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.