Swatara Furnace Post # 12

Furnace Preservation and Repair

1923 Photo by A. W. Grumbine

We are going to skip the ledger book for this post and jump forward ninety three years to 1923, the above picture was taken and dated by my Dad, Arthur W. Grumbine. This is the side of the furnace that faces down the road towards the Outwood Lutheran Church. Number 1. is what is called "The Cast Arch", the cast arch is where the molten iron and slag flow out of the furnace "Crucible" and into the "Cast House", the cast house was a large wooden covered shed where "Pig Iron", Stove parts and other utensils" were cast. The area that is circled, number 2., was a base stone wall for the cast house, parts of this stone wall were still visible when work started in 1946 on the first City of Lebanon Water Supply Dam at Highbridge. The pipeline from Highbridge to Lebanon went directly behind the furnace stack; if you look at the back wall of the furnace stack you will see some sagging in the stone work, this sagging was caused by some settling of dirt over the pipeline. The pipeline was originally set to go right under the furnace stack; it was only because of the outcry of Township and County people that saved the furnace.  I myself, watched them dig most of the  the pipeline from Highbridge to just the other side of the small white house below the bridge for the road that led into The Big House and up to Outwood, at this time I was a student in seventh and eighth at the Pine Grove School.

The above picture is an enlargement of the picture at the start of this post. For some reason parts of the inner cast arch had started crumble, so, some time in the late 1920's, or 1930's Mr. George Boyer hired a stone mason to do some repair work, I was also told by my family, and the Stager family that Mr Boyer had gotten Boy Scouts, with the help of Mr. Dix to clear away small trees and brush away from the grounds and top of the furnace stack. Time for the next picture.

I took the above picture of the cast arch on Feb. 1st 1987, this was long after Mr. Boyer's stone mason had repaired the early 1900's damage. My last visit to the furnace was in September 2014 with my Son and Granddaughter, the  Cast Arch stonework should still look pretty good unless someone has damaged it.

I took the above picture in 2009; it appears that the front side of the stack is starting to bulge out, the cast arch looks like it is still stable; however, something is going to have to be done to keep stones from falling out, once one or two fall out it might fall like dominoes, would be very hard and costly to put back together.

Fortunately there is some help on the way, a group of area residents has gotten together to take down three trees that are a danger to the stack, remove the small trees and other growths from the top of the stack, clean up the area surrounding the stack and water wheel pit and tail race, and fence in the water wheel pit so nobody falls into it. Much of the work is being done by volunteers,  one grant has been secured to help start the work, however, heavy equipment, and operators will be needed to complete the first phase of the work, so, donations will be gladly accepted; later on engineers will be contacted to find out the best way to stabilize the stack itself, this will be a big and long project. 

I am having a color problem with the first paragraph, can't get rid of aqua background, sorry about that.

Ledger Post # 11

Surnames also Blacksmitthing

Bottom of Page 5, April 28 & 30, 1830

Yep, we are still on page 5, there are some interesting Black Smithing details I want my readers to understand. if you enlarge the scan picture you will see that the earth digging contractors "Edward and Wm. Fare" purchased 2 new picks from the Blacksmith Shop for $3.00, what is interesting is on the next line down; there you will see that the Fare's paid .50 (cents) for "Steeling Pick". I can't tell if they only had one pick steeled, or both of them, it doesn't seem reasonable that since they were in the excavating business that they would have had only one pick steeled. What Steeling means is that a thin strip of steel was welded onto the end, or ends of a pick to make it last longer; this Steeling procedure was also used on shovels, axes and the bottoms of Farmers plows. At this time in the 1800's steel making was still in it's infancy, it was hard to make and therefore expensive. There is something else interesting in that same section, a Mr. Michael Noland paid $1.00 to have one pick steeled, that's twice what the Fare's paid to have their steeling done, maybe since the Fare's were major contractors on the job they got a discount at the Blacksmith Shop. We will probably have a lot more information concerning the Blacksmith Shop as we get further into the ledger. 

The amount of beef being purchased is going up, E & G bought 209 lbs of beef from Mr. Wonder; 4 3/4 cents a pound, must be more people working at the site now. In the top box, under House charge, John Meas bought "2 Pair Pantaloons  $1.32". 

New Surnames  -  Bottom of Page 5

Michael Noland

Laurence Shouiper,   ???

Peter Millage

Peter Weil

Hopefully some of surnames will turn up again later on in the ledger and be a little easier to read. 

Ledger Post # 10-A

Blacksmith Shop and older Bridge

1947 color transparency by A. W. Grumbine

The above picture is similar to the black and white photo I used in Ledger Post # 6-A. The Swatara Furnace Blacksmith Shop was located on the opposite side of Fishing Creek from the furnace. The shop, ( # 1 in the red rectangle), was built in the area between the creek and the present day road, ( # 3, red semi-circle), that leads from the Cabin to the West end of The Big House. I first heard about the Blacksmith Shop back in the summer of 1946 or 1947; My Mother, Ruth (Williams) Grumbine and my Grandmother, Georgia, (Britton) Williams were getting ready to cook our evening meal, it happened that they were two or three eggs short of what the recipe called for, we usually bought our eggs by the dozen from Austin Stager and his wife who lived in the Western most house up in Outwood, Austin and his wife had a large chicken house and sold eggs to many of the area residents, so, it looked like I was going to have to walk the mile to Outwood for eggs, however, Stell Stager, (Sister-in-law of Austin Stager)  our neighbor who lived with her family in the home directly behind the furnace stack was down at the Big House helping to do some housework for my Grandmother, Stell said she could spare several eggs so that we wouldn't have to go to Outwood before supper. Stell and I then headed for her home, we went on the road that led from The Big House to the cabin, as soon as we got into the wooded section of the  the road Stell told me there used to be a big Blacksmith Shop between the road and the creek, well, me being a very young teenager at the time was not interested in blacksmith shops, forges or furnaces, I guess I just said " huh huh" or something like that, end of conservation; at that time in my life my main interests were baseball, basketball and riding my bicycle to Outwood to visit my friends. When Stell and I got to the Cabin we "jumped the rocks" to cross the creek and go up the path to the Stager home. The reason I remember this incident so clearly is because Mrs Stager gave me a lecture on getting the eggs safely back to my Grandmother and Mother, Stell said, "Don't jump the rocks with these eggs, take them back by the road and over the wooden bridge and up into the yard, if you break them you will have to go to Outwood for eggs as I don't have any more to spare".

The second time I was told about the location of the Blacksmith Shop was in August of 1990, my Dad and I made an appointment with Lloyd Stager, (One of Bob and Stell Stagers Sons) for a tour of the Swatara Furnace/Forge area to get information on what he knew about where things, buildings etc were; the Stager home itself had been torn down by the Lebanon Water Company in the late 1970's or early 80's. We met Lloyd at the Furnace stack, he showed us many things in the area (too many to go into now), one of the first things he mentioned was the Blacksmith Shop, he pointed across the creek and said, "The Blacksmith Shop was in those woods, about a hundred feet South of the cabin".

This is getting a little long now, I better get to # 2, the red line at the right of the picture; there was a bridge here at one time, a road led from the present day road circle at the rear of the Big House, over the bridge, then came out about fifty feet South of the furnace stack; the foundations for this bridge were still visible during the 1940's and 1950's; I think several hurricanes  and the creek dredging did away with the foundations altogether.

Ledger Post # 10

Surnames

Top of Page 5, 28 April, 1830 

Something other than Eckert and Guilford purchasing building materials and foodstuffs has finally happened at the furnace site; the second most important operation other than the furnace itself is now up and running, this is the "Blacksmith Shop", the entry is at the top of page 5, 28 April 1830. Edward & Wm Fare, Dn To Smith Shop for 1 New Pick  $1.50. (the $1.50 is not shown on the above scan, also the "$" sign was used for the first time in the ledger). Go back to my Post # 7, 8 Nov, 1830; this was for excavation work done by the Fare's - It looks like the scribbling of their first names on that post were "E & Wm.", This comes out as Edward & Wm. on the 28 April scan. I'm pretty sure now these were the contractors E&G hired to do the heavy digging work.

Now, back to the Blacksmith Shop, at this period in time no industrial project back in the middle of nowhere could survive without a Blacksmith. The Blacksmith, (maybe more than one) and his helpers made tools, shoes for horses, mules and oxen, tires for wooden wheeled wagons and carts, door hinges, cooking utensils, - this list could go on for pages. 

Drop down now to the second section at the top: Sundries Dn to cash, Buildings, looks like pd for Pickhandles $2.00. John Meas, pd him, .16.

I'm beginning to believe "Dn" might mean "Drawn", unless somebody haws a better explanation.

Third section down - House Charge, whoever is doing the bookkeeping is starting something that is plain nasty. at this time a Mr. Wonder is starting to supply E& G with meat. I went to the Pine Grove Twp Census for 1830, Page 103, and found only one Wonder listed, his first name was Peter. Mr Wonder supplies the Furnace site with meat for month after month. The nasty part comes in when the bookkeeper enters the name "Dumb Wonder" every time a purchase of meat is made; I guess our bookkeeper just didn't like Mr Wonder. 

Other new surnames at the top of page 5   

Jacob Hipple

Michael Uhler,  for cash $10.00

Dave Kelker, for cash $5.00

Fred R Harp, for cash $5.00

Jacob Simpson, for cash .50

More on the Blacksmith Shop in the next post

Ledger Post # 9

Surnames

Bottom of Page 3, 10 & 17 April, 1830

Surnames from the above scan

John Zimmerman supplied 16 1/2 Bus corn at .37 1/2 per bushel; this came under  Team Charges.

George Reed received money for something.

Bottom 3rd of Page 3, 17 April, under "Sundries"

Mich Roland, pd him, $100.00, Cash

Jon Meas, pd him, $7.00, Cash

Eleandria Crawford, pd him, $2.75, Cash

Sam Trump, pd him, $20.00, Cash

Some interesting names above, notice the last name, we now have a Mr. Trump on on our surname list, I can't find anything to say what the last four were paid for, we probably need some sort of an Investigation  Committee to sort this out. Also the spelling on three of the above is questionable; I put down "Roland", maybe it's "Noland", then there is the first name of Crawford, who knows what that might be. Then there is "Jon Meas", I checked the 1830, Pine Grove Township Federal Census, there is a John Mease and Johathan Mease on Page 103; "Meas" turns up many times in the ledger' I think the proper spelling is "Mease".

Ledger Post # 8

Surnames

Top of Page 3, 10 April, 1830

I am going to start from the beginning of the ledger and list surnames as they appear on the pages, I won't keep repeating the same surnames over and over in the typed out names below; some of the names show up two or  three times on the same page, if there is something I feel is significant connected with a name I will list it again; I won't be able to scan full pages at all, it's too time consuming, the scan in this post is only about 1/4 of the full page. I'm going to include at least one scan from each page with each post. I am also starting to use dollar "$" and cents "." keys in my posts, they didn't use these in the ledger book, there are two columns at the far right of each page which I haven't included in most of the scans, if I tried to include the full width of the page in the scan the scan picture would be too small to be correctly viewed 

Surnames on about half of Page 3

Paid Martin Felty $50.00

Paid John Bohr $5.21

To Benj Bonewitz for 19 Bus potatoes c .30  $5.70

To Paul Barr for 1 Bbl No 2 Mackerel  $7.25

To Henry Bohr for 5 lbs  butter c .11 .55

George Reed, pd him $10.76

I don't know whose spelling is worse, mine or their's. Miss Greenawalt, my English Teacher at the Pine grove High School would not be happy with either of us.

LEDGER POST # 7

Furnace Area Construction Work

Some Doctor Work

Scan-Page 42, Nov 8, 1830

There is a lot of good information in the above scan, there are three sections to the scan, the most important being the top and bottom ones. The total charges for the top section was $676.32, this was really big money for that time period. It looks like the people who did this work were a E & W Fare, (The name might be "Fehr" instead of Fare) back in those days people doing the writing sometimes didn't bother to ask how a name was spelled, they wrote it down the way it sounded to them, I'll have to look it up in the Census when I have time. I am going to write down some of the lines from the top part of the scan because they might be hard to read even when you enlarge the scan.

"For Excavating Head Race" $190.26. The last time I visited the head race site it was still in pretty good shape.

"Wheel Pit", $65.34. This is the water wheel pit, it's also still in good shape.

"Tail Race, $19.60". I'm not sure what the "Tail Race" is; when I have time I will contact the NPS people at The Hopewell Furnace to get an answer; I think the Tail Race might have been the section that ran from the water wheel pit and into the creek.

"Foundation for Furnace, $23.94".

" Foundation Coal House, $25.92". Coal House means Charcoal House, the Charcoal House was located on the Furnace Bank. Back in the late 1980's Lloyd Stager showed me the exact location of the Coal House, if you dig down a little bit through the dirt you will find some charcoal.

"Cellar Drain, $34.56". Have no idea what that was.

"Embankment, $168.60". This refers to the Furnace Bank, this is the flat area directly behind the top of the Furnace Stack, this is where the charcoal, limestone and ore were stored, a bridge from the bank to the top of the furnace stack enabled the work crew to dump charcoal, limestone and iron ore into the furnace. The excavators had to dig away a good portion of the mountain side to set up the Furnace Bank.

"Loop Rock, $12.80, and Solid Rock, $15.30". I have no idea what these mean.

"Digging holes for Coal House, $1.50". See Foundation Coal House above.

"Grubbing, $35.00". ???

"88 1/2 Days work in Qarry, $83.50". Stone Quarry ???, maybe this was where they got the stones for the Furnace Stack.

Lets jump down now to the third line in the bottom section of the scan.

"To G. N. Eckert,  Medical Attendance, $3.00 ".

As most of you know by now George Eckert was a Medical Doctor, I can't imagine Eckert charging one of his workers for medical services, perhaps this was for some local non furnace worker that needed medical attention.

That's it for this post.