Swatara Furnace Sketch

A Late 1800's Sketch of The Swatara Furnace Stack and the Stager Home behind it. - Thanks to Dave Kreichbaum.

Way back in 1990 I was doing research on the Swatara Furnace/Forge area; at that time I contacted Lloyd Stager, a long time family friend of ours and made an appointment with Lloyd to take us (my Dad Arthur and I) on a tour of the Furnace/Forge area; Lloyd pointed out many interesting things to us, locations where many of the now gone Furnace/Forge buildings had been located, Lloyd, along with a number of his Brothers and Sisters, were born and raised in the wooden home right behind the Furnace stack. Lloyd also showed us the foundation remains of the home where his Mothers family, (the Rager family) had lived back in the 1800's. In a later post I will go into more detail concerning the Stager family, who was born where, when etc. This information was supplied to me by Mae "Stager" Ditzler, another close friend of ours. Anyway, when we had finished our tour Lloyd asked us if we had  talked to Dave Kreichbaum about the area. I had talked to Dave a few years earlier, Dave gave me some information at the time, most of it I already knew though. My Dad said, "It wouldn't hurt to check in with Dave again" so on our way out we stopped at Dave's home which was not too far from the Outwood Lutheran Church.

Dave told us a story about what happened to his Grandfather some time back in the 1800's, Dave's Grandfather, a teenager at the time was fishing at one of the Furnace/Forge dams, a big storm came up, Dave said his Grandfather took off for home as fast as he could go so as not to get soaking wet; unfortunately he left his fishing rod on the dam breast, when he went back the next day to get his rod he found that the fishing rod, along with a small section of the dam breast had washed down stream, he never found his rod. 

We were getting ready to leave Dave's when he said, "Oh, I do have something you might like to look at", Dave came back with the above framed Furnace sketch, he said it had been passed down through his family, he didn't know who the  artist was, or when the sketch was done. We asked if we could photograph it, Dave said "sure", so, I took the above picture. Dave knew both my Dad and I were photographers, he said if we had time would we make a copy for the Pine Grove Historical Society, (they have a copy), he also said it would be nice if both the Lebanon and Schuylkill County Historical Societies  got copies when we had time to make them, we also got permission to use the photo in any newspaper or magazine article as long as we mentioned who was the owner of the original sketch. Dave was afraid of what might happen to the original sketch when he passed on; he said this was the earliest representation of the furnace he had ever seen, and copies would insure that the furnace in this state would be made available to interested people at a later date. 

Now, at the lower left of the sketch, "Old charcoal Furnace Ellwood, Schuylkill Co Penna"  RKB. 

Does anybody know who the artist "RKB" might be? Maybe a lady artist using the "K" middle initial for her maiden name of Kreichbaum ???

Now some technical stuff , the wooden shed at the right contains the "Twenty-two foot Water Wheel", "two Blowing Tubs" ,  "One Receiving Tub", plus whatever other machinery that was not mentioned in the deed; "Eckert to Boyer." The stone foundations to the left of the "Cast Arch"are all that was left of the "Cast House"at the time RKB did the sketch.

Swatara Furnace - Page 12, 1830

Ledger Post

The above scan - Page 12 Center, June 1st, 1830

New Surnames on the center section of page 12.

Dav, (or Dan) Logan

Dennis McCauley

Thadeus Thompson

There are only three new Surnames on page 12. Mr Thompson was paid $7.75 (the $7.75 was shown at the far right of the Ledger page and not scanned) for 15 1/2 days work, @ 50 cents a day. Nothing said on the Ledger page as to what Mr McCauley was paid for or how much he was paid. Lastly there is Mr Logan, his transaction was "To House charge for one Tin Bucket, .50, one Frying Pan, .87 1/2, and a small amount of Pork and Beef that totaled .99. 

Now, if you remember, I said in my last post I was not going to scan any Ledger pages, or sections of pages,  that did not have anything new or historically different on them; well, I don't know if any of my viewers picked up what was listed for the first time in the above scan; look at the fifth full box down from the top of the scan, there you will see the names, Arthur Kelly and Peter Sellers, these two names are not new, they were noted in earlier posts, what is new is at the top of that box, next to Sundries, "Dn To Store", The Swatara Furnace Store is now up and doing business. Both Kelly and Sellers purchased a plug of tobacco from the Company Store at the whopping cost of three cents each. I kinda believe that the Company Store was doing some business a little earlier than has been noted in the Ledger; look at the first box on the scan, I feel that Mr Logan did not sell the above items to the Furnace Company, I think he purchased the four items instead. I doubt that the Company would have purchased 99 cents worth of meat from Mr Logan when they were now purchasing large amounts of meat and fish from Mr Wonder and others.

There will be much more in future posts concerning the Company Store and the people who were buying things there. Remember the lines from the old song? "I Owe My Soul To The Company Store"

Swatara Furnace - Page 11

Before I post today's scan I have a couple of comments to make: First, scanning every page is a little more time consuming than I first thought (what with the necessary scanning and Photo Shopping I have to do), than I have time for, At the rate I am going I will be somewhere between 150 and 200 years old before I finish the job, I don't think that is going to work out too well for me or anyone-else who is following my posts. There are so many duplication's of Surnames on every page, and pages that follow, (so far anyway), so, I am only going to scan, (most of the time) a page or parts of pages when I figure there is something significant, or new, or historically different. I will continue to check each page for new Surnames and post them. At some time in the future, when I am done with the Ledger, people who are interested will be able to view it for themselves at The Historical Society.

There is no Scan of Page 10

There are three new Surnames on page 10, all of the other Surnames on page 10 have been posted earlier; there is nothing on the page that says what these three individuals were paid for.

Minnich, Christian - Pd $10.00 cash

Felty, Arthur - Pd $25.00

Richer, John - Pd $15.00

The three above all got pretty good bundles of money when you figure most payments for work were less than a dollar a day, maybe later in the Ledger we will find out what type of work they did, or what type of food or materials they supplied. There have been members of the Felty family mentioned in earlier posts, this is the first "Arthur Felty" I have seen.

Ledger Post

The above scan  -  Page 11, center, May 31st 1830

New Surnames on the above scan.

Martin, Geo, Pd for amt  of cash borrowed of him - $1.50.

Raudenbush, Adam - Bar iron c 550 48.12 1/2.

Sheaffer, John - for 11 1/2 days work, c .50 - $5.75.

The "Bar iron" supplied by Mr Raudenbush was the product of someones Forge; it would have gone to the Furnace  Blacksmith shop to make horseshoes, tools etc. The John Sheaffer above is probably the same Sheaffer that was listed page 9 of a previous post, his first name was not listed on that page.