. The following 
 story is told of the success achieved by White & Hazard in the use 
 of anthracite coal in their wire-works : A whole night was spent in 
 endeavoring to make it burn, when the hands, in despair, quit their 
 work, but left the furnace door shut. Fortunately, one of them 
 forgot his jacket, and on returning to the works half an hour after- 
 wards he noticed that the door was red hot, and the interior of the 
 furnace in a white glowing heat. Thenceforward no trouble was 
 experienced in making the new fuel burn. In 1815 the improve- 
 ment of the navigation of the Schuylkill river was commenced by 
 the Schuylkill Navigation Company, but many years elapsed before 
 coal was taken to Philadelphia by this channel. In 1822 there were 
 shipped 1480 tons to Philadelphia, but boats did not pass from 
 Pottsville to Philadelphia until 1825, when 6,500 tons' were, sent 
 down the Schuylkill. Prior to that year the coal trade of the Lehigh 
 region had been opened. 
 
 The Lehigh Field. The first discovery of anthracite coal in the 
 Lehigh region is said to have been made in the Mauch Chunk 
 mountain, about nine miles west of Mauch Chunk, where the village 
 of Summit Hill is now located, by a poor hunter, named Philip 
 Ginter, in 1791. Pieces of the coal discovered by Ginter were 
 
BEGINNING OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE. 119 
 
 taken to Colonel Jacob Weiss, at 'Fort Allen, who opened a 
 "quarry" in the coal mountain that year. The discovery of coal 
 on the Lehigh was announced as follows in the New York Mag- 
 azine for February, 1792, in a communication dated Philadelphia, 
 January 31: "A coal mine has been discovered on the Lehigh, 
 in the county of Northampton. The coal yet found is small, but 
 there is every reason to believe that by searching deeper it will 
 be found larger. The quality is good. If this natural advantage 
 is improved, it will be a prodigious resource to the city and 
 cheapen the article of fuel, which now, from the labor of trans- 
 portation, bears a high price." In 1793 Colonel Weiss, John 
 Nicholson, Michael Hillegas, Charles Cist, Robert Morris, (of 
 Revolutionary fame), J. Anthony Morris, and others organized 
 the Lehigh Coal-Mine Company, which obtained control of 
 about six thousand acres of coal land, and several tons of coal 
 were soon "dug up." But there was no market nearer than 
 Philadelphia, and there existed no means of communication with 
 that city. It was not until 1803 that the company succeeded in 
 floating two arks to Philadelphia, through the Lehigh and Dela- 
 ware rivers, laden with two hundred tons of coal. Five arks 
 were started, but three of these were wrecked. The coal, how- 
 ever, could not be made to burn, probably because large lumps 
 were used, and was thrown away as useless for any purpose 
 except to "gravel footwalks." In 1806 William Turnbull, of 
 Philadelphia, floated three hundred bushels of coal from this 
 region to Philadelphia, in an ark he had constructed at Lau- 
 sanne. The coal was sold to the Central Square Water- Works, 
 but it proved to be unmanageable, and Mr. Turnbull's experiment 
 was not repeated. 
 
 To encourage the use of their coal, the Lehigh Coal-Mine Com- 
 pany executed, on the 18th of December, 1807, a lease for twenty- 
 one years to James Bufland and James Rowland of two hundred 
 acres of their land in Northampton county, with the privilege of 
 digging iron ore and coal free for the manufacture of iron. The 
 enterprise was unsuccessful, and the lease was abandoned about 
 1814. We regard it as absolutely certain that no iron was made, 
 and we think no coal was mined. The following extract from the 
 proposition of Butland & Rowland, dated November 30, 1807, is 
 worthy of preservation : " The subscribers, having obtained by patent 
 from the United States an exclusive right of using a natural carbon 
 or peculiar kind of coal, such as is found in the neighborhood of 
 
120 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 the Lehigh and Susquehanna rivers, and other parts of the United 
 States, for the purpose of manufacturing pig, cast, and bar iron, 
 propose commencing the operation in such a situation as may be 
 deemed best adapted to the purpose." 
 
 In 1814 two ark-loads of Lehigh coal reached Philadelphia 
 from the mines of the Lehigh Coal-Mine Company, then leased by 
 the Hon. Charles Miner and Jacob Cist, a son of Charles Cist,- and 
 this time the coal was sold at $21 a ton and successfully used by 
 the purchasers, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, who were then 
 manufacturing wire at the Falls of Schuylkill. After this venire 
 Miner and Cist abandoned the mining and shipment of anthracite 
 coal. They had lost money. In 1817 White and Hazard and 
 George F. A. Hauto became interested in the improvement of the 
 navigation of the Lehigh river, for the purpose of aiding in the 
 development of the Lehigh coal mines, and on the 20th of March, 
 1818, an act of the Legislature was passed authorizing the incorpo- 
 ration of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. This com- 
 pany obtained a lease for twenty years of the Lehigh Coal-Mine 
 Company's lands, then amounting to ten thousand acres, for one ear 
 of corn a year, if demanded ; with the proviso that, from and after 
 three years, the latter company should send, on their own account, 
 at least 40,000 bushels of coal, or about 1,500 tons, per annum to 
 Philadelphia. The new company commenced work immediately. 
 In 1820 it sent 365 tons of anthracite coal to market; in 1821, 
 1,073 tons; in 1822, 2,240 tons; in 1823, 5,823 tons; and in 1826 
 its trade increased to 31,280 tons, which seemed to be near the limit 
 of the capacity of the works as then constructed. During the next 
 year, 1827, the Mauch Chunk Railroad was finished, and the as- 
 cending navigation was put under contract, soon after which ship- 
 ments steadily increased. 
 
 The Middle Field. The Middle region, occupying a wild 
 and broken section of country between the Wyoming and Schuyl- 
 kill regions, and extending on the east to the Lehigh region, 
 was the last of the four great anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania 
 to be developed. The Mahanoy and Shamokin basins compose its 
 principal divisions. Coal pits or mines are marked in the neigh- 
 borhood of Mahanoy creek, above Crab run, in Scull's map of 
 Pennsylvania in 1770. But little mining was done in the region 
 until 1834, owing mainly to its inaccessibility. In that year 500 
 tons were mined and hauled in wagons to neighboring districts. 
 
FIRST USE OF ANTHRACITE IN STOVES AND GRATES. 121 
 
 First Use of Anthracite Coal in Pennsylvania in Stoves and Grates. 
 It is claimed by Dr. T. C. James, of Philadelphia, in a paper 
 read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, on the 19th 
 of April, 1826, that he successfully used anthracite coal in 1804 
 and thenceforward. Unfortunately, Dr. James does not say wheth- 
 er he used the coal in a stove or a grate. In the introduction 
 to the census of the United States for 1860 it is stated that 
 Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, patented in 1800 a "luminous" 
 grated stove, with talc light, with special reference to the use 
 of mineral coal ; " but Dr. Thomas C. James was one of the first 
 to use it habitually in his house, which he continued to do from 
 1804 to 1826." In the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch mention is 
 made of the first cooking-stove to use anthracite coal, as follows : 
 
 In April, 1828, the United States Gazette described an invention which 
 had recently been perfected by Williamson & Paynter, stove manufacturers, 
 southwest corner of Ninth and Market streets, Philadelphia. It consisted 
 of "a cast-iron box, fifteen to thirty inches in length, eight to ten inches 
 wide, and six or seven inches deep. It has a grated bottom, and is calculated 
 to burn anthracite coal as readily as charcoal. Upon one edge is placed a 
 common tin-kitchen, or roaster, in front of which, on the opposite edge, is a 
 sheet-iron fixture of the same length, which reflects the heat upon the con- 
 tents of the tin-kitchen. Through the top of the reflector may be placed 
 boilers for meats and vegetables. By means of false jambs, the size of the 
 fire is reduced at will. By displacing the reflector and the tin-kitchen, the 
 box or furnace may be used to heat water, roast coffee," etc. The contrivance 
 was fixed on four iron wheels, and the cost of it, according to the Gazette, 
 would not exceed nine dollars. This was undoubtedly the first improvement 
 of the kind. Such an adaptation could not have been made until after an- 
 thracite coal came into common use. It was certainly a great addition to 
 household economy, and was one of the most important improvements in 
 stoves since Franklin invented the " Pennsylvania fireplace." 
 
 Down to 1808 the anthracite coal of the Wyoming valley was 
 used only in smiths' forges, but in that year Judge Jesse Fell, of 
 Wilkesbarre, was successful in using it in a grate, as clearly ap- 
 pears from a memorandum signed with his name and dated Febru- 
 ary 11, 1808. This may have been the first successful attempt 
 that had been made to use the new fuel for domestic purposes in a 
 grate, either in this country or in any other country. Anthracite 
 coal was not used in Wales until 1813, nor in France until 1814. 
 Its use in grates soon became general wherever it was mined or could 
 be transported. "In the year 1788," says Judge Fell, "I used it in 
 a nailery, and found it to be profitable in that business. The nails 
 
122 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 made with it would neat the weight of the rods, and frequently a 
 balance over." 
 
 Cost of Developing the Anthracite Coal Fields of Pennsylvania. 
 In Mr. Daddow's paper in the American Cyclopaedia is a table of 
 the canals and railroads which have been constructed for the trans- 
 portation to market of the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania, and of 
 the capital invested in its mining and transportation. From this 
 table we learn that the length of the main track of the railroads 
 built exclusively or mainly for the transportation of anthracite coal 
 is 1,231 i miles, of which 538f miles are double track : the length of 
 the sidings and branches, is 52(H miles. The length of the canals 
 built for the same purpose is 673 miles. The cost of the railroads 
 is placed at $128,000,000; of the canals at $47,000,000; of the 
 coal lands at $75,000,000; and of the collieries at $43,700,000; 
 total, $293,700,000. These figures are for 1873. 
 
 Miscellaneous Information About Coal Mining in Pennsylvania. 
 The well-known Blossburg semi-bituminous coal region of Pennsyl- 
 vania, which annually produces about a million tons of coal, was 
 not brought into public notice until after 1832, in which year it was 
 geologically surveyed by R. C. Taylor. In 1840 its development 
 began by the building of a railroad to reach Northern markets. 
 In that year 4,235 "tons were sent to market, followed by 25,966 
 tons in 1841. The Broad Top semi-bituminous coal section of the 
 State was but very slightly developed until 1856, when the Hun- 
 tingdon and Broad Top Railroad was completed and the first coal 
 sent eastward to market. 
 
 Splint, or block, coal is found in the Shenango valley, and is 
 largely used as it comes from the mine in the manufacture of pig 
 iron. Mercer county produced half a million tons of this coal in 
 1871. Small deposits of cannel coal are found in the western part 
 of the State. Previous to the discovery of petroleum in large quan- 
 tities in Northwestern Pennsylvania, illuminating oil was distilled 
 from cannel coal mined along the Allegheny river and elsewhere. 
 
 The use of anthracite coal for generating steam was attempted in 
 Philadelphia very early in the present century, but it is stated that 
 this use of anthracite was not successful until 1825, when the pro- 
 prietors of the rolling-mill at Phoenixville used it under their boilers. 
 It was used successfully about 1827 at the same mill in puddling 
 iron. In 1837-8 successful experiments in smelting iron ore with 
 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION ABOUT PENNSYLVANIA COAL. 123 
 
 anthracite coal were made at Mauch Chunk, and in 1839 at Potts- 
 ville. 
 
 In the latter part of 1823 the Boston ironworks obtained a full 
 cargo of Lehigh anthracite coal, for use in heating iron for the rolls 
 in their mill, and for smith work. This was the first cargo of an- 
 thracite coal taken around Cape Cod. But, a short time previous 
 to this transaction, and in the same year, Cyrus Alger of South 
 Boston obtained a lot of about thirty tons of Lehigh coal, which he 
 used in a cupola for melting iron for castings. In 1839 anthracite 
 coal was used in puddling at the Boston ironworks by Ralph 
 Crooker, the superintendent. 
 
 Outside of Pennsylvania the mining of anthracite coal is every- 
 where conducted on so small a scale that there is nowhere in the 
 world to be found a single coal-breaker except in the northeastern 
 part of this State. Of the sixty-six counties in Pennsylvania, only 
 twenty-five contain no coal. There is practically no coal of any 
 kind in the United States east or north of Pennsylvania. As no 
 other country can successfully compete with this State in the pro- 
 duction of anthracite, the exportation of the finest domestic fuel in 
 the world should soon become a regular and extensive business. 
 
 Statistics of Coal Mining in the United States and in Pennsylvania. 
 The position of Pennsylvania among the coal-producing States 
 and Territories of the United States is clearly shown in the statistics 
 of coal production in the census year 1870, herewith presented, and 
 in the accompanying statistics of production in 1874 and 1875, the 
 latter prepared by Richard P. Roth well. The official statistics for 
 the census year are in net tons, but in compiling the statistics for 
 1874 and 1875 Mr. Rothwell has used the gross ton, and for the 
 purpose of comparison he has presented in a parallel column the 
 production of 1870 in gross tons. 
 
 It will be seen by reference to the table that the total production 
 of coal in this country in 1870 was 29,342,580 gross tons, of which 
 Pennsylvania produced 20,936,422 tons, or more than two-thirds of 
 the whole. Of the total production, 13,985,960 gross tons, or almost 
 one-half, were anthracite, and of this all was produced in Pennsyl- 
 vania except 12,500 tons. By further reference to the table it will 
 be observed that, in 1875, with which year the first century of the 
 American Republic may be said to have closed, the total production 
 of coal in the country was 47,513,235 gross tons, of which Pennsyl- 
 vania produced 31,143,509 tons, or about two-thirds of the whole. 
 
124 
 
 COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Of the total production by Pennsylvania, 20,643,509 gross tons were 
 anthracite, and 10,500,000 tons were bituminous. 
 
 STATES. 
 
 Census 
 Report 
 June 1, 
 1870. 
 
 Year 
 ending 
 Dec. 31, 
 1874. 
 
 Year 
 ending 
 Dec. HI, 
 1875. 
 
 Per- 
 
 ofthe 
 whole, 
 1875. 
 
 
 9821 
 
 45,000 
 
 60000 
 
 0.13 
 
 
 
 5000 
 
 9 000 
 
 002 
 
 California post- carboniferous coal 
 
 
 214,600 
 
 166 100 
 
 0.35 
 
 
 4018 
 
 150 000 
 
 150000 
 
 0.32 
 
 Illinois bituminous 
 
 2,343,003 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 3,500,000 
 
 7.37 
 
 
 390955 
 
 812,000 
 
 800000 
 
 1.69 
 
 Iowa " 
 
 235,256 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 3.16 
 
 
 29410 
 
 250,000 
 
 275,000 
 
 0.58 
 
 
 134 449 
 
 360 000 
 
 375 000 
 
 079 
 
 
 1,624,843 
 
 2,410,895 
 
 2,342,773 
 
 4.94 
 
 Michigan ' 
 
 25 134 
 
 12,000 
 
 12000 
 
 002 
 
 Missouri ' ' 
 
 555,295 
 
 714,000 
 
 750,000 
 
 1.58 
 
 Nebraska ' 
 
 1 272 
 
 1,300 
 
 1,300 
 
 
 
 
 1 000 
 
 1000 
 
 
 
 2,256,504 
 
 3,810,344 
 
 4,346,653 
 
 9.15 
 
 
 
 43200 
 
 28800 
 
 006 
 
 Pennsylvania anthracite* and bituminousf 
 
 20.936,422 
 
 32,667,386 
 
 31,143,509 
 
 65.54 
 
 
 12500 
 
 17,000 
 
 11,000 
 
 002 
 
 
 119,123 
 
 350,000 
 
 360,000 
 
 0.76 
 
 
 5,178 
 
 30,000 
 
 35,000 
 
 0.07 
 
 Virgi'nia " " 
 
 55 181 
 
 73100 
 
 79200 
 
 17 
 
 Washington " " 
 
 15,932 
 
 27,100 
 
 88,900 
 
 0.16 
 
 
 543 641 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 1,100,000 
 
 232 
 
 Wyoming post-carboniferous coal 
 
 44,643 
 
 260,000 
 
 278,000 
 
 0.59 
 
 North Carolina, Georgia, and Indian Territory, 
 bituminous.. 
 
 
 60,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 0.21 
 
 
 13,985,960 
 
 21.684,386 
 
 20,654,509 
 
 43.48 
 
 Total bituminous .. 
 
 15,231,668 
 
 25,330,539 
 
 26,031,726 
 
 54.78 
 
 Total post-carboniferous coal 
 
 124,952 
 
 799,000 
 
 827,000 
 
 1.74 
 
 Total of all kinds 
 
 29,342,580 
 
 47,813,925 
 
 47,513,235 
 
 100.00 
 
 * Anthracite 
 
 13,973,460 
 
 21,667,386 
 
 20,643,509 
 
 43.44 
 
 t Bituminous.... 
 
 6,962,962 
 
 11,000,000 
 
 10,500,000 
 
 22.10 
 
 We present below a table, which we have compiled from reliable 
 sources, showing the production of mineral coal by all countries in 
 late years, to which is added the share of Pennsylvania. 
 
 MINERAL COAL BY COUNTRIES. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Gross Tons. 
 
 Per 
 cent, of 
 total. 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 1875 
 
 131,867,105 
 
 47.62 
 
 United States 
 
 1875 
 
 47,513,235 
 
 17.16 
 
 
 1874 
 
 46,658,000 
 
 16.85 
 
 
 187-6 
 
 17,047,761 
 
 6.15 
 
 
 1876 
 
 15,011,330 
 
 5.42 
 
 
 1875 
 
 12,852,048 
 
 4.64 
 
 
 1874 
 
 1,346,900 
 
 .49 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 1876 
 
 709,646 
 
 .26 
 
 New South Wales 
 
 1874 
 
 1,304,567 
 
 .47 
 
 Spain 
 
 1873 
 
 570,000 
 
 .21 
 
 India 
 
 1875 
 
 500,000 
 
 .18 
 
 
 
 150,000 
 
 .05 
 
 
 1874 
 
 390,000 
 
 .14 
 
 Chili, China, New Zealand, and other countries 
 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 
 Total.. 
 
 
 276,920,592 
 
 100.00 
 
 HnitPfl qttAQ /Pennsylvania, 31,143,509 tons 1 
 . btates, | Q tner states 16 369 726 tons j 
 
 1875 
 
 47.513,235 
 
 17.16 
 
 Percentage of the world's nroduction bv Pennsylvania.... 
 
 
 
 11.05 
 
STATISTICS OF COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 125 
 
 The following statistics by districts of coal mined in Pennsylvania 
 in 187.3, a year of greater production than 1875 or 1876, and the 
 year of greatest production since the beginning of coal mining in the 
 State, are taken from Macfarlane's Coal Regions of America. 
 
 ANTHRACITE. GROSS TONS. 
 
 Grand 
 Total. 
 
 COUNTIES. 
 
 Sent to 
 market. 
 Official. 
 
 Home 
 consump'n. 
 Estimated. 
 
 Total 
 Product. 
 
 Schuylkill 
 
 4,252,043 
 1,234,070 
 358,741 
 449,915 
 10,047,241 
 3,243,168 
 
 880,000 
 170,000 
 25,000 
 30,000 
 1,675,000 
 463,000 
 
 5,132,043 
 1,404,070 
 383,741 
 479,915 
 11,722,241 
 3,706,168 
 
 22,828,178. 
 2,598,702 
 
 9,096,680 
 
 Northumberland 
 
 Columbia 
 
 
 Wyoming 
 
 Lehigh , 
 
 Total anthracite 
 
 19,585,178 
 
 3,243,000 
 
 22,828,178 
 
 
 SEMI-BITUMINOUS.VG 
 
 ROSS TONS. 
 
 MINvES. 
 
 Tons 
 produced. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Fall Brook Coal Company, Blossburg 
 
 
 312,466 
 357,384 
 321,207 
 212,462 
 252,329 
 85,315 
 
 I 991,057 
 212,462 
 } 337,644 
 
 L 1,057,539 
 
 Morris Run Coal Company Blossburg 
 
 
 Blossburg Coal Company, Blossburg 
 
 
 Mclntyre Coal Company Ralston 
 
 
 Towanda Coal Company, Towanda 
 
 
 Fall Creek Coal Company, Towanda 
 
 
 Total Northern Pennsylvania 
 
 
 1,541,163 
 95,257 
 612,036 
 350,246 
 
 Snow Shoe, Centre county 
 
 
 Clearfield county 
 
 
 Broad Top, Huntingdon county 
 
 
 
 
 2,598,702 
 
 2,593,702 
 
 
 
 BITUMINOUS. GROSS TONS. 
 
 LOCALITIES. 
 
 Tons 
 produced. 
 
 Johnstown, used in ironworks, etc. (estimated 
 Allegheny Mountain region, Pennsylvania Rai 
 West Pennsylvania Raiiroad 
 
 
 250,000 
 220,409 
 259,340 
 255,355 
 878,944 
 685,611 
 81,742 
 436,650 
 529,496 
 132,118 
 315,044 
 111,169 
 159,057 
 125,109 
 846,374 
 2,000 
 447,855 
 99,091 
 3,733 
 2,157,583 
 600,000 
 500,000 
 
 .. . 
 Iroad 
 
 
 
 
 Westmoreland gas coal 
 
 
 
 
 Philadelphia and Erie Railroad . 
 
 
 Allegheny Valley Railroad 
 
 
 Erie and Pittsburgh Railroad (block coal). 
 
 
 Lawrence Railroad 
 
 
 Newcastle and Beaver Railroad 
 
 
 
 
 Little Sawmill Run Railroad 
 
 
 Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad 
 
 
 Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad. .. . 
 
 
 Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Charleston Rail 
 Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad 
 
 
 
 Shenango and Allegheny Railroad 
 
 
 Wheeling, Pittsburgh and Baltimore Railroad. 
 
 
 Monongahela Navigation .. . 
 
 
 Used by railroads, not in above 
 
 
 Mined on rivers and in country pits, not in ab< 
 Total bituminous coal 
 
 >ve . 
 
 
 9,096,680 
 
 Total production of Pennsylvania in 1873 
 
 
 34,523,560 
 
 
 

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