Greenwood Furnace State Park

It took hundreds of workers to produce iron, although only a few actually worked at the furnace. Fillers dumped carts of ore, charcoal and limestone into the seething tunnel head. The founder, assisted by a keeper, ordered ingredients, determined the amount of air to be blasted into the furnace and decided when to draw off the iron, usually every 12 hours. Guttermen directed molten iron into channels hoed into the sandy, cast house floor. Some furnaces employed moulders to make castings for iron stoves and utensils.
Away from the furnace, woodchoppers harvested wood necessary for the colliers to make charcoal. Miners dug iron ore, and quarried limestone. Teamsters hauled wagons of wood, charcoal, iron ore and pig iron. A bookkeeper kept company accounts, and a host of laborers and their families completed the unskilled jobs that kept both furnace and nearby village operating.
(Inscription next to the portrait in the upper right) An ironmaster, like Col. John A. Wright, owner of Greenwood Furnace (shown here), sat atop a pyramid of labor that reflected the skill, income and social standing of a furnace's sizeable work force; Greenwood employed over 250.

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Basic Ingredients
The "Best" Iron
An Industry in Ruins
An Undeniable Presence
From Mineral To Metal
Greenwood Furnace
Blacksmith & Wagon Shop
Northern Water Snakes
Greenwood Furnace
McAlevy's Fort

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