A Blast from the Past!

Pennsylvania Iron Industry

By: Ryan Moore

People travel all around the world to see the amazing things that
humans are capable of building. Today there is the CN Tower in
Canada which was the tallest free standing building in the world
until 2007. The Empire State Building in New York was the first
building ever to have more than 100 stories, and the Golden Gate
Bridge in California which became an icon in San Francisco.
These structures as well as many others could not have been made
today had iron never been discovered. Although most of these CN Tower, Canada
structures are made from steel, producing iron has always been the basis for steel
production.

Iron Roots
The beginning of the Iron Age dates back as far as 1800 BC. Early iron working was mainly
used to make tools for agricultural use as well as to make different cutting and stabbing weapons.
The use of iron tools helped make early agriculturally based societies more efficient in the
cultivation of crops for the people that lived in farming communities. At this time it was difficult
to produce large amounts of iron to make anything bigger than axes or picks. But further
development of iron furnaces would open the door for great opportunities in Pennsylvania.
In 1716 a man named Thomas Rutter established the first iron works in Pennsylvania. He
constructed what is known as a Bloomery forge, which was the earliest type of furnace that was
capable of smelting iron. The bad thing about a Bloomery
is that with each firing, the amount of iron that is
produced is relatively small. After a few years of
construction around 1720, Rutter built Pennsylvania’s
first iron furnace. The Colebrookdale Furnace located in
present day Berks County just outside of Reading, was
capable of producing high quality iron at a much faster
rate than older style Bloomery forages. Most of the iron
that was produced at Colebrookdale was cast directly into
-Colebrookdale Furnace
products for household use instead of the traditional iron
slabs. Until this time producing large amounts of iron was difficult due
to the fact that smelting had only been done one way. This first furnace marked the beginning of
what would later on make Pennsylvania what it is today.

After Rutter constructed the Colebrookdale furnace, many others began

to pop up all over Pennsylvania. The first major one to note is the
Conrwall iron furnace, constructed by Peter Grubb in 1742. He named

-Cornwall Furnace
the furnace Cornwall after an area in England where his father had emigrated from. Cornwall
furnace is located in Lebanon County, a 395 acre area that was rich with iron ore and provided
enough timber to make charcoal in order to keep up the temperature of the furnace. The
Cornwall furnace was in operation through the American Revolution and was responsible for
producing over 86 tons of shot used in cannons, and about 24 actual cannons that were used in
battle. Cornwall furnace remained in operation until 1883when newer furnaces powered by
anthracite coal began to be built and Cornwall became obsolete.

After the construction of the Conrwall Furnace, a man named

William Bird began to build the Hopewell iron furnace in 1744.
It was completed in 1771. Hopewell Furnace is located in Berks
County not too far from where the Colebrookdale furnace had
been constructed. Over the 27 years of construction, an entire
village was constructed to accommodate the ironmaster,
workers and the facilities necessary to keep production high.

The People
The earliest settlers in Pennsylvania were mostly people who
Hopewell Furnace
had immigrated from England, Germany, and Ireland who wanted to come to the
new world. So it would make sense that most of the people that worked in the iron furnaces
where people that came from these places. Most of the managers and less skilled workers had
come from areas in England. Below them were the more unskilled positions that were filled by
indentured servants from England and Germany. The more unskilled people had likely agreed to
work for only room and board for a number of years in order to be guaranteed a spot on a boat to
America. These indentured servants proved to be problematic simply because they were servants.
Funny advertisements would be put up in towns for returning runaway servants saying things
like “He is no scholar and pretends to be a Blacksmith.”It was also not uncommon for slave labor
to be used to fill jobs around the furnace. Slaves were known to hold skilled jobs like founders
and colliers as well as unskilled jobs like miners and woodcutters.

Workers needed places to live while being employed in the iron

furnace. Many of these larger operations like Colebrookdale and
Cornwall had a town that was built around the furnace so that there
was little travel time and people working as indentured servants
could be monitored more closely. Cornwall is an extraordinary
example of how much development took place to the outlying town.
Because of the scale of operation was so large at Cornwall, a lot of
wealth was drawn in and put back into the town. Schools, churches,
small artisan shops, and general stores were built to help
accommodate the needs of the people that lived in the town.
-Cornwall Village
Early iron industry had a great impact on Pennsylvania and help shape what it would later
become when steel would take over as an important resource. Fast changing technology made
the typical blast furnace obsolete by 1840 when the anthracite furnace became the primary way
of making iron and steel. These advancements also help to later make Pennsylvania the largest
producer of steel in the world. Large iron furnaces also helped to develop some of the first
thriving towns that Pennsylvania as a colony has ever seen. All of these furnaces can still be seen
today, they have stood for over 200 years and give meaning to what it means to live in
Pennsylvania. Iron is a very important part of not just Pennsylvania’s history, but American
history.

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