COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES
Montour county was built by Burd Patterson near the mouth of Roaring creek, in Mayberry township, in 1839. After passing through successive hands it came into the possession of Simon P. Kase, of Danville, in 1857, who ran it for a short time and then abandoned it. The ore was obtained from Montour ridge and carried across the river on flats.
in 1838 Patterson built a charcoal furnace at the site of the present Lackawanna railroad crossing in the eastern part of Danville. This he operated for a short lime, but the introduction of anthracite coal soon made the furnace obsolete, and it was therefore abandoned. Later Patterson built a nail factory near it, but this also was a failure.
Michael and John Grove were the first successful furnacemen, after anthracite coal was adopted. They built two furnaces, one in 1840 and the other in 1859, on Mahoning street, Danville. A 400-horsepower engine ran the blast and about seventy-five men were employed. They closed down in 1880.
Chambers & Biddle built two furnaces in 1840, and another in 1845. A rolling mill was added in 1844, and the plant took the name of Montour Iron Works. Here the first T rails in the East were made, U rails having been previously the chief product. A foundry and machine shop were added in 1852, and in 1857 a new rail mill was added. This foundry during the Civil war cast many of the cannon and mortars used by the Union forces. It had cast in 1842 the first cannon in the United States made of anthracite iron.
In 1880 the works came into the hands of the Philadelphia & Reading Iron Company, which now operates them.
The last furnace built in Montour county was the Chulasky furnace, on the line of Northumberland county, in 1846. Its capacity was 6,500 tons of soft gray forge pig iron per annum. It was idle after 1893.
Besides the plants mentioned, Danville has had numerous other iron foundries and mills, among them being these old ones: Enterprise Foundry, Danville Iron Foundry, National Iron Foundry, Co-operative Iron & Steel Works, Glendower Iron Works, National Iron Company’s Works and the Danville Stove Works. The present plants are the Reading Iron Works, the Danville Stove Works, the Danville Steel Works, the Tube Mill and the Danville Foundry & Machine Works.
At present Danville is the only strictly iron- making town in the two counties. The American Ore & Foundry Company, at Berwick, have a pipe works and a rolling mill, but only for their own use. There are two large foundries at the car plants, a general machine shop, and a small foundry for the manufacture of sash weights, at Bloomsburg. This completes the list for the two counties in 1914.
Furnaces Abandoned
At present there are no furnaces in operation in either Columbia or Montour counties, most of the iron works consisting of foundries and rolling mills, which obtain their raw material from the furnaces around Pittsburg. Those who have no knowledge of the old charcoal furnaces and their operation will find a description of the methods then used interesting.
The early furnaces averaged twenty-five feet in height by seven feet across the "bosch,” or widest part of the interior. The fuel was strictly charcoal and the blast was cold, being driven by leather bellows through a "tuyere" into the mass of charcoal and ore. Later on wooden "tubs” were used to create the blast, somewhat like short cylinders, with a piston working horizontally, the power coming from a water wheel in the nearest stream. These "tubs” were used as late as 1878, even after the introduction of anthracite coal as fuel.
The product of these charcoal furnaces was from ten to twenty-five tons of pig iron per week, which sold at the furnace at fifteen dollars a ton. Some of the furnaces in later years produced stoves, pots and plows.
After the charcoal furnaces were abandoned and the process of smelting by anthracite introduced the highest period of development in the iron industry ensued. It was the most important source of wealth to the people and gave employment to thousands. Owing to its success the growth of Danville and Bloomsburg from 1844 t0 1890 was due. but the closing of the mines and the abandonment of the furnaces did not seriously affect the prosperity of these places, for the wealth gathered from the earth was not of an evanescent character and the people had made use of their opportunity to establish the towns on a permanent foundation.
In filling the old anthracite furnaces, alternate layers of ore. coal and limestone were used. about three tons of ore making a ton of pig iron. The furnaces were run continuously, being filled from the top as fast as the iron was drawn from the bottom. Casting was done twice a day. Not only did the local foundries use the product, but it was in great demand by the foundries all over the eastern half of the State. During the years when the iron mines of the
