St Charles Furnace, Columbia (Northwest Lancaster River Trail). January 2021
Near the start of the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail just after the Rte 30 bridge are the impressive remains of a pig iron furnace known as St Charles Furnace. During the pandemic my brother and I must have passed by it hundreds of times. Depending on the light, its beautiful masonry sticks out from the forested hillside. If I hit lotto, I think I would buy it and partially restore it into a museum/restaurant space. For me the attraction would be that people would have to walk or cycle to it rather than drive and dining alfresco would mean the only things zooming by would be bicycles and joggers. I took many photos of the that stone building in different seasons as well as in black & white and color. It had an appeal.
In the mid 1800s, this portion of the Susquehanna came to be known at the "Pittsburgh of the East".
A small but mighty stretch of iron furnaces could be found along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in the vicinity of Columbia, Marietta, and Wrightsville . In the latter half of the 19th century, eleven iron furnaces were operated between Columbia and Marietta. The industrial complex was expansive enough to rival the Iron City of Pittsburgh, earning it the title "The Pittsburgh of the East."
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The most important technological change for the Susquehanna River region involved developing the use of anthracite coal in creating pig iron. Charcoal was the standard fuel for combustion but depended on the availability of wood, which was less readily available in the Lancaster area. Anthracite coal was readily mined in Pennsylvania but was too dense to burn productively in blast furnaces. It was so dense it was referred to as ‘Stone Coal.’ The addition of hot air was all that was needed to promote combustion of the dense anthracite coal. The hot blast method was developed in Britain and was then brought to Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Knowledge of this development spread quickly, which may have led to the construction of the first Columbia area furnace, Shawnee Furnace, in 1844. Just over a decade later in 1856, Lancaster County produced ten percent of all anthracite iron in United States.
The St. Charles Furnace was built by Clement Brooke Grubb, an ironmaster from the prominent Grubb iron mining and manufacturing family. So famous, in fact, that he has numerous Lancaster County locations named after him, including a small stream called Grubb Run in Shenks Ferry. ... The furnace was located near the Pennsylvania Railroad for easy transportation.
At one time this small stretch of river near my home produced 10% of all the pig iron in the US! Since pig iron (used to make other iron products or steel) was hugely important in that time of building the country, I feel proud that my little local area played a brief, but important role. As I have oft times mentioned, I feel cheated that growing up there our VERY local history was not taught to us. Why no field trips to these places? I have visited so many other places around the world where people are steeped in and proud of their own history. "Discovering" information like this as I turned 60 was completely shocking to me. A person has to feel proud of and connected to where they live with some reason other than "I was born there". Maybe in perpetually forward-looking America, we just think it is unnecessary.
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