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.

Swatara Furnace - Page 9,1830

Ledger Post

The above scan  -  Page 9, top, May 19th, 20th,21st and 22nd 1830

New Surnames on the top part of page 9

Peter Wile and Mich Shucker

It looks like we might have a Blacksmith or a Blacksmith's helpers name now. "To Peter Wile  for 5 day Blacksmith", Now, Wiles was paid only $3.00 for five days work, that is only 60 cents a day, one would think a Blacksmith would get more than 60 cents a day, perhaps Mr. Wile was a "Helper" or doing something else at the shop. Next we have Mich Shucker, he was paid $49.50 (not shown on scan) for 150 bushels of lime, that was 33 cents a bushel.

The above scan - Page 9, bottom, May 22nd 1830

Four new Surnames on the bottom of page 9

 Arthur Kelly, John Ketner, a Sheaffer and the last name at the bottom of the page which I can't figure out.

Kelley was paid 12 1/2 cents for something, it looks like John Kentner paid Guildford and Eckert $3.00 for something. At the bottom of the page we have two Stonemasons, Mr. Sheaffer and B???, $11.60 each for 14 1/2 days work at 80 cents a day.

Swatara Furnace - Page 8, 1830

Ledger Post

The above scan  -  Page 8, top, May 13th 1830, 

There are some new surnames in the top block for May 13th, a couple of them are hard to make out though.

Wm Tower (maybe Wm Power) from an ealier post.

Geo Walter

John Cetner Sei - ???

Hugh Reenan

James Riley

In the third block down we have "Dumb Wonder" selling beef again and "Valentine Stahl" supplying butter, eggs and milk. 

The above scan  -  Page 8, bottom, May 13th, 18th and 19th, 1830

No new surnames on the bottom of page 8. There are some interesting figures though: In the top block Jacob Wolf was paid $14.32 for 179 bushels of coal, (8 cents a bushel). Also, the labor rate was 50 cents a day, Henry Felty, paid $2.00 for four days work, both James Riley and Hugh Keenan, (third block down) were paid $5.75 for 11 1/2 days work at 50 cents a day.

Once again, for any new followers, click on the scans, or tap your tablet or phone to enlarge the scan picture, also go to the "Blog Archive" on the right side of the post to view earlier posts.

Swatara Furnace - Page 7, 1830

Ledger Post

The above scan - Page 7, Top, May 1830, 6th, 8th and 10th.

It looks like there are only two new surnames in the top section of page seven. we have a "John Richer and Mich Yerger". Two of my classmates at the Outwood School were Alma and Mark Yerger, maybe the same family? who knows?

I'm planning to set up some kind surname index here at home so I don't post surnames as being new when I have said they were new several posts back, there may be a few that slip through at times though, however, I will repeat surnames when they are connected with something I feel is a little out of the ordinary day to day activities.

 

The above scan - Page 7 Bottom, May 1830, 11th, 12th and 13th.

The new surnames at the bottom half of page seven are as follows:

Catherine Wolf, Mich Shucker and Wm Power

Swatara Furnace Post # 13

Ledger Post

The above scan - 1 May, 1830 Page 6, Top

The above scan is missing the first text block on the page. There are two surnames in that block that I don't believe I have posted before.

Fred Brenner, Pd Him $20.00

Peter Sellers, Pd Him  .50

No mention was made of what these two men were paid for.

You can see in the first text block that Martin Felty is still supplying Eckert and Guilford with lumber. There is one new name in the second text block that I don't believe I have posted before.

Peter Keysler, Pd Him in full - $5.75

The last name at the bottom of the upper scan is also new to the ledger, a second supplier of beef.

Geo Ringler, Looks like 30 lbs of Beef delivered.

The above scan - 1 May, 1830 Page 6, Bottom

The above scan contains the bottom section of the first scan at the top of this post, sorry about that. The first four text blocks in the above scan contain surnames that are continuously repeated; however, the bottom three blocks have a new surname, "Sponcake", maybe this is a misspelling of Spancake ??.

"To John Sponcake for 13 days work c 50 ct     $6.50"

To Geo. Sponcake for ?? days work c 40 ct  $5.60

The $6.50 and $5.60 total $12.10, which is correctly shown on the far right of the ledger, (not shown on the above scan), John and Geo. Sponcakes names are repeated again in the last two text blocks at the bottom of page 6.

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.