Yes, America Had (Has) Iron

We were staying in French Creek State Park, PA, very nice campground.

Chapter 11 and Gypsy rested yesterday so today we decided to go for a bike ride. About 3 miles from here there’s a place called Hopewell Furnace which was founded about 1771. Today it consists of 14 restored structures and is an example of an American 19th century rural iron plantation, whose operations were based around a charcoal-fired cold-blast iron blast furnace. The site discontinued operations in 1883.

Unfortunately, they weren’t really any bicycle trails through French Creek State Park, so we had to ride on the bicycle path along side of a two-lane road going downhill. Using our brakes to slow us down, all the time knowing that on the way back that we better have enough battery to get up that hill. After all, who wants to pedal an electric bike!

We arrived to a closed and locked main gate with a sign stating they were closed on Monday and Tuesday. Yep today is Tuesday… rutroo .

Howie looked at me and said “Way to go George now what”. I’m like, hey we can get around this gate on the grass, that gate is for cars and we are on ebikes. So we walked our bikes around the gate and then we had the entire historic park to ourselves.  Well planned I’d say!

We left our bikes at the visitor center, which, of course was closed, and we strolled on the meandering trails through the village that consisted of your obligatory church, mini small cottages, a cook room that was adjacent to one of the main houses and of course there was a couple of very large furnaces where they did their smelting operation.

While Ann Marie was exploring the water trough, see was standing next to a tree, when at eye level to her immediate right, she noticed this black snake exiting out of the tree looking at her!

There was a 25 foot water wheel that operated two large bellows that forced air from the bellows through a 12-inch pipe to the very bottom of the smelting furnace to create enough heat to melt this iron ore. Very impressive operation for the time. Lots of hard back-breaking work.

Our gotta learn something today factoid—The basic ingredients of iron making – iron ore, limestone, and carbon fuel – are some of the most common on Earth, but are not found everywhere. Early furnaces were built where these materials were available. American forests were so vast – and bringing in coal so expensive before railroads were built – that early iron plantations like Hopewell made their own fuel. They slowly burned and carefully built piles of wood to make charcoal, an almost purely carbon fuel that burns with intense heat. The great demand for charcoal meant that early furnaces were sited on woodlands. Moulders cast several items: plowshares, pots, sash and scale weights, cannon, and shot. But as iron stoves grew more common in 1800s homes, Hopewell built its operation on stove plates.

So, when we were in Detroit (a few years ago) visiting the Henry Ford stuff, we learned that Henry sold Rockford his wood wastes (sawdust and chips) from his massive saw mills, (remember his cars had wooden bodies). Rockford in turn compressed this “dunnage” into charcoal briquets. Ford initially marketed this under his name, but later renamed Kingsford® Charcoal.

Sorry for the (charred) wooden bridge you just crossed, but you will be happy to know we (Me, Ann Marie and Howie) all had enough battery power in our bikes to make it home. But of course Berny, is the “over achiever” in this crowd, as she always pedals.