Ledger Book Post # 2

Page 3, April 10, 1830

Above is a scan of a small section of page three of the ledger, some of the text is hard to figure out, also the dollar and cents amounts don't seem to add up all the time at the end of each entry. The first entry comes out right though, Martin Felty was paid 50.00 and John Bohr 5.21 for a total of 55.21, this one adds up the way it should. The second entry is for Geo. Eckert, he received 5.21, which was for Bohr in the first entry. It's hard to figure the 3rd entry out. The bottom entry is not much better either, except, for the last line, Henry Bohr was paid .55 for 5 pounds of butter, the .55 was at the far right side of the ledger and does not show up in the above scan; I did not try and scan the full width of the page, this leaves off the total charges for some of the entry's, scanning the full width of the page would have made the above scan too small to easily read.

From here on I am only going scan sections of the Ledger Book that have notable information in them; I will type out the names of people the first time their names appear in the book, also what their names are associated with, example: selling things to the furnace company, working for the company or buying things from the company store when it is up and running. The names, Paul Brand and Wm. Graeff appear once or twice on almost every page at the beginning of the book, I think they are in charge of what we now call "Buildings and Grounds, no more of those two for the time being. Maybe at the end of three or four months I will note that Mr Martin Felty sold "X" amount of lumber to the company for "X" dollars, or Mr Henry Bohr sold "X" pounds of butter to the company during the last four months. 

Bloggers note: I had mentioned before that I had attended the Outwood Country School and Pine Grove High School on two different occasions; while in 4th grade Carl Bohr was in 6th grade there, Carl was a kind of an "In Charge" guy, he always made sure us little guys got our turn at bat during the noon time baseball games, I think Carl's nickname was :Monkey". I returned to The Outwood School in 1946 to finish out my 6th grade, one of my classmates was Clark Bohr, Molly Bohr was also there, she was a year or two behind  me, Molly rode the school bus with me later when we moved on to school in Pine Grove. I think the Bohrs were probably descendants of the 1830's families, don't know for sure though, This is a question  for a genealogist.

Thats it for this post, more will follow.

Swatara Furnace History

Ledger Book post # 1

This is the 1830 Swatara Furnace Ledger

It's time now to start adding surnames to our furnace story, many of the names that will follow are common in Pine Grove Township now, just as they were back in 1830. As I said in my introduction I attended both the Outwood Country School and Pine Grove High School, family names of some of my classmates will be turning up in a post a little further down the road.

This is the top of the first page of the 1830 ledger book

As you can see the text has not faded in any way, I did have to use Photoshop to improve the contrast a little, as the image from my hand-scanner needed a little help.

I had mentioned before many of the names in the ledger are what one might call names common in Pine Grove Township, they were in 1830, are now and will probably continue to be.however, the first two names in the book are not what I would call "Household" names in this part of Schuylkill County; the names are Paul Brand and Wm. Graeff, these two names keep turning up in page after page. There are several accounting categories listed in this part of the ledger that also keep repeating themselves, "Buildings and House Charges", Brand and Graeff seem to always  be connected to the buildings and house charges categories. I had wondered for quite awhile where the builders of the furnace, dam, raceways and all of the support structures lived while the "The Iron Plantation" was being constructed, this was really the boondocks back in 1830; the nearest hotel was probably in Port Mifflin (Now Suedberg), if there was a hotel at the canal port, was it big enough, or reasonable enough to house the construction crew?  What I did next was go to the U.S. Federal Census for Pine Grove Township for 1830, typed in "Brand", my answer popped up right away on page 103, Head of Families - Paul Brand, 1 Male between 5 & 10, 16 Males between 20 & 30, 1 Male between 30 & 40, 2 Females between 5 & !0, 1 Female between 20 & 30, 1 Female between 30 & 40, 1 Female between 40 & 50. There are 23 people living under one roof, 16 of them males, this is not a three room cottage, it's either a hotel, boarding house or bunkhouse; I'm going to speculate a little, I'm going to say this is some sort of a bunkhouse Eckert and Guilford built at the furnace site for the first batch of workers, furnace engineers, surveyors, water dam builders and some labor's who had worked on furnace projects before. I checked  the 1820 Census and did not find Mr Brand listed in the Township; I have not had time yet to research Mr. Graeff.

Next on page 1, Dated Mar. 13, 1830. Buildings - Martin Felty for 1098 feet Pine c.12, 11.23. 

Other odds and ends from page 1. 
Mar 3, 1830, Wm. Graeff, Buildings,  12.15
Mar 3, 1830, Wm. Graeff, House Charge - 2 beds, c 45 - .90
                                            Buildings, 4/4 Augers, 2 files - .70
Mar 10, 1830, To Paul Barr - Buildings, 12.15
Mar 10, 1830   House Charge, J Keesey   3.30
Mar 12, 1830, Paul Brand,  Buildings, 5 gal Whiskey - 1.25, 2 shovels - 1.25 - total of 2.50. also to Paul Brand, same date under House Charge, 3 gal Molasses - 2.95. It looks like molasses cost three times as much as whiskey .

Note: So far the dollar sign ($) has not been used,

everything just numbers and decimal points, and (c) for cents.

Bloggers Note: One of my best friends at the Outwood and Pine Grove High Schools was Herbert Felty; Herbert was one grade behind me, I was in high school a year before he caught up with me at PG HS. On one occasion we rode our bicycles to school in Pine Grove and then back home to the Outwood area, about a six mile trip one way, we both had heavy frame, balloon tire bikes with no gears, one trip was enough. I visited Herbert and his wife several times before he passed away on April 9, 2014. Herbert told me several years ago that his ancestors had owned a good deal of acreage in the Outwood area back in the 1800's, the Martin Felty listed above might have been one of them. 

Furnace Pictures 

This is about what the furnace looks like now, a late 1980's photo by your blogger.

A Williams family box camera snapshot from the 1920's,
The Stager family home is on the "Furnace Bank"

at the upper left, much more on the three generations
of the Stager's who lived here later on.

 For those who are not familiar with furnace terminology the "Furnace Bank" is a level piece of ground behind, and  roughly the same height as the top of the furnace. In this picture the furnace seems to be as tall as the top of the house, this is because of the angle that this picture was taken from; if you walk up the hill today you will see the top of the furnace and the ground level of the furnace bank are almost the same. When the Swatara Furnace was in operation a bridge went from the furnace bank to the top of the furnace, this was where workers crossed to dump loads of charcoal, limestone and ore into the top of the furnace.

It's about time to get this post on the way, I hope to have some Ledger Book information on my next post.

Swatara Furnace History

This is a test post, my first attempt did not come out too well

Volume # 1, Swatara Furnace Ledger Book
Starting in 1830

E. & G. stands for Eckert and Guilford, the
builders of The Swatara Furnace in 1830

If this works out more information will follow.

Swatara Furnace - Early History

Hi, I'm Bill Grumbine Sr, amateur Historian, tour guide from time to time, and was also a full time area resident in the Swatara Furnace/Forge area back in the 1940's, I attended the Outwood country school on two different occasions, then moved on to the Pine Grove High School for a number of years before moving to New Jersey where I graduated. My interest in this small section Southwestern Pine Grove Township goes back many years, even though I am no longer a resident of this area my interest has not lessened in any way.

So, why did I set up this little information blog? Well, not too long ago I had the good fortune of gaining access to Volume # 1 of The Swatara Furnace Ledger Book, this starts in 1830. While I have not had nearly enough time to go through the whole ledger I can see that it is a "Goldmine" as far as genealogical information is concerned, many of the surnames in the book are family names of people who still live in the Pine Grove area, some names are the same as the kids that were at the Outwood School when I was there. 

I'm quite old now, this Blogging and Website stuff is new and complicated as far as I am concerned, I will try to do my best to get information and pictures out. To start with I be covering surnames and information concerning the furnace and nearby buildings that were part of the Swatara Furnace Iron Plantation.

The picture below is the full volume #1, at the right is an enlargement, E. & G. No. 1, this stands for Eckert and Guilford, the builders of the furnace in 1830. It seems I have run out of space for this post,more information will follow in a future post.