We took a very impromptu trip to the Hopewell Furnace in Elverson, PA on Sunday. Our typical holiday ritual involves enjoying one of the many beautiful parks that are plentiful in this part of Pennsylvania. After a late breakfast, I got the idea to visit French Creek State Park. When we arrived in the park, I saw a sign pointing to something called Hopewell Furnace. I suggested that we follow that sign and we found ourselves at an historical site that is actually run by the National Park Service.
Mark Bird hounded the Hopewell Furnace in 1771 and it operated until approximately 1883, primarily manufacturing pig iron and cast iron stoves. Now the site provides an excellent example of early American industrialism. I found it surprising that such "heavy" industrial enterprises should be located so far from anywhere. Hopewell Furnace is nowhere near Philadelphia or Pittsburg. There were no train lines or canals to deliver the products out of the forge. The Park Rangers are quick to tell you that everything that wasn't produced at the furnace came in and went out went by horse and cart. I think of urban industrialism when I think about the industrial revolution. But my impression was completely changed when I learned that there were similar forges dotting the landscape of southeast Pennsylvania.
For those of us who remember studying medieval history in school, the cathedral represented the heart of a community. It stood in the center of the town and all activity flowed from it and circulated around it. The Hopewell Furnace was a self-contained complex, surrounded by a main house, livestock, barn, cultivated farmland, fuel for the furnace, a store, a blacksmith, and tenant housing for workers. The furnace complex is w few steps from the main house (where the owner lived) and the tenant housing. Since many of the workers and craftsmen lived on the property, for these folks, there was never any getting away from work as the furnace operated 24 hours a day. You could always see the spire from the cast house from anywhere on the property. And the air was probably thick with dust from coal and smoke from the furnace. You didn't just come to work for a shift. A craftsman had to make each cast, wait fro the iron to be ready, then pour the mold and wait for it to cool. This was a long, involved process you simply could not walk away from. On Sundays, pig iron was made from what was left over in the furnace. Living next to where you worked meant you could be "on the clock" almost all the time, much as we are now. It seems in the age of Blackberrys, email, and teleconferencing, we've come full circle – we're never off the clock either.
The craftsmen who made the products were paid a higher wage, but they were not paid for the time it took them to make the product. They were paid by the piece. So all the time it took them to create and pour a mold was not paid for. If the finished product was perfect, they were paid in full. If the product was imperfect, but still usable, they were paid half. If the product was too flawed to use, they were paid nothing and all the time and effort creating it was lost. So there was a lot of incentive to get it right the first time…do-overs cost the furnace owner and the craftsmen money.
Apparently, Ikea did not invent the idea of flat-pack construction either. Cast iron stoves were Hopewell Furnace's hot item. But the stoves were constructed in pieces that could be stored flat and assembled on site. Not only did this make transportation more efficient, but it protected the stoves from damage. Cast iron may be heavy, but it is brittle. A cast iron stove was also an expensive, made to order, consumer item that would have been the pride and key element of a home. Imagine your dismay if your stove arrived broken! This flat pack idea was a brilliant piece of engineering.
No description of the furnace is complete without mentioning the water wheel that drove the bellows in the cast house. If you've never seen a working water wheel, you will be struck by the level of engineering it would have taken to conceive of and build such a thing in an age where a simple infection could kill you. The combination of the falling water and the low groan of the wheel echoing throughout the cast house are soothing and melodious to the modern tourist. But at the same time the water wheel feels like a barely controlled animate creature; a Polyphemus that could crush and devour you. You know you are in the presence of something very powerful – the casting house itself reminded me of some kind of crazy, industrial cathedral with its high ceilings and Romanesque arches. The craftsmen would have been its high priests and the molten iron would have been a daily communion.
While the furnace produced cannons for the American Revolution and weapons for the War Between the States, it was plagued by economic downturns, natural disasters and ultimately cast upon the industrial, evolutionary heap. Eventually, the Federal government obtained the property and its restoration became a public works program during the first great depression.
In addition to the historical site, where we were treated to a sand-casting demonstration and a brief overview of life on the complex and exhibits of typical farm livestock, the traditional park elements are available. In the fall, there is an apple orchard with a variety of apple species to pick. There are picnic grounds and walking trails. It is surrounded by forests that promise a majestic foliage show in the fall. It was a hidden gem that we literally stumbled upon by serendipity alone.
More information about Hopewell Furnace is available here.
And a free, downloadable book about the site's history, prepared by the National Park Service is available here.
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