โ Scribed by J.S.H.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
(Penna. Mag. History and Biog., 1933, LVII, 117-137 )
has written an account of these plantations which were located chiefly in the valleys of the Schuylkill, Susquehanna, and Juniata Rivers. They had their origin in the eighteenth century, and many of them remained until the period of the Civil War. Frequently a plantation contained several thousand acres of land, thus that of Elizabeth โข consisted of IO,I24 acres. "The mansion house, the homes of the workers, the furnace and forge or forges, the iron mines, the charcoal house, the dense woods which furnished the material for making charcoal, the office, the store, the grist mill, the saw mill, the blacksmith shop, the common bake oven, the barns, the grain fields, and orchards were part of a very interesting and almost self-sufficing community. In some respects, the iron plantations resembled small feudal manors of medieval Europe." Charcoal was used as the fuel for smelting the ore for the production of pig iron and castings, and for the forges where the pig iron was converted into wrought iron. Water power was used to operate the forge hammers, saw mill, grist mill, etc. Slitting mills, plating mills, and steel furnaces were rarely found on these plantations, but were located in towns and boroughs. The products of the plantation were transported to market on pack horses, in Conestoga wagons, or by water. When the Continental Army crossed the Delaware prior to the battle of Trenton, it used boats which served to transport iron from the Durham furnace to Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania furnaces supplied cannon and cannon balls to Washington's forces. J. S. H.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
Early Use of Iron. 283 Early Use of Iron.--The oldest pieces of wrought iron which are known are, probably, the sickles which were found by Belzoni under the pedestal of the sphynx in Karnac, near Thebes ; the blades which Wyse found imbedded in the wall of the great pyramid, and the piece of a saw