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.