PA -- Hopewell Furnace NHS:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- HOPE_031011_005.JPG: The Ironmaster's Mansion was built in three stages, starting ca 1770-1800. Some remodeling took place as late as 1870.
- HOPE_031011_022.JPG: Ooh! Who's in the mirror?
- HOPE_031011_090.JPG: We're in the barn
- HOPE_031011_102.JPG: Down the hill is the Blacksmith Shop
- HOPE_031011_141.JPG: This is the money-maker for the Hopewell furnace. The furnace is located in here. The bridge on the right connects to the shed where horses would pull up with charcoal which was dumped into the furnace from the top.
- HOPE_031011_151.JPG: These are flasks which were used for casting. As a sign says: Skilled workers, known as moulders, cast iron products here. With hand-held ladles, moulders poured molten iron tapped from the furnace into a sand mold formed in a flask. The flask, two boxes joined by clamps, permitted molding detailed iron stove pipes. Once iron cooled, moulders separated the boxes and prepared stove plates for market.
- HOPE_031011_156.JPG: Pig Iron Production: Casting the pigs
Molten iron flowed from the furnace's tap hole into channels compressed in sand in this floor. The cast iron forms became known as "pigs" since their outline resembled a sow nursing a little of piglets. Once cools, pig iron was sold to forges and foundries for further processing.
During the furnace's last 40 years of operation, ending in 1883, Hopewell mainly produced rough iron bars. Prior to this period, Hopewell profited from the sale of finished products -- stove plates, hollowware, weights, and other molten items.
- HOPE_031011_185.JPG: Water Wheel: Powering the blast machinery
This water wheel powered Hopewell's blast machinery. The two blowing tubs continuously forced air into the furnace to intensity its heat.
By 1822, blowing tubs [which you see to either side of the blast pipe above the wheel] replaced bellows. Piston rods attached to each end of the water wheel shaft moved pistons inside the tubs and compressed air. The air, forced into an equalizing box between the tubs, was directed through a blast pipe that led to the furnace.
The water wheel you see today has been restored by the National Park Service.
- HOPE_031011_206.JPG: The path leads to the tenant houses where the workers lived. On the left is a boarding house. A sign says:
Iron Community Life
On either side of the road in front of you are homes where iron workers once lived. In the mid-1800's, tenants paid $12-$25 a year to rent a house here, while other families lived off furnace property or rented near mines. Although residents were close to their work at the furnace, they faced discomforts of noise, dust, and wagons steadily creaking up and down this road. To your right are ruins of a schoolhouse, built by the furnace company in 1837.
- HOPE_031011_217.JPG: This house's roof was damaged by Hurricane Isabel and they were trying to repair it.
- HOPE_031011_245.JPG: We're above the furnace now. As the sign says:
Cold-Blast Charcoal Furnace: Operating the Furnace
Workers known as "filters" unloaded iron ore, charcoal, and limestone into this furnace's stack. The water wheel powered a pair of cylindrical bellows which forced air into the furnace, helping to create the heat needed to make iron.
A furnace worker, or founder, controlled the quality of iron by varying amounts of iron ore, limestone, charcoal, and air blast. White iron flowered into channels to make pig iron bars. When a founder tapped grey iron, he sounded the casthouse bell, signaling moulders to cast finished products.
- HOPE_031011_257.JPG: Charcoal Pit: Making furnace fuel
Throughout surrounding hills are remains of hundreds of pits such as this one in front of you. Workers, or colliers, tended these pits to transform wood into charcoal -- a pure carbon fuel.
Colliers ignited stacked wood covered with leaves and dirt to begin making charcoal. It took ten days to two weeks for wood to "come to foot" or char completely. Around the clock, colliers kept a watchful eye on smoldering pits to prevent an open flame from igniting and ruining the charcoal. Hopewell's best charcoal was made by gradually charring chestnut, oak, and hickory wood.
Master colliers and their helpers made charcoal during spring, summer, and fall. Seldom seen here, they lived as nomads in primitive, cone-shaped huts. By centralizing their homesites, two or three charcoal workers could tend up to nine charcoal pits at a time.
To begin making charcoal, a collier prepared a hearth by leveling the earth. In the hearth's center, he drove a long pole or "fagan" into the ground, then built a three-corner chimney of small cuts of wood called "lapwood."
He stacked larger pieces of hardwood or "billets" against the chimney, gradually building a lower and upper tier.
Next lapwood was layered on the hearth to fill all air spaces.
The collier covered the entire pit with layers of leaves and charcoal dust and then lit the pit at the chimney's top.
- HOPE_031011_261.JPG: This was the type of hut a collier would live in
- HOPE_031011_266.JPG: Note the adult inside. This helps give you an idea of how big these things were. From the sign:
Anthracite Furnace: A new ironmaking method
In 1853, the Hopewell partners built a hot-blast anthracite furnace here. This new furnace did not burn charcoal but used anthracite coal to smelt iron -- an attempt to reduce fuel costs and increase iron production.
Hopewell's anthracite furnace operated for less than four years. By 1857, furnace machinery had been removed and was installed on a new furnace on the Schuykill Canal. This suggests the cost of hauling coal made the furnace operation uneconomical.
- Wikipedia Description: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site near Elverson, Pennsylvania, is an example of an American 19th century rural "iron plantation". The buildings include a blast furnace and the ironmaster's house, with auxiliary structures. Hopewell Furnace was founded in 1771 by ironmaster Mark Bird, who was the largest slave owner in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1780, and for whom Birdsboro was named. A canalized headrace turned the water wheel supplying air to fire the blast furnace. The furnace continued in operation until 1883.
As slavery was phased out in Pennsylvania, African Americans stayed on as paid employees of the Furnace. Beginning in the 1830s, the remote wooded area around Hopewell Furnace figured prominently in the Underground Railroad.
In an area that is primarily significant for its cultural resources, Hopewell Furnace consists of 14 restored structures in the core historic area, 52 features on the List of Classified Structures, and a total of 848 mostly wooded acres. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site is surrounded by French Creek State Park which preserves the lands the furnace utilized for its natural resources.
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