Appalachian Blacksmiths Association

The Antebellum Iron Industry In 
Western Virginia; other ironworks

By Dave Allen, Editor

The WV Geological Survey prepared a lengthy volume on the iron industry in 1909. It reported that the native iron ore industry had a past and a future, but no present. Were those geologists alive today, they would revise that statement because the future hasn’t happened yet. 

Ironmaking enjoyed a short run on the western slope of the Appalachians. Beginning with the pioneer movement about 1790, the industry was all but crippled by the mid-1850’s. That’s when the Soo Canal opened, the Bessemer furnace was patented, and the railroad crossed the Ohio River. Western Virginia, now West Virginia, was bypassed by this progress.

Many believe that the Civil War played a part in the demise of the ironworks, but in truth, the War’s timing was coincidental. By 1860, what was once a skilled craft was becoming an industrial process.

The Peter Tarr furnace near Weirton in Hancock County helps to illustrate the change from craft to industry. Connell, Tarr & Co. made “cooking pans, pots, skillets and other household articles” according to Kyle McCormick. The furnace’s main claim to fame is that it supplied Commodore Perry’s fleet with cannonballs in 1813 when Perry defeated the British navy on Lake Erie. Other than Tarr’s furnace, there’s no evidence of other ironworks in the northwest Virginia panhandle area. 

Downriver, Wheeling became an iron center because of its location on the Ohio River and National Road. The Top Mill in Wheeling began production of rolled iron and nails in 1834. The Top Mill did not operate a blast furnace. Instead, it purchased pig iron ingots from remote blast furnaces. The pig iron was reheated in a puddling furnace to remove impurities and then rolled into sheets or skelps. These thin sheets were fed to a nail machine which sheared and headed “cut nails.”

From producing a small quantity of household goods to mass producing nails is indicative of the abrupt change in the native iron industry. In time, Wheeling and Weirton both became blast furnace centers but the iron ore was shipped in from Minnesota and Michigan. And coke, not charcoal, fueled these plants.

When the Bessemer converter revolutionized steelmaking, most of the western Virginia iron had too high of a phosphorous content to be used for steel. Charcoal iron was superior for some specialty uses, such as rail car wheels, but steel replaced iron in nearly every other application.

There was no real knowledge of metallurgy in this era and the operators of small blast furnaces had little control over the chemistry of their iron. About all the backwoods founders knew how to do was adjust batch formulas and furnace heat to make three different grades of cast iron—blackish, grayish, and whitish. A good founder would inventory a supply of each type because the prices fluctuated.

The western Virginia ironworks were far removed from good transportation routes. One by one, the furnaces closed because transportation costs were so high.

At the end of the Civil War, a freight train could travel few hundred miles in one day. A freight wagon might need three weeks to make the same trip—plus three to return. As you read earlier, Friend’s Orebank in Jefferson County produced iron ore until the early 1900’s because it had rail service.

In previous installments, the most noted ironworks have been mentioned. Only the Cheat Neck district rose to the status of a significant producer. The rest of the ironworks were scattered, small operations and are mentioned below.

MARION County--The West Fork furnace operated until 1839. The Piney furnace, 5 miles east of Fairmont produced about 20 tons of iron per week when it last operated in 1856.

HARRISON County--Two furnaces, one on the east side of Clarksburg, and the other on the west side, operated until 1847. They are listed as the #1 furnace and the #2 furnace, first owned by Judge J. G. Jackson and then sold to Col. Ben Wilson. According to “John George Jackson” by Dorothy Davis (1976), the #1 furnace went into blast in 1817 and produced 90 tons initially which was much higher than anticipated. The iron was shipped by boat on the West Fork River north to the Monongahela River.

TAYLOR County--There were two furnaces near the confluence of Lost Run and Tygart Valley River. One of them closed when the B&O Railroad was built along the Tygart Valley River. 

Lancaster furnace, the biggest works, was near the Preston County line and produced iron up to the early 1880’s. This plant may have been at Irontown on the main line of the B&O but I was unable to verify the location.

MONROE County--At Crimson Springs, this ironworks made kettles that were used in producing gunpowder. From accounts, it appears that this plant had started up before the Civil War and closed near the end of the war. Crimson Springs was very isolated at the time and that is probably why the ironworks were able to operate during the war.

* * * 

There appears to be little recorded history about other ironworks about the state. Several ironworks operated in southern West Virginia, but they started operations after the Civil War.

Bibliography:

Allen, David G., Jefferson County Ironworks, Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society; Vol. LXX, pp. 94-103, December 2004.

Barnard, Maj.  John G. and Williams, John J., The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, New York, NY.  1852.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FDYCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA11&dq=Isthmus+of+Tehuantepec#PPA1,M1

Callahan, James Morton, The History of West Virginia, Old and New, Vol. 1, Chapter XI, 1923.

Camp, David N; Editor.  National Register, 1869.; A General View of the United States. Volume 1, Part 2, p.88.  O. D. Case & Co., Hartford, CT. 

Davis, Dorothy, John George Jackson, McClain Press, 1976.

Directory of Iron and Steel Works of the United States and Canada, By American Iron and Steel Association, American Iron and Steel Institute, 1888 & 1892 editions

Gordon, Robert R., American Iron, 1607-1900, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Hotchkiss, Jed. Editor, The Virginias: A Mining, Industrial and Scientific Journal, Vol.V, p. 174.   Staunton, VA. 1884.

 Journal of the House of Representatives, Feb. 5, 1887, page 500.

May, Earl Chapin, Principio to Wheeling, Harper & Bros., 1945.

McCormick, Kyle, The Story of Iron Mining in West Virginia, West Virginia History, Vol. 21.

Morland, James R., The Early Cheat Mountain Ironworks, Monongalia Historical Society, 1940.

Morland, James R., Early Iron Industry in the Cheat Mountains,  West Virginia History, Vol. 8.  

Return to Top