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CORNWALL IRON FURNACE Administered by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark The American Society of Mechanical Engineers Susquehanna Section Cornwall Iron Furnace Cornwall, Pennsylvania June 8, 1985 CORNWALL IRON FURNACE rich iron ore deposits and limitless forests that It was Pennsylvania, however, that eventually IRON provided the fuel for smelting it into pig iron became the prime center of iron production in and forging the pig into bar iron, both products the colonies, a simple consequence of the hap- “As they gather silver, and brass, and IRON, shipped back to the mother country from the py combination within its borders of seemingly and lead, and tin, into the midst of the fur- earliest period of settlement. infinite deposits of the richest iron ores, endless nace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it...” timberlands, great deposits of limestone needed Ezek. 22:20. As early as 1619 a group of English investors as a flux in the blast furnace, and plentiful established a blast furnace at Falling Creek near The factors that gave rise to the Industrial water power to drive both the bellows that pro- present-day Richmond, Virginia. But what vided the blast air to the furnaces and the ham- Revolution have been the subject of endless would have been the first iron making speculation by historians who have concluded mers and rolls that worked the pig iron into establishment in America failed when the wrought-iron plate and bar. Finally—and nearly variously that these were simple and complex; workmen were massacred and the furnace was the result of naturally unfolding events and as vital as the resources put in place by na- destroyed by Indians. The first successful ven- ture—Pennsylvania was blessed with a great deliberate design; and furthermore, that if there ture was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at was a single root circumstance that made possi- pool of ironmasters and workmen, mostly Ger- Saugus, near Lynn, north of Boston. The Ham- man, skilled in furnace and forge operation. ble this most momentous event in the progress mersmith Ironworks, as it was known, went in- of civilization it was the development of: to operation in 1647. It was an integrated Despite both competition from British furnaces sophisticated mining techniques; or the inven- works, its heart the blast furnace that produced tion and spread of the steam engine; or the and forges, and a variety of restrictive measures pig iron and a line of cast-iron goods made by imposed by Britain on the colonial iron in- emergence of the factory system of manufactur- pouring the molten iron directly from the fur- dustry in an effort to maintain its own interests, ing; or any one of a number of others. While nace into moulds. There also was a forge, in Pennsylvania's iron production flourished and all of these occurrences indeed were important which a portion of the pig was reheated and contributors to the Industrial Revolution, they grew between the early years of the 18th worked under a tilt hammer to convert it into century and the Revolutionary War. Iron was were underlain by a single crucial one upon malleable wrought-iron blooms which in turn which all the others were totally dependent first produced in the colony about 1720 at the were rolled out and slit in the rolling mill to Colebrookdale Furnace in Berks County, and in the absence of which neither they nor form that eminently useful item of commerce, nearly any other element of our industrialized perhaps named for the celebrated nail rod. From that blacksmiths and other crafts- Coalbrookdale Furnace operated by the Darbys society could have evolved: the large-scale, ef- men produced an infinite variety of finished ficiently organized, wide-spread production of in Shropshire. By the time of Cornwall products, from nails and builders’ hardware to Furnace’s establishment 22 years later there the ferrous metals. Without iron, cheaply and plowshares and hoes to rifles and tools; the easily available, the machinery of the Industrial were nearly a dozen furnaces in Pennsylvania myriad iron objects so vital to life, both in the and twice as many forges. Revolution could not have existed. Without the colony and “at home.” steel into which a certain portion of the iron At the start of the Revolution the colonial was converted the tools not only to produce iron industry actually was larger than that of the machinery but to work the mines and fields the mother country, with 80 furnaces in nine of and to carry out literally every aspect of human the colonies. There were more in Pennsylvania endeavor could not have been—could not be— than any other colony—about twenty. America possible. Iron and steel, plentiful and cheap, produced about one-seventh of the world’s iron are the foundation upon which rests practically at the time, ranking third in production behind every aspect of life, from the necessities of Russia and Sweden. Great Britain ranked food, clothing, and shelter to everything fourth. It was this capacity that enabled the beyond... colonies to manufacture ordnance and ammunition in quantities sufficient to wage a IRON IN THE COLONIES successful war with England. Although American colonial life depended principally on wood for most of its mechanical needs, nearly every wooden structure, vehicle, mill, tool, boat, and domestic appliance re- quired some iron to join, band together, cut, or resist wear. For that reason the iron furnace made an early appearance in the American col- onies. An even more compelling reason for this This front plate for a five-plate stove is at- was exploitation by English companies of the tributed to Cornwall Iron Furnace. While many stove plates were cast here, the main product of the furnace was always pig iron. Most iron furnaces were called on during the American Revolution to cast cannon, and Cornwall was no exception. Forty-two naval cannon were cast here, along with much CORNWALL IRON FURNACE as it appeared circa 1860. Left to ammunition. This cannon, once displayed on the lawn at right: Cast House, Top of Furnace, Bridge House, and Engine the ironmaster’s estate, has been returned to the Cast House House. In the background are visible the Charcoal House and where it was made, probably in 1775. Mule Stables. Notice the railroad tracks terminating just outside the Cast House. THE CORNWALL The history of mine and furnace diverged in That Cornwall was spared the depredations 1883. Grubb operated the furnace only until of weather and salvage is nothing less than a FURNACE about 1745 when he leased it to a company. miracle of industrial archeology. That it has He retained oversight of the ore banks, survived as the only 18th/19th-century From its inception Cornwall occupied a however, until his death in 1754 when it American blast furnace with its original fabric special position among Pennsylvania’s iron passed to his sons Curtis and Peter. The entire essentially intact is the result of nothing less, furnaces. It owes its existance to the renowned site was purchased from various Grubb heirs apparently, than family pride—if not Cornwall Ore Banks a few miles south of between 1785 and 1798 by Robert Coleman. sentiment—bolstered by the means that made Lebanon, a deposit of extraordinarily rich Under the Coleman family’s stewardship disposal of the land unnecessary. When the magnetite ore that until development of the Cornwall flourished during the century furnace went out of blast in 1883, it remained Lake Superior deposits was one of the most following, going out of blast, finally, in in the Coleman family which continued to valuable iron-ore bodies in the U.S. It had February, 1883. operate other, more modern furnaces in the been discovered in 1734 by Peter Grubb area. Clearly, the old site was kept and, most during a prospect. By 1737 he had purchased At that point, the saga of the Cornwall Furnace ceases to be one simply of a important, maintained, as a monument to some 450 acres of the iron-rich land and in earlier generations of Coleman ironmasters. In 1742 built a blast furnace, naming the site successful Pennsylvania blast furnace that had been brought up-to-date in 1856, prospered 1931 Margaret C. Buckingham, a great- Cornwall for the English county of mining fame granddaughter of Robert Coleman, deeded the where his father had been born. Both mine and during a heyday of some 25 years following, and then shut down in the face of competition furance and its immediate ancillary structures, furnace survive to the present day in testimony with their land, to the Commonwealth as a to the vital role played by the American iron from the newer, larger, furnaces of the trans- Allegheny region that were based on the vastly historic site, in the capable hands of which it industry during the 18th and 19th centuries in survives today. In the visitors’ center and the nation’s growth. The mine when in work more efficient technology of the hot-blast and coke fuel. The sequence was a common one. throughout the site the technology of was the largest open-pit metaliferous mine in ironmaking in general and the saga of the the eastern U.S. It was exploited until 1973 Even today the former iron-producing regions of Pennsylvania and many of the other central Cornwall mine and furnace in particular, are when the damage caused the previous year by clearly laid out. the flooding accompanying Hurricane Agnes Atlantic states are dotted with the remains of damaged the underground sections beyond many of these furnaces, in nearly all cases economic restoration and it was abandoned by nothing more surviving than the stone furnace THE FURNACE’S the Bethlehem Steel Company, which had stack.

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