Lake Champlain Iron Region. [Volume: 8, Issue: 4, 1889, pp. 218-227]

No. 4.1

CHARCOAL IRON WORKERS.

219

ing-mills, forges, and steel-works of New York. He mentions two
active and three abandoned charcoal furnaces in the Lake Champlain district. Of two of the latter he says: " Dannemora Furnace was situated in the State Prison yard at Dannemora, Clinton
County. It was built in 1854, burnt and abandoned July 19,
1856. It worked magnetite-ore from a mine within the enclosure,
convict labor being employed..... The Adirondack Iron Works,
48 miles west of Crown Point Landing, Essex County, N. Y., embraces a property of over 100,000 acres in one tract, and comprising
some of the most extensive deposits of magnetic-ore in the country.
It was purchased about 1830 by the Adirondack Iron and Steel
Company, and is still owned by the heirs of the original parties.....
The mineral value of this tract is treated of by Prof. Emmons in
his report on the geology of this part of New York. (Nat. Hist.
Series.) The ore is of great richness and purity. Blooms were
made here direct from the ore about 1838 or 1840. A charcoal
blast-furnace was erected about 1848, and is still standing, but is in
ruin. It made iron up to about 1853. At first it was very small,
but it was subsequently enlarged, until it was probably 42 feet high
and 7 feet across the boshes. The ore is refractory, and requires a
high temperature and a high furnace. The Company also put up
a puddling-furnace and a cupola-furnace. In ]848 they built the
Adirondack Steel Works in Jersey City. A new blast-furnace was
built on the property and finished about 1854. It is 36 feet square
and 48 feet high, and 11 feet across the boshes, and cost $43,000.
It made two blasts of about six months each, probably in the years
1855 and 1856; about 1200 tons were made at each blast. It has
been idle since. There is a puddling-furnace and two centre lifthammers at the works. The iron was shipped as hammered bariron, and used at Jersey City. Some was shipped as pigs. The
furnace and works are still in good condition, and were not permitted to be destroyed. The cause of the abandonment of the manufacture of iron at this place was the difficulty of transportation. It
had to be hauled in wagons 48 miles to Lake Champlain."
Since the above was written (1867), this deposit, upon which a
large amount of money was expended, has lain dormant, and the
buildings located upon it have largely become wrecks by the action
of the elements. Several efforts to revive operations have proven
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