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Friday, June 10, 2022 2:16 PM
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Updated: June 10, 2022 @ 2:10 pm
A still from Brian Fritz’s presentation on ironmaking in southwestern Pennsylvania (Photo courtesy of Brian Fritz)
A still from Brian Fritz’s presentation on ironmaking in southwestern Pennsylvania (Photo courtesy of Brian Fritz)
news@greenecountymessenger.com
Brian Fritz guesstimates that there were once more than 100 iron furnaces scattered across Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Principal Archaeological Investigator and owner of Quemahoning LLC, a cultural resources consulting firm based in New Castle, Fritz has cultivated a special interest in iron furnaces and industrial geology. Earlier this year, Fritz shared his knowledge of early ironmaking at the Greene County Historical Society in a talk and presentation titled “Shade Furnace: Early Ironmaking in Southwestern Pennsylvania.”
“Iron furnace properties generally covered 4,000 to 5,000 acres of land that included several support buildings besides the furnace,” Fritz said. “The first one in the United States was built in Saugus, Massachusetts, in the early 1600s. Now a nationally registered landmark, the furnace was built on the British plantation-style ironworks and has been fully restored. In Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia area and Berks County saw the state’s earliest iron furnaces.”
In his talk, Fritz focused on the Shade Furnace (1808 to 1854), located in Shade Township in Somerset County. The structure’s ruins are still in existence, and the furnace, used to convert iron ore to cast iron, is shaped like a stone pyramid with a truncated top.
“The Shade Furnace is a good example of what was going on in the surrounding counties as far as ironmaking is concerned,” said Fritz, a Somerset Count native. “One in Greene County was located in Clarksville and has had various names like the Mary Ann furnace, the Greene Iron Works and the Clarksville Furnace. In my researches, I found a reference to the Clarksville Furnace dated 1794.”
According to Fritz, iron ore was mined within a two-mile radius of the furnace before the rail era and transported to the site by wagon. Other key resources needed to produce the cast iron were charcoal and limestone, which lowers the melting point of the ore and creates an atmosphere to facilitate a chemical reaction. Water resources were used to power the process.
Fritz once did an archaeological survey of the Shade Furnace and completed the paperwork for naming the Shade Furnace Archaeological Area as a registered National Historic District in 2008. He also wrote an award-winning book titled “Shade Furnace: An Early 19th Century Ironmaking Community in Somerset County Pennsylvania.”
“The furnaces were the cutting edge technology of its time,” he said.
With a bachelor of arts degree in anthropology and a bachelor of science degree from Clarion University, Fritz later earned a master’s degree in geology from the University of Akron. For one year, he taught a hydrology and advanced geographic information systems class at Clarion University as an associate professor.
In 2008, he founded Quemahoning LLC, which engages in archaeological consulting for municipal and other construction projects in which he determines if there are archaeological resources on site. His most recent project was for PennDOT for a construction project along the Susquehanna River close to Harrisburg.
In the past, Fritz has given his talk on iron furnaces at the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology and the Somerset County Historical Society. He connected with the Greene County Historical Society through the Mon-Yough Chapter of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology for his recent talk.
“The Shade Furnace represents the transition of the British plantation-style ironworks to the American model of urban integrated ironworks,” Fritz said. “It was typical of other iron furnaces found all over Southwestern Pennsylvania.”
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