Iron history at Beckley Furnace

EAST CANAAN — On a quiet Saturday morning, Sept. 6, at the Beckley Furnace in East Canaan, it was hard to imagine that the peaceful, green spot where the blast furnace stands was once filled with buildings, horses, carts, workers, smoke, and heat from the furnace.

Friends of Beckley Furnace guide David McCunn stood by the furnace saying it could reach temperatures of 2,700 degrees.

At the top of the furnace a mixture of charcoal, iron and limestone was poured into it. Melting iron filtered down to where workers guided its flow along a channel on the way to be cast into “iron pigs,” bars of iron, from which iron products would be made in Lakeville, Limerock, Amesville, and other towns.

These bars would be made into such products as cannons, cannon balls and wheels for railroad cars.

The waste from the iron making process, known as slag, was carried to the other side of the Blackberry River. McCunn and fellow guides Bobby Anderson and Geoff Brown, said that the slag, still there, covers 23 acres and is 90 feet deep.

McCunn pointed out a “salamander” resting at the side of the furnace. Iron had become fused to furnace bricks. The furnace fires needed to be kept going. “Fires go out and a salamander results,” said McCunn.When this happened, he said, “They had to shut down and break the furnace apart to get it out.” McCunn said it happened about once a year. The salamanders were often thrown in the river.

McCunn said this location had all that was needed for the furnace. “Water power, limestone, iron from Salisbury and plenty of trees to make charcoal.”

Beckley Furnace when it was in production with its buildings intact. Provided

A path up a small hill leads to the turbine which the Friends of Beckley Furnace uncovered and restored. The turbine, powered by water, provided the power to pump air for the “blast” which made the process of making iron more efficient.

The furnace is named for John Adam Beckley of the Forbes and Adam Iron company who built it in 1847. In 1858 it was bought by the Barnum and Richardson Company and produced iron until 1918 or 1919.

Geoff Brown indicated that the advent of another metal was the beginning of the end for the iron industry in the northwest corner.“The Holleys were respectable local iron people,” he said. “One of the sons went to England and saw the Bessemer Process. He saw the future coming: steel.”

Brown said Holley had told people on Mt. Riga in Salisbury he’d be back with something to keep the industry going, but instead he went to Pittsburgh. Brown mused about how changed the Northwest Corner would be had steel come to Salisbury.