Bloomery Forges

In September, 1995, Mr. Carl Mulert, of the Juniata Woolen Mill, Inc. hired Paula Zitzler, a private consultant, and Heritage Resources, Inc. to conduct an archaeological reconnaissance survey of an area immediately north of the mill building. The project area measured approximately 360 m north-south by 80 m east-west. The project area is located between SR 2019 and the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River in Snake Spring Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. The tailrace for this water powered mill was located along the eastern side of the project area. The archaeological survey of this area was necessary in order to determine whether any significant archaeological resources exist in an area that Juniata Woolen Mill, Inc. wish to landscape. These landscaping activities would involve creating small parking spaces for visitors between existing trees located within the project area and clearing away some undergrowth.
The reconnaissance activities included conducting a visual inspection and excavating shovel test pits which measured 0.5 m by 0.5 m, as well as, literature research. The fieldwork activities identified several disturbed areas and located a buried secondary refuse deposit of plaster, a possible road trace, and an isolated prehistoric lithic. None of these resources were given archaeological site numbers. There is no evidence that plaster was ever used on the mill building and likely represents refuse deposits from moving a log house formerly located across SR 2019 and to its new location as an addition to the Newry Manor. This move occurred during the ca. 1950 period of reconstruction and would represent a modem deposit of older material (ie. plaster). There was no conclusive evidence for the interpretation of the road trace despite the excavation of two shovel test pits within this possible road bed.
With the exception of the tailrace, which is associated with the Juniata Woolen Mill, none of the resources meet the minimum requirements for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. By placing a 2 m- 3 m wide buffer zone surrounding the mill structural remains and the associated tail race, where the use of heavy equipment is prohibited, it appears that the landscaping activities which includes the removal of some undergrowth and the addition of fill for parking spaces along SR 2019, will not effect any significant cultural resources.

Complimentary research to the paper 'Brokes Wood Blommery Furnace' and offers scientific analysis of several examples of recovered worked iron blooms. The work was commissioned by the Wealden Iron Research Group (WIRG) and undertaken by Dr Alan Davies. The samples are from a collection of bloomery material collected during excavation of a middle Iron Age bloomery furnace at Brokes Wood in West Kent in 2014/15. It is believed the assemblage may well be one of the largest collection of such in Southern Britain.

I imagine that most people reading this enjoy walking in the woods and otherwise experiencing Pennsylvania's parks, forests and game lands. You may also know there's an abundance of history in state lands, much of it centered on the iron industry. Indeed, I'm often surprised at how many know that charcoal production for iron furnaces was an important industry that occupied vast portions of Pennsylvania-and that this industry is still visible. Yet, I also talk to folks who love the outdoors who do not know the history of charcoal. I have yet to find many who understand the connection between state lands, iron, charcoal, and Black history. It's there, but you have to know where to look and what to look for. Before I get into details, I must be clear that some of what I present will feel a bit speculative. I am still working on aspects of this research, but the evidence is rich enough to share at this point. I'm an archaeologist. "Cool. What did you dig?" you say. Umm… nothing. Yet bear with me. We're moving in that direction. Recent experience demonstrates that researching Black communities is significantly more difficult than working on White (which I have done-a lot).

From the mid 1800s to the early 1900s there was an iron smelting industry in Standish, New York. During this time, a large amount of slag, a byproduct of smelting, was created. The slag is now found in a large, 60 ft tall pile that covers ~1 acre of land in the Adirondacks. The pile is left out in the open and is subject to both physical and chemical weathering. Within the Standish pile there is a wide variety of slag types that range from glassy to powdery. Our study focuses on how the different slag types weather. Samples of glassy, rocky, and chalky/powdery slag were placed outside for eight weeks. Rainwater that interacted with each slag sample was collected periodically over the testing time. After 8 weeks, samples were weighed to determine if material was lost due to weathering. The glassy and chalky slags lost the most weight. The weathering of slag is important in Standish because it has a chemical effect on both the water and soil in the surrounding area. Further chemical d...

Research into the company records and correspondence of the Clintonville, New York, iron works (1824-1890) has revealed that bloomery forge management had a constant concern for improved efficiency and economy in iron production. This concern is evident in several aspects of forge operation, including experimentation in the application of hot blast, the size and number of tuyères in bloomery forges, recovery from river sands of ore lost in the separation process, the employment and modification of new techniques of processing raw ore, and the utilization of waste heat from the forges. It is also evident that information about developments in the industry spread rapidly from one region of the US to another, as well as across the Atlantic. Adirondack bloomery forge production of iron in the 19th century is thus seen as having been a dynamic and creative endeavour that made significant contributions to the industry overall.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary sign at the Saugus Iron Works. (Photgraph 153 by Richard Merrill, 1950.) Robbins showing discoveries to a group of Bluebirds and Camp Fire girls. (Photograph 245 by Richard Merrill, 1950.) 1.1 Map illustrating the location of Braintree, Lynn, and Saugus from a filmstrip produced for the First Ironworks Association. (Image by John Lencicki and Lee Sherman.

Obszar międzyrzecza Wisły i Sanu posiada głębokie tradycje hutnictwa sięgające czasów wczesnego średniowiecza, a nawet starożytności. Z okresu wpływów rzymskich pochodzą najstarsze, choć bardzo nieliczne ślady produkcji żelaza odkryte w Machowie przez Adama Kraussa na przełomie lat 50 i 60-tych ubiegłego stulecia. Zarejestrowano tam pozostałości dwóch pieców kotlinkowych i liczne fragmenty żużli zalegające na okolicznych polach1. Są to, niestety, jedyne pewne świadectwa prowadzenia działalności hutniczej po wschodniej stronie Wisły w tym okresie. W przypadku pozostałych wzmianek w literaturze informujących o odkryciu żużli na stanowiskach z okresu rzymskiego (np. Koziarnia2, Otałęż3, Grodzisko Dolne4, itp.5) nie ma wystarczającej pewności, iż mamy do czynienia z żużlem pochodzącym z procesu hutniczego. Z podobną sytuacją mamy do czynienia w przypadku wczesnego średniowiecza. Jedyne obiekty, które z dużą dozą prawdopodobieństwa możemy łączyć z produkcją żelaza, to siedem pieców pochodzących z badanej

This work aims to apply a systematic methodology to the analysis and graphical recovery of the “artefact” of the first lock of the Canal de Castilla (“the forge of Alar del Rey”) located in the Canal de Castilla as it passes through the province of Palencia (Spain). The canal, a great engineering work that began in the 18th century, was declared an asset of cultural interest (BIC, for its acronym in Spanish) in 1991 and was included in the National Plan for Industrial Heritage. To analyze and to obtain graphic reconstruction proposals, six main activities were developed, following three phases (study of primary and complementary technological and historical sources, fieldwork, and digital reconstruction). The reconstruction proposals were evaluated using three criteria: artefact data, the number of similar artefacts, and the performance. The weights of these three criteria were obtained using the Best-Worst Method (BWM), and the reconstruction proposals were classified using the Tec...

Notes and references 1. WIRG, Wealden Iron, 2nd series 17 (1997), 2. 2. ibid, 4. 3. ibid, 3-4. 4. An alternative date range of AD 240-260 can also be arrived at owing to a crossover in the calibration curve, but the later date range corresponds with other features of the site.

It can reasonably be argued that of all of the industries that made the modern world possible, iron and steel making holds a pivotal place. Without ferrous metals technology, much of the modem world simply would not exist. As the American iron industry grew from the isolated iron plantations of the colonial era to the complex steel mills of today, the science of assaying played a critical role. The assayer gave the iron maker valuable guidance in the quest for ever improving quality and by 1900 had laid down a theoretical foundation for the triumphs of steel in our own century. Yet little is known about the assayer and how his abilities were used by industry. Much has been written about the ironmaster and the furnace workers. Docents in period dress host historic ironmaking sites and interpret the lives of housewives, miners, molders, clerks, teamsters, and hostelers. The assayer goes unrecognized. Part of the reason for this is that the assayer did not become an integral part of th...

Historical city growth, in the United States and worldwide, has required remarkable transformation of outdated durable buildings. Individual reconstruction decisions may be inefficient and restrict growth, however, due to externalities and transaction costs. This paper analyzes new plot-level data in the aftermath of the Great Boston Fire of 1872, estimating substantial economic gains from the created opportunity for widespread reconstruction. An important mechanism appears to be positive externalities from neighbors' reconstruction. Strikingly, impacts from this opportunity for widespread reconstruction were sufficiently large that increases in land values were comparable to the previous value of all buildings burned.

t. Johnsbury was like many rural communities in the opening de- cades of the nineteenth century. At this time Vermont was in what Brook Hindle called "the wooden age," and what Jared van Wagenen referred to as "the golden age of homespun." At St. Johns- bury, two tributaries join the Passumpsic River: The Moose River joins the Passumpsic from the east about one and a half miles above where Sleepers River enters from the west. Rapids and falls punctuated the course of all three rivers. In this age of water power, these potential mill sites often developed into mill villages. In St. Johnsbury, several small mill villages contained gristmills, sawmills, potasheries, fulling and carding mills, blacksmith shops, coopers' shop, and tanneries, as com- monly found in rural villages of the time. Sleepers River was the site of the growth of an industry that would make St. Johnsbury famous. 1 An event of major significance to the future industrialization of St. Johnsbu...

A new process of making iron, using a blast furnace and a forge, both powered by water, was introduced into the Weald in the 1490s, and spread to other parts of England and Wales from the 1550s. This book provides a history of every ironworks of the charcoal blast furnace period, except the Weald. It also covers early coke ironworks (built before 1815) and water-powered bloomeries (of the previous technology). After introductory material on the industry generally, each chapter deals with the ironworks of one district, including also other water-powered mills processing iron, steel furnaces, early ironworks powered by steam engines, and a few other works. Blade mills (and cutlers wheels), which provided the initial cutting edge for tools are not included in those areas where they are ubiquitous. The period covered is an era in the technology of an important industry in Great Britain.

Ogromny rozwój hutnictwa żelaza jaki nastąpił na ziemiach polskich za sprawą ludności kultury przeworskiej w pierwszych wiekach po Chr. spowodował zapewne wyraźny wzrost kowalstwa. Tymczasem kuźnie są prawie nieznane, co pozostaje w rażącej dysproporcji w stosunku do ogromnej liczby stanowisk związanych z wytopem. W procesie dymarskim otrzymywano żelazo, które musiało być oczyszczane i kompaktowane. Warsztat hutnika był zatem ściśle związany z pracownią kowala, który odpowiadał za dalszą jego obróbkę. Nie wiemy jednak, czy oczyszczaniem łupek zajmowali się prowadzący wytop hutnicy, czy kowale wykonujący konkretne przedmioty.
Nieliczne znaleziska archeologiczne wskazują, że obróbkę kowalską prowadzono poza miejscem wytopu żelaza, w strefach produkcyjnych osad. Funkcje palenisk kowalskich nie pełniły jednak znane z licznych stanowisk prostokątne paleniska z kamieniami. Ich wielkość ale przede wszystkim brak odpadów powstających w kuźniach, wyklucza takie ich przeznaczenie.
Podczas obróbki plastycznej powstaje przede wszystkim zendra – drobne płytki tlenków żelaza tworzące się na powierzchni kutego przedmiotu. W wyniku innych operacji, jak zgrzewanie i nawęglanie w paleniskach kowalskich tworzyła się też pewna ilość żużla, w formie miseczek lub dysków zbudowanych z resztek żużli, płytek zendry oraz stopionej wylepy palenisk.

During the recent archaeological investigations in 2002 -2005, on Gamzigrad -Romuliana, the palace of emperor Gallerius from the beginning of 4 th century A.D, traces of metallurgical activities in Late Roman horizons, from the end of 4 th to 6 th century A. D. were noticed.

Isolation and historical circumstances have largely preserved the “New Furnace” at the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company’s Upper Works.  A historical account teased that the operational process at the facility would be clearly represented by an array of tools and debris.  Daily activities at a blast furnace tend to obliterate much of the archaeologically observable behavioral evidence and decades of visitors and vandalism have removed any tools abandoned after the last casting.  Through the interpretation of sediments, stratigraphy, features, and under-utilized material culture such as building materials, smelting raw materials, and slag, it is possible to reveal aspects of construction, operations, collapse, and decay at the site.  Taken further, some of the findings may reflect corporate paternalism as well as the owner’s wildly fluctuating fiscal attitudes toward New Furnace construction and operations.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation manages approximately 4 million acres of state owned land and an additional 910,000 acres through conservation easements with the stated goal “to conserve, improve, and protect New York’s natural resources and environment….” New York state law interprets “environment” broadly, including cultural and historic resources within the concept. Thousands of archaeological sites, ranging from Archaic camps to Revolutionary War battlefields to historic mills, are located on, and enhance the value of, state land, and NYSDEC is charged with their conservation. This paper discusses the role that NYSDEC plays in managing these resources, and how the agency cooperates with colleges throughout the state as they conduct field schools on various sites. We will focus on the inherent contradictions present within the goal of “conserving” cultural resources, while also working with schools to obtain the information necessary to better manage those very resources for the public good and train future generations of archaeologists in the skills required to manage cultural resources.

Blacksmith shops and the items they produced were once a vital component of rural communities prior to the introduction of mass-produced merchandise during the late-19th century. This article focuses on the archaeology of an undocumented 1780s-1790s shop operated by Garret Voorhees, Jr. on his Middlebush Village farmstead in Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey. Garret, Jr. was part of a long lineage of blacksmiths, a trade he learned from his father. After losing his home and farm buildings to British arson in 1777, Garret, Jr. relied upon his traditional craft knowledge to overcome obstacles posed by war. In the 1780s he constructed his own smithy and focused on catering to teamsters hauling goods to and from the nearby City of New Brunswick. Construction of the ephemeral shop appears to have been aimed toward financing the reconstruction of his new home in 1793. Archaeological data indicates the smith adhered to a habitus of traditional blacksmithing customs and work practices, while selectively making choices based on local and craft knowledge to optimize profits.

Accounts survive for bloomery that operated in Clun Park, near Llantrisant, Glamorgan in the 1530s.  At the end of the century, a blast furnace was built nearby.  The article considers both ironworks and 19th century and later mentions of them

The National Register-listed West Point Foundry (WPF) site in Cold Spring, New York is a place well known to recent industrial archaeology and has been a focus of study since the late 1970s. Building on the results of these efforts, Scenic Hudson Land Trust of Poughkeepsie, New York, the owner of the West Point Foundry Preserve (WPFP), undertook major construction and stabilization projects across the site between 2012 and 2013. These projects focused on installation of interpretive elements, access improvements and amenities, and shoring and repointing visible masonry features found throughout the site. In cooperation with Scenic Hudson staff and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), the Croton-on-Hudson offices of John Milner Associates, Inc. provided archaeological monitoring for key facets of the project located in the core of the foundry site. Construction work involved the use of mechanical equipment that was able to quickly excavate areas of the foundry that had only been minimally excavated through conventional archaeology. These excavations revealed many previously-unseen building features while yielding numerous artifacts – including preserved portions of the thirty-six foot diameter back-shot waterwheel located in the foundry’s boring mill – that added greatly to the results of Michigan Tech’s investigations of the site carried out between 2002 and 2008. Exciting as they were to uncover, many of these discoveries introduced challenges to the completion of the project. Striking a balance between protecting and documenting discoveries without delaying construction required close cooperation with project planners, construction supervisors, and OPRHP staff, further aided by creative problem solving unique to industrial archaeological sites.

In 1827, the proprietors of the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York began operating a charcoal-fueled blast furnace adjacent to the foundry complex. Through the efforts of artisans and managers alike, the furnace successfully produced pig iron mainly for use at the West Point Foundry, but also provided pig iron to other iron industries in the Hudson River valley during the 1830s. Despite their success in making a quality product, managers ceased operating the furnace by 1844 due to external economic pressures. To reveal the cultural influences that shaped the history of the foundry blast furnace, the present study incorporated analysis of written and archaeological evidence, supplemented with metallurgical analysis of product materials collected from the site. Evidence from each perspective suggests that the managers and artisans of the furnace attempted to maintain a cost-effective enterprise by refining both operating techniques and technological management, while maintaining production of high quality pig iron. Although longer-term operation proved elusive, the history of the West Point Foundry blast furnace represents an example of industrial adaptation of established technologies and knowledge within the dynamic economic conditions of antebellum America.

The West Point Foundry Association established a charcoal blast furnace at Cold Spring , New York , in 1827 to make pig iron for the foundry. Owners integrated the furnace within the foundry layout to take advantage of the existing property and waterpower system, making it unique among period blast furnaces. To estab- lish a history of the furnace and surrounding site , researchers from Michigan Technological University conducted investiga- tions of the West Point Foundry blastfurnace site between 2004 and 2006 through historical background research , archaeologi- cal site excavation and documentation, and archaeo-metallur- gical analysis of pig iron samples. Results allowed researchers to outline the history of the site and more fully understand the integration of the furnace within the foundry. Further research provided insight into the quality of pig iron produced at the fur- nace and helped place the success and subsequent closure of the furnace within evolving trends in the technology and organiza- tion of antebellum pig iron production. Research demonstrated that managers and tradesmen consistently produced relatively high-grade pig iron that the foundry could use in the production of ordnance and other castings. However, the comparative high cost of making pig iron in Cold Spring motivated owners to cease production after 1844 in favor of purchasing pig iron from less costly external sources, while continuing to rely on production from regional furnaces under their management

The Eelbeck Mill Complex and Community is a complicated archaeological site with numerous industrial and domestic features from the 1820's to the 1940's.  Excavations, historic research, and oral history proved to be substantial and complimentary sources of information for discovering and understanding the industrial features at Eelbeck and as well as their roles in social relationships within the community.  Using theory from science, technology and society (STS) studies, actor-network theory (ANT), and the concept of vernacular engineering, this case study illustrates the interconnectedness of industry and daily life and argues that industrial sites cannot be explicitly separated from domestic sites in archaeological analyses of technical-social systems.

Pennsylvania has an impressive array of state and federal public lands, totaling over 4 million acres, acquired mainly for natural resources conservation and recreation. In 1920, the Pennsylvania Game Commission began procuring lands for a State Game Lands (SGL) system that now exceeds over 300 individual units covering 1.4 million acres. Recognized as a functional coarse-filter conservation system for big-game as early as the 1930s by Aldo Leopold, SGLs have also inadvertently conserved many archaeological and historical sites across the Commonwealth. In this talk, I explore the value of SGLs 63 and 72 in conserving aspects of the early history of Clarion County, focusing on natural resources use (e.g., logging, oil and gas), industrial archaeology (e.g., charcoal iron production, early railroads), and post-mining cultural landscapes.

This PPT was presented at the 2012 HMS conference, giving a a broad overview of charcoal iron production in Britain, from prehistory to the 18th century, using archaeological and historical data. Topics discussed include the form and size of the products, the cost of charcoal (and wage rates), the cost of iron, production costs and annual production figures.
At the end of the 14th century there is a significant fall in the cost of charcoal and, with the introduction of water power, a dramatic increase in the amount of charcoal required. It is argued that these are linked with a change in the technology of charcoal production, from small-scale making in pits to larger scale production in clamps. In the 13th-14th century a (horse) load of charcoal was one quarter (about 50kg) and from the 15th century a (cart) load of charcoal was 12 quarters, about 600kg.
From the 1540's there is a dramatic rise in charcoal costs and wage rates, but the proportion of charcoal costs stays fairly constant at 50 to 60%. This is due to improved efficiency, with decreasing charcoal to iron ratios and decreasing man-days per unit of iron produced.

The introduction of hot blast was the most important development in early 19th century iron smelting. The conventional story of James Beaumont Nielson’s 1828 patent has been widely accepted since the 1840s. This paper re-appraises the development of hot blast in the light of an earlier patent of Thomas Botfield, and suggests that many elements of Botfield’s development anticipated those of Nielson. The role of Gilbert Gilpin, and through him connections with John Wilkinson and the iron industry in South Wales, are also discussed. It is argued that the early development of hot blast iron smelting in fact remains poorly understood, and some suggestions are made for improving understanding.