National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

History Program Northeast Region

Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

Administrative History

HOPEWELL FURNACE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

Administrative History

August 2005

Leah Glaser

Northeast Regional Office Organization of National Park Service American Historians U.S. Department of the Interior P.O. Box 5457 Philadelphia and Boston Bloomington, Indiana

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ...... v

Preface...... vii

I. Introduction ...... 1

II. Conservation and Preservation: The French Creek Recreational Demonstration Area...... 13

III. The Development and Establishment of a National Historic Site, 1936-1941...... 38

IV. WWII Occupation and the Administration of a Multi-use Park, 1942-1947...... 72

V. “The Golden Age:” The Restoration of Hopewell Village in the Post-war Era, 1947-65 ...... 113

VI. What Now? Preservation and Celebration in the Post-Restoration Period, 1966-1988 ...... 155

VII. Restoration, Religion, Recreation, and Roads: Conflicts in Resource Use...... 182

VIII. Preserving the Rural-Industrial Landscape: Natural Resource and Cultural Landscape Management ...... 216

IX. Facts and Artifacts: Research and Collections at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site...... 239

X. “From a Village to a Furnace:” Interpretive Programs and Visitor Services at Hopewell ...... 256

XI. Conclusion...... 309

Annotated Bibliography ...... 316

Appendices: Appendix A: Guide to Selected Acronyms ...... 324 Appendix B: Permanent/Full-time Employees at Hopewell Village/Hopewell Furnace National Historic Park, 1939 to Present...... 325 Appendix C: Dates of Key Legislation...... 328 Appendix D: Annual Visitation ...... 329 Appendix E: Appropriations for Hopewell Village/Furnace National Historic Park ...... 330 Appendix F: Era of Significance ...... 332 Appendix G: List of Selected Resources and Restoration Dates ...... 334 Appendix H: Maps ...... 335

Index ...... 337 List of Illustrations

1.1 Old Cast House, 1889. Stokes Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 1.2 Wheelwright Shop, ca. 1890. Bull Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 1. 3 General View of Village from South, 1920. Stauffer Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 2.1 Old Hopewell Lake with Building 36 in Background, 1920, Stauffer Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 2.2 CCC Building RDA Structure, ca. 1936. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.1 Furnace Group-CCC Restoration, 1935. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.2 General View, North, CCC Grading Road Slopes, 1935. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.3 Superintendent Lemuel Garrison, 1940. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.4 CCC Cleaning Debris from Furnace, 1936, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.1 General View of the Wheel Pit Excavations from Furnace Bank, 1941. HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.2 British Sailors Looking at Anthracite Furnace, 1944. Photo Book, French Creek RDA, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.3 Naval District, CCC Building, 1943. Photo Book, French Creek RDA, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.4 Naval Rest Camp, 1943. Photo Book, French Creek RDA, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.5 Emil Heinrich (back right), Catherine Fritz and Part-time Staff, 1943. HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.1 Ranger in Interior of Barn Displaying Model of Furnace and Waterwheel, 1951. 5.2 Cars and People in Village for Dedication of Waterwheel Ceremony, 1952, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.3 Visitors Viewing Waterwheel Operation, 1953, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.4 Seasonal Ranger-Historians Bill Bitler and Bob Franz, 1957, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.5 Excavating with a Front End Loader near the Furnace, 1955, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.6 Charcoal Cooling Shed Reconstruction, 1958, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.7 East End of Dairy Barn, 1958, Photo by Bob Ronsheim. HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.8 North View of Dairy Barn, Photo by Bob Ronsheim, 1958. HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.9 Barn Reconstruction, 1959, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.10 Barn Reconstruction, 1959, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.11 Looking North from Bridge at Barn, Office-Store, and “Big House,” 1961, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.12 Front of Cast House under Construction, 1964, HOFU Photographic Archives.

v 5.13 General View of Amish Workers Preparing Beams Prior to the Cast House Reconstruction, 1964. HOFU Photographic Archives. 9.1 Collier’s Hut, 1936, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.1 Establishment Day, George Buck Demonstrating Molding under the Connecting Shed, 1963, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.2 Wagon Rides in front of Cast House, ca.1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.3 Charcoal Burn, ca.1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.4 Cooking, 1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.5 Parlor of Ironmaster’s House, ca.1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.6 Moulding demonstration in Cast House, ca 1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.7 Gypsey Prince, ca.1942. HOFU Photographic Archives, HOFU Photographic Archives.

vi Foreword

Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, located in the Valley watershed in Chester and Berks Counties, , preserves and interprets one of the finest examples of an early American iron plantation. Founded in 1771 by Ironmaster Mark Bird, the furnace operated intermittently until 1883. Generations of ironmasters, craftsmen, and laborers produced iron goods, primarily bars of pig iron to be processed into finished products elsewhere, and castings such as iron-plate stoves for the domestic trade. Furnace workers, including men and women, slaves and free blacks, immigrants, tradesmen, domestic workers, and their families, formed a community whose lifestyles are as integral to the park story as are the details of iron-making technology. During the Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the abandoned furnace property and some remaining buildings were still in the ownership of the last ironmaster’s descendants and the extensive lands were mostly in agricultural use. The entire property was purchased by the federal government for the Recreation Demonstration Area program, one of the many New Deal initiatives to help the nation recover from the Great Depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps arrived to convert the lands into a public recreation area and engaged the National Park Service (NPS) to evaluate the furnace ruins found on the property. NPS historians recognized the value of the buildings in preserving the story of iron-making in America and worked tirelessly to restore and conserve the site for future generations. Hopewell thus can be said to be a “historians’” park. In 1938 the property was designated Hopewell Village National Historic Site under the authority of the Historic Sites Act, thereby becoming one of the earliest cultural units of the National Park System. Today, the park is surrounded on three sides by and Pennsylvania State Gamelands, which preserve the forested lands which historically were mostly owned by Hopewell Furnace to provide the natural resources—iron ore, limestone, timber for charcoal, and water power—needed to produce the iron. The park’s resources include a reconstructed charcoal-fueled furnace complex, the ruins of an anthracite furnace, the ironmaster's mansion, tenant houses, barns, and a mixed industrial, domestic, and agricultural landscape on some 800 mostly wooded acres. Although the park and the state-managed lands still retain their rural character today, rapidly encroaching residential development has greatly changed the character of the surrounding countryside.

vii Foreword

This study recounts the more than thirty-year effort to define and return the park to its historic appearance, culminating in the major infrastructure development of the site during the Park Service’s “Mission 66” era; and it tells the full history of the site’s operation. It is an important case study of the Park Service’s efforts to accurately recreate and depict iron making and life in an iron-making community within the context of evolving historic preservation policies. In particular, during the long period of restoration and reconstruction, the NPS struggled over how most accurately to represent Hopewell Furnace’s historic appearance; and the NPS has continuously debated the issue of “furnace” versus “village”—whether technology or social history took precedence. Through World War II, the historic site still contained all the approximately 6,000 acres that would be permanently separated into a small national historic site surrounded by a large state park (French Creek State Park) after the war. In 1985 the park was renamed Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site to re-emphasize the importance of its iron-making story. It has long been recognized that the park needed an Administrative History to tell its important story. The park’s current General Management Plan effort provided the impetus to fund the project. This study was undertaken through the Park Service’s cooperative agreement with the Organization of American Historians (OAH). The collaboration between the NPS and the OAH has been particularly fruitful in bringing cultural resource management and historical scholarship together. We would like to give special thanks to Susan Ferentinos, the Public History Manager for the OAH, who managed the project on behalf of the organization; and we would like to thank Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site Superintendent Bill Sanders and his staff for their assistance.

Clifford I. Tobias, Ph.D. Historian, History Program, Northeast Region Philadelphia

August 2005

viii

I. Introduction

Nestled among the trees of the Schuylkill River Valley in Berks County, Pennsylvania, the restored historic buildings of Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site1 commemorate America’s technological heritage. To many visitors of the National Parks, the idea of an “industrial complex” situated in a rural rather than an urban setting seems counter-intuitive, an oxymoron. But within this idyllic, pastoral landscape, an ironmaking operation ran intermittently for over a century, 1771-1883. Far from any city, an active, diverse, and isolated community of workers and structures grew around the glow and blast cycles of an iron furnace that produced its product for distant urban markets. While nearby farmers cultivated their soils and toiled in their fields, the ironmaster and his workers exploited the forest for fuel to make charcoal, funneled the available water supply down sloping hills for energy, and crafted massive amounts of industrial products and implements for America’s growing industrial society. As one observer noted in 1959, “The visitor today can hardly realize that the furnace—with its lazily- turning waterwheel disturbing the tranquility of this place where time has long since stopped— was once the hub of great activity.”2 No public buses deliver battlefield-weary tourists and history buffs to Hopewell Furnace. Rather, many come with school field trips or as a segment of an itinerary that includes Valley Forge and Gettysburg. Many arrive to take advantage of the recreational opportunities in the nearby French Creek State Park and escape from the pollution, noise, and pace of Reading to the northwest and Philadelphia, located an hour’s car ride away to the southeast. Some visitors have probably never heard of Hopewell Furnace, because unlike the nearby military sites, no singular extraordinary event occurred there. Rather, the site reflects a period of time and a process that played an integral role in the everyday socioeconomic life of early America for many decades. Hopewell Furnace became the first National Park Service (NPS) site to earn national recognition for industrial history in the United States and illustrates the agency’s

1The property of the Hopewell Furnace differed from that of the present park. In addition, the park was initially called Hopewell Village National Historic Site. In an effort to be more precise, I will refer to the historic furnace itself, as well as its property, as “Hopewell Furnace;” the park from 1938 to 1985 as “Hopewell Village;” and the park from 1985 to present as “Hopewell Furnace NHS.” If I am referring to the area over a general geographic area or time period, I will simply use “Hopewell.” 2 G. Clymer Brooke, Birdsboro: Company with a Past Built to Last (New York: The Newcomen Society in North America, 1959), 11.

1 Introduction recognition of “a people’s history” well ahead of the academy.3 While not the earliest, largest, or longest-lasting furnace in Pennsylvania, NPS historians still felt the remains at Hopewell possessed all the resources to illustrate the typical lifestyles and work involved in the iron industry. They agreed that iron production served as a key component of industrialization during America’s transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Hopewell Furnace operated in a time many patriots have touted as America’s golden agrarian age; one before the steel monopolies of Andrew Carnegie transformed locally-based industry into great national corporations. These issues make the site’s plentiful resources difficult to manage and its full meaning a complex message to convey to a general public. As a historical park, the story of Hopewell Furnace extends well beyond its reflection of early American industry. Born out of the exigencies the Great Depression in 1938, the site’s establishment as a unit of the National Park System reflects the progressive and conservation era philosophies governing the New Deal. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site similarly serves as a case study for examining changes in preservation policies and attitudes over time, especially how they interacted with contemporary issues of natural conservation. Its development by the federal government raises complicated preservation issues, offers complex discussions about the relationships (and inter-relationships) between cultural, recreational, and natural resources and their use. Hopewell also provides useful lessons about the restoration, interpretation, and management of historical sites, buildings, and museums in the United States, particularly in a rural setting.

Setting

Located about five miles south of the small town of Birdsboro, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site currently lies within the largest contiguous forest in southeastern Pennsylvania. Amidst rolling uplands, the 848-acre park encompasses about 635 acres of woodland and 145 acres of farmland, meadows, and pastures. A haven to sportsmen, hunters,

3Jay Anderson, “Living History: Simulating Everyday Life in Living Museums,” American Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1982): 293. See also Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: HarperPerrenial, 1980).

2 Introduction and vacationers alike, French Creek State Park, state game lands, and privately-held land border the historic site.4 Found artifacts likely belonging to the Indians attest to some habitation of this region, but there presently exists no documentation of subsequent non-Indian settlement prior to the eighteenth century. England’s American colonies still depended on an agricultural economy throughout the 1700s; however, iron furnaces began to take advantage of lands that remained “unimproved” or undeveloped. To operate a furnace for just one day required an acre of forestland. Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and Maryland all had successful enterprises, but Pennsylvania became an exceptionally appropriate place for the iron industry. Settlers had cleared much of the eastern coastline of trees, but dense forests filled the northeastern interior, particularly in the Pennsylvania hillsides, which also claimed considerable iron ore and the running streams of the Delaware and Schuylkill River Valleys.5 Several agricultural communities and settlements developed around them, often populated by those who worked for the ironmaster on a seasonal schedule. However, just north of the farms, and near the present border of Berks and Chester Counties, French Creek flowed between two hills in Union Township. Floods often deluged the heavily forested area of oak, poplar, chestnut, hickory, maple, and beech trees, and left marshy conditions, ruining the land for farming. While not conducive for agrarian pursuits, the topography in this area proved ideal for industrial ones. When Hopewell Furnace founder Mark Bird searched for a location to build his iron furnace and plantation, he looked for a place equipped with the necessary natural resources to run the machinery. He hoped for accessibility to iron ore, limestone with which to make flux (a substance used to combine with impurities in the ore to form slag, the refuse separated from metal during the smelting process), and plenty of trees to cut and turn into charcoal (the furnace’s fuel). Bird also sought a source of waterpower, some agricultural land, and finally, a hillside where topography would aid workers in pouring raw materials used to make iron into the top of the furnace (known as “charging”). The small hill between Mount Pleasure and Brush Hill proved an ideal slope for “charging” the furnace by simply constructing a bridge.6 Iron ore

4 Kise, Franks, and Straw, with Menke and Menke, “Cultural Landscape Report: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site,” (Philadelphia: National Park Service, Northeast Regional Office, December 1997), 1. (CLR) 5 Gary B. Nash, et al. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society, 4th edition (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998), 284. 6 CLR, 24.

3 Introduction mines and limestone located only a few miles away, and nearby transportation facilities (including an extended network of public and private roads) would help ensure the financial success of the iron plantation that would operate there for the next several decades.7

“The Machine in the Garden:” Cultural History of the Site8

Mark Bird was able to select this ideal site for his furnace near the woodland area he inherited from his father William, a successful owner of two iron forges and a furnace. For over 3,000 years people exploited iron ore by heating it with a charcoal fire at sites known as “bloomeries.” Large-scale colonial American iron production, largely characterized by the development of the blast furnace, began in the first quarter of the eighteenth century in both Virginia and Pennsylvania. Emblematic of the impinging industrial age, the Hopewell Furnace in southeast Pennsylvania became one of several self-contained iron communities of the colonial and post-Revolutionary eras. Flattened “pyramids of stone” became common sights across the rural countryside of the middle and northeastern colonies including the Schuylkill River Valley.9 Between 1716 and 1776, the Pennsylvania colony claimed twenty-one blast furnaces, forty-five forges, four bloomeries, six steel furnaces, three slitting mills, and one wire mill. One area in southeastern Pennsylvania claimed so many such sites that it became known as Valley Forge.10 The iron industry in the American colonies expanded quickly, producing pots, metal fire gates, horseshoes, utensils, and stoves. When England’s home enterprises feared competition, Parliament regulated colonial production by passing the Iron Act in 1750. This legislation essentially limited American iron production to wrought or to “pig” iron (unrefined cast iron bars, of uniform shape and weights–about three feet long and four inches thick–formed by

7Russell A. Apple, “Mission 66 Prospectus for Hopewell Village National Historic Site,” (Elverson, PA: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, National Park Service, July 27, 1955). 8 Many scholars and authors have told the history of Hopewell Furnace, so only a brief outline will be provided here. Much of this summary has been compiled from the CLR un