The Construction, Operation, and Dissolution of the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company’S “New Furnace”
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Northeast Historical Archaeology Volume 45 Article 8 2016 Last Gap: The onsC truction, Operation, and Dissolution of the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company’s “New Furnace” David P. Staley Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/neha Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Staley, David P. (2016) "Last Gap: The onC struction, Operation, and Dissolution of the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company’s “New Furnace”," Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 45 45, Article 8. Available at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol45/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Northeast Historical Archaeology by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 45, 2016 171 Last Gasp: The Construction, Operation, and Dissolution of the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company’s “New Furnace” David P. Staley Isolation and historical circumstances have largely preserved the “New Furnace” at the Adirondack Iron & Steel Company’s Upper Works. An historical account suggested that the operational process at the facility would be clearly represented by an array of tools and debris. Daily activities at a blast furnace tend to obliterate much of the archaeologically observable behavioral evidence, and decades of visitors and vandalism have removed any tools abandoned after the last casting. Through the interpretation of sediments, stratigraphy, features, and under-utilized material culture, such as building materials, smelting raw materials, and slag, it is possible to reveal aspects of construction, operations, collapse, and decay at the site. Taken further, some of the findings may reflect corporate paternalism, as well as the owners’ wildly fluctuating fiscal attitudes toward New Furnace construction and operations. L’isolement et les circonstances historiques ont grandement contribué à la préservation de la « New Furnace » des « Upper Works » de l’Adirondack Iron & Steel Company. Un récit historique suggère que le processus opérationnel de cette installation devrait être clairement représenté par un ensemble d’outils et de débris. Les activités quotidiennes au haut fourneau tendent toutefois à effacer une grande partie des données comportementales observables archéologiquement, et des décennies de visiteurs et de vandalisme ont enlevé les outils abandonnés après la dernière coulée. Grâce à l’interprétation des sédiments, de la stratigraphie, des structures, et de la culture matérielle sous-utilisée, comme les matériaux de construction, les matières premières fusionnées et la scorie, il est possible de révéler plusieurs aspects sur la construction, les opérations, l’effondrement et la dégradation du site. De plus, certains des résultats peuvent refléter le paternalisme corporatif, ainsi que les attitudes fiscales fluctuantes des propriétaires envers la construction et les opérations de la « New Furnace ». Introduction American Engineering Record [HAER] 1978; Seely 1978; Staley 2004). The development is Adirondack Iron & Steel Company’s “New exemplary of the larger, dynamic, charcoal-iron Furnace” is arguably the best-preserved industry that adopted technologies from example of a mid-19th-century ironworks. At anthracite smelting during a period of rapid first viewing, the dark, massive, masonry blast technological change (Seely 1981: 27–54). The New furnace appears compact, situated along the Furnace represents the last structure in a series shoulder of the forested road. Its crisp, clean of forges, cupola furnaces, blast furnaces, dams, corners trace straight lines from its base to the charcoal kilns, and other facilities constructed top of the stack (FIG. 1). Further investigation at Upper Works, and the company’s “last reveals other components positioned about the gasp” prior to failure (Seely 1981: 134). landscape in ruin, yet, still providing clear Nestled in the mountainous High Peak illustration of a complex industrial operation1. Region of the Adirondack Mountains, the Upper Broader systematic surveys of this National Works are 16 mi. from the nearest hamlet, Register District documented physical remains Newcomb, New York (FIG. 2). This isolation, associated with this antebellum plantation-style related transportation costs, and difficulties ironworks known as Upper Works, McIntyre, inherent in the smelting of titaniferous iron and Adirondac (Youngken 1977; Historic ores have been cited as the major reasons for 1. There are numerous contemporary blast-furnace stacks in the ironworks ultimate failure. Likewise, the Northeast, such as the Wharton, Rockland, and Victory isolation has been cited as a primary reason for furnaces in Pennsylvania (White 1986), Oxford Furnace in New Jersey (Historic American Building Survey [HABS] 1935), the preservation of both the works and the and the Nassawango Furnace in Maryland (Heite 1974: 31; New Furnace, largely sparing the machinery HAER 1989). However, unlike many of these sites, Upper and masonry at the sites from historical salvage Works has not been extensively reconstructed, and the district includes multiple smelting facilities, each associated with (Seely 1978, 1981; Null 2009). Preservation at ancillary features and artifacts that, together, represent New Furnace can also be credited to the use of evolving technologies. quality materials, craftsmanship, and design 172 Staley/Adirondack Iron and Steel Company’s “New Furnace” Figure 1. Ruins of the Adirondack Iron & Steel New Furnace. (Photo by J. Yuan, New York Department of Environmental Conservation, 2003.) elements, such as the parallel and diagonal limited heating and cooling cycles contributed iron binders used in its construction (Null to its excellent state of preservation. Lastly, 2009: 54). Visible testaments to craftsmanship after abandonment, property ownership and include the precisely dressed anorthosite stewardship regulated negative impacts to the blocks forming the corners of the stack and the district and this site (Staley [2016]). patterning in the brick arches (Seely 1978: 141; Historical circumstances and the geographic Null 2009: 51). Blast furnaces are subjected to setting preserved the architectural integrity extreme temperatures, temperature differentials and the industrial context at Upper Works. It between the interior and exterior while “in was anticipated that the hard shell of the New blast,” and temperature shifts beginning and Furnace would protect associated archaeological ending each blast session or “campaign.” New deposits. Historian Arthur Masten suggested Furnace was in blast for only two campaigns, that work at the furnace “was dropped just as spanning around a year (Seely 1978: 148–150). it was” (Masten 1923; Manchester 2010a: 125). The brevity of use at New Furnace and the His next statement was placed in quotes, but Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 45, 2016 173 Figure 2. Location of Upper Works, McIntyre, and Adirondac in Essex County, New York. (Figure by author, 2014; adapted from HAER [1978: 1].) unattributed: “The last cast from the furnace late 19th-century visitors (Staley [2016]). In the was still in the sand and the tools were left absence of an assemblage of smelting leaning against the walls of the cast house.” The implements, the use of more mundane, temptation to be lured into a “Pompeii premise” pedestrian artifact categories, such as building (Binford 1981, Schiffer 1985) was tempered by materials, smelting raw materials, and waste knowledge of mining and smelting operations, products, is more central to this analysis. Since and results from previous archaeological the site was not particularly attractive to investigations of 19th-century blast furnaces. visitors collecting curios, analyses of these In general, mining sites are subjected to cycles mundane artifact categories might provide an of occupation, extraction, and abandonment unbiased record of behavioral patterns and that “mutilate” all or portions of earlier, postdepositional processes. mining-site structure (Hardesty 1988: 12, 1990: Nearly all 19th-century ironworks 48). New Furnace and much of the Upper documented during regional surveys are in a Works district avoided total destruction by being state of substantial to total collapse (White located outside the footprint of the larger 1986; Allan et al. 1990; Rolando 1992). Previous 20th-century titanium development farther archaeological excavations of 19th-century south. The daily operations in the working furnaces and ironworkings have often found arch and casting house of a blast furnace evidence of demolition, reconstruction, large- repeatedly wipe clean the archaeological slate scale material salvage, and adaptive reuse, through removal of product and waste- such as at Carp River, Michigan (Landon et al. product and the reuse of mold materials. 2001), the Eaton Furnace in Ohio (White 1980, Given the inherent dangers in this workplace 1996), the West Point Foundry, New York environment, furnace masters would likely (Kotlensky 2009), and Bluff Furnace in Tennessee recognize the value of, and demand, a clean and (Council, Honerkamp, and Will 1992). The tidy workspace. Subsequent to abandonment, degree to which these behaviors impacted the the works became a destination, with the New archaeological record and interpretive potential Furnace as a central curiosity. The paucity of varies. All the excavations provided