Swatara Furnace History

Mountiantop View of the Furnace,  Big house,

and other buildings

The above picture was given to the Williams and Grumbine families by Miss Margaret A. Boyer, she said she didn't know who took the picture, but it had been in her family as long as she could remember, she did not know when it was taken or by what photographer. This is a section that I cropped out of the original picture, this would have been taken from the top of the mountain by a professional photographer, probably with a 8 X 10 or 5 X 7 glass plate camera, it was not taken with with an amateur box camera. To identify the structures I added the red circles and numbers via Photoshop.

1. Swatara Furnace

2. The Stager Family Home

3. "The Big House" (Ironmaster's Mansion)

4. The Furnace Company Store

5. The Carriage Barn

I will again speculate a little. I believe the picture might have been taken to use as a selling advertisement when the Eckert family put the property up for sale in the 1880's, or perhaps taken at the request of Mahlon H. Boyer after he purchased the property.

Mr Boyer bought the property form the Eckert family on December 3rd 1889. The purchase date along with much more information is on page number 487, Deed Book number 306 at the Schuylkill County, PA Court House in Pottsville, PA

Double Click on the above picture and any-other

Post picture to enlarge the viewing of said picture

This is it for this Post, we will get back to the Ledger book in the next post