Hopewell Funrnace

Day 260
Elverson PA

Nearby our current rented lot is a national landmark called Hopewell Furnace. I don't know what it is, Katie doesn't know what it is, maybe we should swing over there and see what it is all about.

What we are looking at is an old iron plantation. It was built in 1771 to smelt iron ore on site. This required a vast amount of resources. Iron ore was mined nearby as well as the limestone. Pennsylvania supplied the forests for an unbelievable amount of fuel. Somewhere between 5,000-6,000 cords of wood per year were turned into charcoal to fuel the fire to smelt iron. I'll put this into perspective for you. A single cord of wood consists of split firewood that is in a piled into a 4 foot x 4 foot x 8 foot rectangle. So a sheet of plywood stacked full of wood 4 feet tall. That wooden fuel was mixed with limestone and iron ore in a giant chimney furnace to make iron for America.

The fire needed to burn hot. Real hot. in order to obtain the 2,600 degree fire needed air had to be force fed into the bottom of the charcoal fire. A waterwheel fed by a stream on the property propelled two large air bellows. A technological innovation for it's time. Mechanical air injection revolutionized the iron smelting process.

The liquid metal settled to the bottom of the furnace and had to be tapped. A Founder would then break the clay plug to allow iron to flow out into the floor and turn into pig iron bars. While it flowed out the Moulder men would come over with there ladles and grab metal to make the finer things from the foundry. Hopewell excelled at wood stove ovens for your house. Laid up against a side wall were a bunch of oven doors that never made it to a complete product. 

The rest of the property is some old buildings and a barn full of horse carts. A large house known as the "Big House" was the home to the owner and proprietor of this amazing place. It's worth noting that the owner here was ahead of his time in treating people with equality. Man or woman, white or black, people were paid the same wage for the job the performed. There was no slave labor here. Free colored people lived in the rental houses right next to the white people next door. Everyone worked together to survive and support their families. Hopewell remained in operation up until 1883. New processes and technologies made this facility an archaic relic of time. A true piece of american history.