Hopewell Furnace

Hopewell Furnace Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site Pennsylvania National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Official Map and Guide In America's industrial infancy, tall stone structures venting smoke and flames were a familiar part of the rural landscape. These charcoal-fueled iron furnaces produced the versatile metal crucial to the nation's growth. For over a century, Hopewell was one of hundreds of "iron plantations'' built around this technology. Here generations of ironmasters, craftsmen, and workers produced iron goods during war and peace—ranging from cannon and shot to the well-known Hopewell stove and domestic items such as pots and sash weights. Shared social and family bonds in an atmosphere of reasonable cooperation made these plantations stable and productive communities, the base on which America's iron and steel industry was founded. Photographs by George Fistrovitch In a climate of disintegrating relations between England and its American colonies, Mark Bird, already an important figure in the booming colonial iron industry, built Hopewell Furnace in eastern Pennsylvania in 1771. When open conflict erupted in 1775, England's ministers regretted not having been more successful in their efforts to rein in the American ironmasters. They knew the iron industry was now going to be turned against the Mother Country. Ever since colonists had carried blast furnace technology to America in the mid-17th century, England had been worried by the rapid expansion of the industry and the increasing skill with which American ironmasters turned out cast and wrought iron products. Crown officials wanted to limit them to producing raw pig iron (rough cast bars), which would be shipped to England and processed into profitable goods—which could then be sold back to America. But the colonies weren't about to give up such a lucrative enterprise. When Parliament prohibited the building of more ironworks, Americans defied the law. They both cast iron and refined it into wrought iron, from which they made a broad range of competitive products. By the time of the Revolution, American furnaces, forges, and mills were turning out one-seventh of the world's iron goods. Pennsylvania's combination of abundant raw materials, waterpower, and religious tolerance drew enterprising ironmasters from other colonies and from Europe. By the time Mark Bird built his furnace in the Schuylkill Valley, Pennsylvania was on its way to becoming the most important iron-producing colony. Bird immediately began casting stove plates despite the British ban, and when the war began he was a steady supplier of cannon and shot to the Continental Army and Navy. By 1789 Hopewell was the state's second largest producer. As the war drew to an end, however, Bird's troubles began to mount. He had difficulty collecting debts from the young nation. At the same time he was suffering reverses in the general depression that followed independence. A flood in 1786 extensively damaged the operations. The multiplying setbacks eventually ruined him, and he was forced to put his furnace on the block. recession, and litigation closed the furnace in 1808. When it was fired again 8 years later, Hopewell benefited from protective tariffs, a rapidly improving transportation system, and large numbers of immigrants looking for work. These national developments and the Hopewell owners' decision to concentrate on castings, especially stove plates, provided the foundation for success. But it was the imaginative leadership of a partner's son, Clement Brooke, that brought the operation to the peak of its prosperity. Brooke was resident manager of the furnace from 1816 to 1831, when he inherited a share and became ironmaster. He presided over Hopewell during its best years, when the furnace supplied a wide variety of iron products to cities along the east coast. Beating swords into stove plates, new owners converted to peacetime production, but the operation remained unprofitable. The partnership of Daniel Buckley and his brothers-in-law Mathew and Thomas Brooke bought the furnace in 1800 and invested in major repairs. But natural disasters, a national The Panic of 1837, which occured at the zenith of Hopewell's fortunes, undermined the community's prosperity. The markets for castings shrank, and Brooke was forced in 1844 to abandon production of the pop- clement Brooke ular Hopewell stove. Although the demand for pig iron, especially during the Civil War, gave the furnace a temporary reprieve, it never again achieved the success of the 1830s. Hopewell's decline was hastened by the coming of America's mature industrial age. Ironmaking was being transformed from the old, rural charcoal-fired and water-powered furnaces to urban concentrations of steam-powered, hot-blast coke and anthracite furnaces. Complexes in Pittsburgh and Birmingham were fed by trainloads of ore and coal from huge western deposits. New processes of integrated iron and Bessemer steel production further rendered the old ways obsolete. After Brooke retired in 1848, Hopewell's owners found it increasingly difficult to compete. They made efforts to keep up, building an anthracite hot-blast furnace and installing a backup steam engine for the blast machinery. The new furnace was a failure, and in any case their efforts only delayed the inevitable. Iron plantations like Hopewell, overtaken by the shift from the age of iron and waterpower to the age of steel and steam, were unable to follow the industry into the 20th century. In the summer of 1883, Hopewell Furnace made its final blast. Both rural Pennsylvania community and "iron plantation. "Hopewell turned out products for a growing natio Touring the Park About Your Visit What you see today represents Hopewell Furnace as it appeared in the 1820-40 period, though some structures were built later. During summer, activities depicting village occupations are presented. The site is open daily except January 1, Thanksgiving Day, and December 25. Hopewell Furnace is located about 6 miles south of Birdsboroon Pa. 345. It is 10 miles from the Morgantown interchange on the Pa. Turnpike, via Pa. 23 East and 345 North. Inquiries regarding the site should be addressed to the Superintendent, 2 Mark Bird Lane, Elverson, PA 19520, or telephone (610) 582-8773 (TDD 582-2093). Camping, picnicking, and swimming facilities are available at French Creek State Park adjoining the Hopewell Furnace Site. The address is 843 Park Road, Elverson PA 19520,(610) 582-9680. Q The anthracite furnace was Hopewell's failed attempt at hot-blast technology. Q At hundreds of charcoal hearths, colliers turned 5,000 to 6,000 cords of wood a year into charcoal. Q Charcoal, sometimes still smouldering, was dumped by teamsters in the cooling shed before being moved to the charcoal house. O Fillers carted charcoal, limestone, and iron ore through the connecting shed to the bridge house. Below, at the base of the furnace, the waterwheel drove the blast machinery (not visible in picture). Q Employees' purchases at the office store were charged against credits for work. Q In the cast house, surrounding the furnace stack, moulders cast iron into stove plates and other products. For Your Safety Please do not climb on the unstable anthracite furnace ruins, fences, and other historic structures. Sharp slag can cut severely. Do not enter fenced areas or feed or handle livestock. Those allergic to beestings should be careful; about 30 visitors are stung each year. Q The blacksmith shop provided hardware and horseshoes and was an informal gathering place. Q Education at the schoolhouse (foundation is visible) was democratic though rudimentary. Q Some workers with families rented tenant houses owned by the company. Single men boarded with them or at the boarding house across the road. DO NOT SMOKE IN THE HISTORIC AREA (J) The barn sheltered up to 36 draft animals and held a year's worth of feed. Hopewell Restored Q) In the springhouse and smokehouse, maids stored and cured foods. By the turn of the century many of the abandoned structures at Hopewell had succumbed to the elements. In 1935 Louise Clingan Brooke sold the decaying property to the U.S. Government, and 3 years later it was desig- {J) The ironmaster's mansion was built in three stages, starting in 1771. Some remodeling took place as late as 1870. Illustration by L. Kenneth Townsend nated a National Historic Site. Because the structures had been altered many times over the years and the furnace's 18th-century appearance was too poorly documented to reconstruct, the site was mostly re- stored to the period of 1820-40. The badly deteriorated waterwheel and blast machinery, which had to be almost completely rebuilt, were in operation by 1952. Some structures, such as the Ironmaster's Mansion and blacksmith shop, were in reasonably good condition. Others had to be reconstructed, using handhewn beams and wooden joining pins. Work continues on the restoration of a rural-industrial landscape. An Iron Furnace at Work The founder was boss, technician, and troubleshooter, directing the ceaseless round of activity at Hopewell Furnace. Raw materials—iron ore, limestone, and charcoalwere supplied by miners, woodcutters, and colliers and transported by teamsters. Fillers carted the materials from the char- coal house area to the bridge house and dumped them at the tunnel head. Guttermen and moulders stood ready below to skim off the slag and cast the molten iron when it was tapped by the founder. Hopewell Furnace was sustained by an ancient alchemy: the transformation of mineral into metal. Since the second millennium B.C., when humans first learned how to free iron from ore, the basic process has not changed. Iron oxide is heated in an intense flame fed by a carbon fuel. The oxygen in the ore combines with carbon monoxide released from the fuel and is expelled as CO2. What is left is iron. The height of the blast furnace allows the rising gases to preheat the ore and gives the iron a greater distance to descend as it softens. It thus absorbs more carbon from the fuel, and because the melting point of iron falls as its carbon content rises, it becomes fully molten. A calcium-based "flux "—usually limestone—is added; it combines with the impurities in the ore and forms slag. They tended thefurnace, the glowing heart oftheir community; it yielded iron and a way oflife. The Raw Materials of Ironmaking The basic ingredients of ironmaking —iron ore, limestone, and carbon fuel—are among the most common materials found on earth. They are not everywhere, however, so the location of an early furnace was determined by the availability of these materials. Iron is usually found in combination in Iron Ore the form of hematite, magnetite (used at Hopewell) and other iron ores. Most iron ore was dug in small surface mines. Any substance containing calcium, such as sea shells, could be used as a flux, but for most furnaces, limestone was cheap and abundant. Because of the great tracts of forest land in America and the expense of bringing in coal before the advent of the railroads, early iron plantations like Hopewell made their own fuel. They slowly burned carefullyconstructed piles of wood to create charcoal, a fuel that is almost pure carbon and burns with intense heat. Due to the Limestone The Workforce Rural ironmaking operations like Hopewell were called "iron plantations." Historians have characterized them as feudal. Hopewell was essentially a self-sufficient community of craftsmen and laborers, all of whose lives were directly or indirectly governed by the furnace. It could be a difficult taskmaster, dirty, noisy, sometimes dangerous, constantly needing to be fed and tapped But these very features of life around the iron furnace were reassuring tokens of the community's prosperity. A silent furnace meant lean times. A traditional hierarchy governed furnace operations. At the pinnacle was the ironmaster— director of the enterprise and often an owner. A good ironmaster had to be financier, technician, bill collector, market analyst, personnel director, and purchasing agent, besides acting as host to prospective buyers. His need for great quantities of charcoal, early furnaces were always located on woodlands. One other ingredient was needed: air. It was directed into the hearth under pressure by the water-powered blast machinery, raising the fire in the furnace to smelting temperature. Furnace Operations was a volatile profession: bad luck or poor judgment usually meant failure; success often brought wealth. He was assisted by the clerk, who kept the books, ordered supplies, served as paymaster, and managed the office store. This job could be a stepping stone to ironmaster if performed well. The quality of the iron was in the hands of the founder, the man responsible for keeping the furnace blowing at peak efficiency. The founder supervised the others working at the furnace: keepers, who helped him monitor the furnace and took the night shift, fillers, who charged the furnace with raw materials, and guttermen, who directed the molten iron as it left the furnace. Moulders, the highest paid workers, performed the exacting job of casting the iron. The colliers (charcoal makers), miners, and woodcutters provided the raw materials for the furnace. Other important members of the workforce included teamsters, who drove the wagons carrying raw materials and finished products; cleaners, often women and children who finished the cast products; and teachers. Women supplemented family income using traditional skills—sewing, providing lodging and board for single workers, laundering—although some O Chimney: Smelting byproducts—CO and C0 2 gases and smoke—are expelled augmented their income working as woodcutters and miners. Farmers, some of them furnace workers part of the year, fed the community. The workforce included people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including African-Americans—first as slaves and later as temporarily employed runaway slaves and free blacks. Q Tunnel Head: Limestone, iron ore, and charcoal are dumped into the furnace Q Air Duct: Air under pressure is brought from air blast machinery A Tuyere: Narrowing pipe directs air blast into crucible, where temperature is boosted to 2,600°-3,000°F. Collier ? Bosh: iron is becoming molten, and with slag descends towards crucible Crucible: narrowest and hottest part of furnace where iron becomes fully molten The life of an iron plantation revolved around the roaring furnace. It ran continuously, shutting down only about once a year for refurbishing of its inner walls and hearth. While the furnace was "in blast," its cycles of filling and tapping established the rhythm of life at Hopewell. It demanded close attention, as the workers constantly fed it, watched its flame, and Founder listened to the sound of its blast. For those working around the furnace, it was a hot, physically demanding job that required protective shoes and aprons. Every half hour fillers dumped into the tunnel head 400 to 500 pounds of iron ore, 30 to 40 pounds of limestone, and about 15 bushels of charcoal. Working without a gauge, the founder's practiced eye judged the shape and color of the flame coming from the chimney and the color and consistency of the molten iron to determine whether the temperature was right and the proportions of the ingredients were correct. In temperatures that could reach 3,000°F, the molten iron flowed down toward the hearth, to be tapped when it was j udged ready by the founder. At Hopewell, he generally tapped the furnace every 12 hours, at 6 in the morning and 6 in the evening. After the guttermen drew off the slag, the iron could be tapped in two ways: It could flow directly into the "pig bed" in the cast house floor (so named for its resemblance to a litter of nursing pigs), where it hardened into pig iron ready for market. Or it could be tapped into large ladles and then cast in molds (see below). This process was repeated twice a day for as long as the furnace was in blast Molten iron took its most profitable form in products cast at the furnace. Throughout Hopewell's history, moulders cast a variety of items: plowshares, pots, sash and scale weights, cannon and shot. But as iron stoves grew increasingly common in 19th-century homes, stove plates became the product on which Hopewell built its operation. obtained through an indirect process not performed at Hopewell. The molten iron was cast into transportable pig iron bars and shipped elsewhere for refining. At a finery forge, the iron was remelted and much of the carbon was oxydized, raising the melting point. The iron partially solidified into a pasty lump, which was beaten to drive out the slag and align the fibers, producing wrought iron. Additional processing converted this iron into the bars and rods used by blacksmiths. A lengthier process was used to convert iron to steel. Hopewell's owners frequently held interests in local forges and mills. Gutterman Hearth Stone: molten iron and slag collect here Dam Stone: molten iron and slag are held in hearth until slag is drawn off and iron is tapped The Finished Products The Moulder's Art The "flask casting" method of casting, in which both sides of the stove plate were molded, allowed the moulder to produce a relatively light, curved plate. The flask consisted of two wooden frames. The moulder laid the bottom half, the "drag," on a piece of Charcoal wood called the "follow board" and placed the wooden pattern inside. He then sifted fine sand over the pattern and packed the rest of the drag with coarse, damp sand 1. After scraping away excess sand with the "strike" 2, he placed another follow board on top and turned over the drag. Then he removed the first follow board, blew away loose sand from the edges of the pattern with a bellows 3, and "dressed" the edge with a moulder's spoon. He attached the "cope," or top half of the flask, to the drag and again added fine and coarse sands. Before packing the sand he inserted a wooden wedge to form a "gate" allowing entry of the molten iron 4. Next he removed the wedge, separated the drag and cope, and carefully removed the pattern with a pair of lifters 5. He then secured the two halves of the flask with iron clamps. The final step was pouring the molten iron through the gate 6. After the iron cooled, he separated the halves of the flask and removed the gate from the plate. Other workers brushed off sand and filed rough edges to ready the plate for market. Moulder Cast products were profitable, but the age also demanded goods for which the furnace's brittle high-carbon iron was unsuitable. The tough, malleable wrought iron needed for horseshoes, nails, and plow moldboards had to be Photographs by George Fistrovitch '.-GPO 1994-301-085/80102