Making Iron on the Bald Eagle: Roland Curtin's Ironworks and Workers' Community

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Making Iron On the Bald Eagle : Roland Curtin's Ironworks and Workers' Community Eggert, Gerald G. Pennsylvania State University Press 9780271019468 9780585386898 English Curtin, Roland, Eagle Ironworks--History, Iron and steel workers--Pennsylvania--Bald Eagle Creek--Biography. 2000 HD8039.I52U537 2000eb 338.7/669142/092 Curtin, Roland, Eagle Ironworks--History, Iron and steel workers--Pennsylvania--Bald Eagle Creek--Biography.

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Page i MAKING IRON on the Bald Eagle

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Page iii Gerald G. Eggert MAKING IRON on the Bald Eagle Roland Curtin’s Ironworks and Workers’ Community The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

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Page iv Published in association with the Centre County Historical Society A KEYSTONE BOOK A Keystone Book is so designated to distinguish it from the typical scholarly monograph that a university press publishes. It is a book intended to serve the citizens of Pennsylvania by educating them and others, in an entertaining way, about aspects of the history, culture, society, and environment of the state as part of the Middle Atlantic region. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eggert, Gerald G. Making iron on the Bald Eagle: Roland Curtin’s ironworks and workers’ community / Gerald G. Eggert. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-271-01946-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Curtin, Roland. 2. Eagle Ironworks—History. 3. Iron and steel workers—Pennsylvania—Bald Eagle Creek Biography. I. Title. HD8039.I52U537 2000 338.7’669142’092—dc21 [B] 99-39502 CIP Copyright © 2000 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003 It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper for the first printing of all clothbound books. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

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Page v This book is dedicated to: The Curtins who created and managed the Eagle Ironworks through four generations and since have sought to preserve it as a historic site, The worker families who toiled away their lives in the forests, mines, ironworks, and on the farms, making it all possible, The Curtin Villagers and their descendants, whose loyalty and love of the small community where they spent part of their lives persists in many instances even today, and The members of the Roland Curtin Foundation, the site directors, the student interns, and the volunteers who together worked to preserve the site as an important remnant of a significant phase of our State’s and Nation’s history.

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Page vii Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments 1 The Setting 2 Curtin Comes to the Bald Eagle Valley 3 Founding the Eagle Ironworks 4 Operations at the Eagle Ironworks 5 Life on the “Iron Plantation” 6 Years of Expansion 7 Roland Curtin, the Final Years 8 The Curtins and Their Workforce in 1850 9 Curtin Village and Its Families 10 The Second and Third Generations 11 From Resumption to Final Closing Epilogue Appendix: Selected Accounts of Comparable American Ironworks Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Page ix List of Illustrations Unless otherwise indicated, all illustrations are courtesy of the Roland Curtin Foundation for the Preservation of Eagle Furnace. Frontispiece: Curtin Eagle Ironworks Plantation and vicinity. Map prepared by Ray Liddick from frontispiece map in E. V. d’Villiers, Geology of Centre County (Harrisburg, Pa., 1884) Curtin Eagle Ironworks from west side of Bald Eagle Creek 23 Wood prepared for charcoal burn 29 Charcoal-fueled iron furnace 33 Water-powered furnace blast machinery 34 Tapping Pleasant Furnace 36 Water-powered trip hammer at Eagle Ironworks Forge 38 Curtin Village School 47 Miles Dukeman, last blacksmith at Curtin Village 49 Puddling furnace 64 Gristmill at Curtin Village. Courtesy of Harry H. Curtin Jr. 67 Curtin Eagle Ironworks Plantation from the south 73 Ironworkers with tools at Curtin Village 99 Workers outside Pleasant Furnace casting house 101 ‘‘Eagle Emporium” (the company store) at Curtin Village. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum 109 Commission The Gingher sisters of Curtin Village. Courtesy of the Sharp Family 115 Pleasant Furnace, 1848–1921. Sketch by Nancy Strailey 121

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Page x Four generations of Curtins: Roland Curtin, Andrew Gregg Curtin (courtesy of Gladys Murray, Centre County Historical Library), Henry Roland Curtin, Hugh Laird Curtin Male descendants of Roland Curtin, showing principal ironmasters of Eagle Ironworks Restored Curtin Mansion from the southwest, 1984 Restored worker’s cabin in Curtin Village, ca. 1991

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Page xi List of Tables 1. Purchases and sales of land by Roland Curtin, 1796–1850 2. Eagle Ironworks labor force, 1850 3. Annual income of workers, by category, 1850 4. Day rates paid, by category of workers, 1850 5. Miscellaneous information on employees by groups, 1850 6. Bathursts as tenants and employees, 1836–1920 7. Eagle Rolling Mill output and iron prices, 1857–1864

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Page xiii Preface Two centuries ago, in early 1797, Irish-born Roland Curtin arrived in the Bald Eagle Valley of Central Pennsylvania. Once established as a merchant and a naturalized citizen, he sought and won a number of local public offices. Then, thirteen years after his arrival, he founded the Eagle Ironworks by constructing a forge on the southeastern bank of Bald Eagle Creek. Between that event in 1810 and the final closing of the works in 1922, Roland and his sons, then his grandsons, and still later a great-grandson, operated what had become one of Centre County’s major enterprises. Over those years, the Curtins added three charcoal-fueled blast furnaces and a rolling mill to the ironworks. At its peak the enterprise also included a gristmill and sawmill; a plantation consisting of some 30,000 acres of farmland, mining properties, and forests; four substantial houses (semi-mansions) for members of the family; and as many as seventy dwellings for employees. Throughout much of its history, the Eagle Works provided employment for between 100 and 200 full- and part-time workers. The significance of the Eagle Ironworks was not its being the first or largest such enterprise in the area, although it was both early and large. By 1810 the Bald Eagle Valley already boasted at least four furnaces and seven forges, and in the following years several of equal or greater size were erected. But the Curtin properties were a splendid example of an integrated, charcoal-fueled, cold-blast ironworks common to the Juniata Iron District during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Eagle Works also continued operations longer than any other Pennsylvania charcoal-iron furnace. After its closing in 1922, only two or three other such furnaces still operated in the United States. Accordingly, its history mirrors both the rise and the long decline of American charcoal-iron production.

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Page xiv The greater significance of the Eagle Ironworks derives from the centrality of iron to the economic development of the United States. In the early stage of frontier life prevailing at the time Roland Curtin began the enterprise, iron already was indispensable in everyday life. Over the years the relatively primitive charcoal-fueled furnaces and forges served as prototypes for the giant iron and steel firms that would dominate the rise of modern industrial America. Together they constituted the two major phases of the age of iron and steel. The Eagle Ironworks also had a relationship to other aspects of nineteenth-century American history. The contrast in status, lifestyle, and housing of the Curtins and their employees offers insights into the social history of the period. That Roland Curtin’s son Andrew Gregg Curtin became the first Republican governor of Pennsylvania during the Civil War demonstrates the close ties between iron production and state politics at mid-century. Finally, the course of the Eagle Ironworks’ 110-year span paralleled the transportation history of nineteenth-century America. During those years the Curtins employed all the principal modes for transporting iron. At first, pack animals with bars of wrought iron strapped to their backs were led over Indian trails to Pittsburgh. They were soon replaced by wagons drawn by horses over primitive roads; then, each spring rough arks laden with iron plied swollen streams and rivers to southern and southeastern markets. Next, canal boats followed the Pennsylvania Canal System to Harrisburg, Columbia, and Baltimore; and finally, after 1865, railroads carried the iron to widespread markets. Over the course of the Eagle Works’ eleven-decade history, the technique of ironmaking remained constant in its essentials, even as it underwent continuous minor changes and improvements. Members of the workforce, for the most part from tightly interrelated local families, came and went. Although the ironmasters and managers of the forge and rolling mill were almost always Curtin family members, the positions passed across four generations from fathers to sons, nephews, and brothers, introducing new personalities, temperaments, and degrees of ability. And of course prices, costs, markets, means of transportation, and most other factors underwent continuous change too. The Eagle Ironworks was an important element of the nation’s heritage. It was typical of the small, family-owned enterprises that bridged the gap between preindustrial and modern industrial iron production. Its long history illustrates both the industrialization and, later, the deindustrializing processes and the impact that those forces had on all who were involved.

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Page xv Acknowledgments My debts as author are many to persons both remembered and forgotten. I trust the latter will forgive an aging memory. Blame for starting me on this project must fall to my late colleague professor Philip S. Klein of the Pennsylvania State University History Department, who was active in the movement to establish the Eagle Ironworks as a historic site. Among those who helped during the research stage were four of my seminar students, who plowed through great quantities of primary material to write insightful papers: Elizabeth Barker, Louise Goldschmidt. Arthur Jarvis (now with a Ph.D.), and Nancy Smith. Among those who provided useful ideas and much information were the late Eliza Curtin Yeager, director-emeritus of the Curtin Foundation and daughter of the last ironmaster; Eagle Ironworks site directors Douglas Miller and Charles Fox; Gladys Murray, longtime curator of the Centre County Historical Library; Hugh Manchester, a Centre County historian and retired journalist; and Joseph Shultz and the late Mervin Lucas, both officers of the Roland Curtin Foundation and descendants of Eagle Ironworks employees. Persons who critiqued all or part of the manuscript (but are not responsible for how I used or failed to use their suggestions) include Ira V. Brown, Professor Emeritus of American History at Penn State University; Gloria Briggs, longtime member and president of the Roland Curtin Foundation; Jacqueline Melander of the Centre County Historical Society; Jerry Elliott of the Penn State Parks and Recreation Program; and James M. Lawther. The skillful editing of Peter Potter and Peggy Hoover of Penn State Press has been invaluable. I am also grateful to Ray Liddick who prepared the

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Page xvi excellent map used as the frontispiece, and to Elizabeth Dutton who assisted with the indexing. Finally I wish to express my appreciation to the Centre County Historical Society for providing financial assistance for publication. Gerald G. Eggert State College, Pennsylvania June 15,1999

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Page 1 1 The Setting The Bald Eagle Creek of Central Pennsylvania, excellent for fishing and in some places scenic, is not otherwise impressive or majestic. Neither is it deep, wide, long, fast-flowing, or powerful, except briefly during spring thaws or periods of heavy rainfall. For the most part neither the creek itself nor its branches are navigable for vessels much larger than canoes. Even so it is Centre County’s most significant stream and during the nineteenth century was home to a major segment of the iron industry in Central Pennsylvania’s celebrated Juniata charcoal-iron district.1 The stream rises in the southwestern-most part of the county a few miles west of present-day Port Matilda, near the small community of Hannah. Hugging Bald Eagle Mountain on its right, it proceeds on a remarkably straight and level course some forty-five miles to the northeast, in effect dividing the county in half.2 At present-day Lock Haven the creek empties into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River opposite Great Island. Along the course of the Bald Eagle Creek some eighteen creeks and runs, and numerous smaller streams, pour rainwater and other runoff into it from the Allegheny uplands and plateau to the north and west. The quantity of inflow and its temperature vary directly with the amount of rain and snowfall on the mountains.

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Page 2 Of greater consequence are the larger tributaries flowing into the Bald Eagle from the south. These drain most of the rich, limestone-based agricultural lands of the Nittany Valley and, being fed by springs, maintain a steadier flow and more constant temperature year-round. It was these southern branches and the Bald Eagle itself that would power nearly all the county’s iron furnaces and forges. Foremost among the southern streams is Spring Creek with its four principal feeders: Slab Cabin and Cedar Creeks, Buffalo Run, and Logan Branch. At Bellefonte the latter two join Spring Creek. There the creek is also strengthened by the output of the large spring that gave both it and the town its name. Next, the now mightier stream penetrates Bald Eagle Mountain, spilling into the Bald Eagle Creek at Milesburg. Two other streams flowing in from the south are worth mention: Nittany Creek (originally Antes Run), which cuts through Bald Eagle Mountain at Curtin Station; and Little Fishing Creek, which joins the Bald Eagle near Flemington just over the boundary in Clinton County.3 The valleys drained by the Bald Eagle system vary considerably. That of the main creek is narrow (about threequarters of a mile wide) and not especially fertile. By contrast, Nittany Valley, just over Bald Eagle Mountain, is from two to five and a half miles wide; its well-watered, limestone-based soil is excellent for farming. Brush and Sugar Valleys, over the next two mountains, are only slightly less well blessed. Seams of limestone and pockets of highgrade iron ore are scattered across much of the district. Here the iron ore is not in deep veins, but in deposits or pockets so near the surface that they can be quarried rather than mined. When the first European settlers came into the area the valleys and mountains alike were covered with stands of timber. Most were hardwood—Appalachian white and red oak with a mixture of sugar maple, birch, hickory, beech, and tulip poplar. This stock of valuable minerals and forests, combined with the small streams for waterpower, made the region particularly well suited to the production of charcoal iron.4 Before the coming of European settlers, Central Pennsylvania had a relatively low population of Native Americans. The Susquehannocks, as whites called them, had dominated the Susquehanna Valley during the first three-quarters of the seventeenth century. Then, just at the time William Penn was acquiring his Charter to Pennsylvania, they left. Decimated by smallpox, deprived of arms and ammunition after 1674 by their supplier, the colony of Maryland, and weakened by continuous warfare with the Iroquois, their neighbors to the north, the Susquehannocks suddenly abandoned their

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Page 3 fortified villages and scattered. The Iroquois, too few in number to occupy so vast an area, rightly feared that whites would move into the void. Accordingly they encouraged Indian refugees (including Susquehannocks), who had been pushed by whites from the Delaware Valley and Maryland, to settle in the region. The intermingled bands of Conoys, Lenni Lenapes (Delawares), Nanticokes, Shawnees, Tutelos, and small groups from the Six Nations were too few and too lacking in unity to offer effective resistance to white encroachments.5 Although British-Americans first acquired title to the region by the Treaty of Albany in 1754, permanent settlement by Europeans came only after the Revolution. No whites, for example, moved into the area between 1754 and a second treaty signed at Easton four years later. The latter agreement not only scaled down the size of the original grant but also specifically barred whites from settling in the area for a full decade.6 This ban did not prevent preliminary exploration, however. Sometime before 1764 (probably in the summer of 1759), James Potter, then a captain in the provincial army, became the first white to enter and explore the Bald Eagle Valley.7 He traveled up the creek from its mouth on the Susquehanna to its juncture with Spring Creek in the vicinity of ‘‘Bald Eagle’s Nest,” the camp of the Indian chieftain for whom the creek and the mountain were later named. From there he followed Spring Creek through Bald Eagle Mountain and on along Logan Branch. Taking to the mountains, he viewed and then explored Penn’s Valley. Running low on supplies, he returned along Penn’s Creek to his base at Fort Augusta (presentday Sunbury) on the Susquehanna.8 Surveys in anticipation of settlement began as early as 1763. Potter himself obtained a warrant from the provincial government for land in Penns Valley on August 1, 1766. Three years later Andrew Boggs and his family became the first whites actually to settle in present-day Centre County. Other families followed, and by 1774 thirty-one adult white males resided in “Bald Eagle Township.” Altogether they held nearly 5,000 acres of land (only about 500 of which were cleared), sixty-three horses, and fifty-four cows. Another sixteen white males and one black male lived in nearby “Potter Township.” They owned seventeen horses and twenty cows and boasted a grist and sawmill.9 Conditions remained primitive nonetheless. Philip V. Fithian, a Presbyterian missionary, rode twenty-five miles along the Bald Eagle Creek in the summer of 1775. Starting at its mouth he reached the cabin of Andrew Boggs near Bald Eagle’s Nest without seeing the cabin or house of another white; only “many ‘Indian Camps,’ small crotched Sticks covered with thick

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Page 4 Bark.” Boggs’s cabin, where Fithian spent a restless night, was sited on “a level, rich, pleasant Spot, the broad Creek running by the Door.” The place was at the very edge of settlement. Boggs, who had lived there for six years, knew of no families to the west and of only one, that of Thomas Parsons, located seven miles upstream. The Boggs family and their guest, Fithian, dined that night on “Fish, Suckers, Chups [chubs], & on Venison.” Shortly afterward, two Indian boys bolted in/they never knock or speak at the door/ with seven large Fish—One would weigh two Pound!—In return Mr. Boggs gave them Bread, & a Piece of our Venison; down they sat in the Ashes before the Fire, stirred up the Coals, & laid on their Flesh—when it was a little roasted, they bit it off in great Mouthfuls, and devoured it with the greatest Rapacity…. This House looks and smells like a Shambles [slaughterhouse]; raw Flesh and Blood in every Part, Mangled, wasting Flesh on every Shelf—Hounds licking up the Blood from the Floor—An open [generous] Landlady— Naked Indians & Children—Ten hundred thousand Flies—O! I fear there are as many—Fleas…. For all this Settlement I would not live here; for two such Settlements—not for five hundred [pounds] a Year—nothing would persuade me—!10 By contrast, two days later and eighteen miles to the southeast Fithian found more comfortable quarters at the home of James Potter in Penn’s Valley. ‘‘An elegant Supper—A neat House—All expressions of Welcome— Not a Flea, nor a Chinch…. [Potter] owns here many thousand Acres of fine Land.” Although pleased that his host boasted a library that included the works of Blackstone, Pope, Harvey, and several theologians, Fithian himself, became strangely “melancholy” and found his stay “irksome.” A girl in the Potter household declared to him, “I am quite tired of this unneighbour-hooded Valley—It is remote from all, but transient, accidental Company.” Perhaps it was this “Want of Company” that bothered him too. “Not a House is there within three Miles,” Fithian observed, “& I, like the Girl yesterday, am fond of seeing a human Creature now and then.”11 Even this thin line of settlement soon disappeared. Within the year the American Revolution had heated up and British agents were stirring restive Indians against the settlers. Concerned about rumors of hostile bands in the vicinity, local whites petitioned the provincial government for arms and ammunition in 1776. The next summer Indian war parties appeared, and in

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Page 5 May 1778 Abraham Standford, his wife, and two children were killed and scalped near Old Fort. This touched off a “great runaway” from the region. Fearing for their lives, settlers gathered their families and livestock in the nearest forts. When reinforcements failed to come, they abandoned the area until 1784.12 Many of the original pioneers, joined by a host of newcomers, returned as soon as the war ended. Many were veterans of the Revolution who had received tracts from the State of Pennsylvania for their services. Several who arrived between 1784 and 1787, including Lieutenant Thomas Askey (sometimes called Erskine), Fredrick Malone, Benedict Lucas, and Philip Antes (who erected a gristmill and a sawmill on Bald Eagle Creek), would later sell part or all of their lands to ironmaster Roland Curtin. By 1790 the area (still part of Mifflin County) had 144 adult males on assessment lists for Potter and Bald Eagle Townships, and in 1793 and 1795 respectively, the villages of Milesborough (later called Milesburg) and Bellefonte were founded, surveyed, and platted. In 1800 the county boasted 4,112 residents.13 By the turn of the nineteenth century a nascent iron industry had already appeared on Spring Creek, a branch of the Bald Eagle. Both the founding ironmasters and the technology of ironmaking came from the Philadelphia area. The first ironworks in Pennsylvania had been a forge constructed in the forests of Berks County immediately west of the port city in 1716. Although ironmaking came later to Pennsylvania than elsewhere in British North America, once begun it quickly caught up with and surpassed production in the other colonies. During the colonial era the industry spread across the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania and into the lower valley of the Susquehanna. By the eve of the Revolution it is estimated that one-seventh of the worlds iron was being produced in America, and much of that in southeastern Pennsylvania. At the close of the Revolution in 1783, the Commonwealth led all the states in iron output. This was due to a variety of factors: a quest for exportable goods to pay for imported products from abroad, the ever-greater need of a rapidly growing population for iron products, and an abundance in southeastern Pennsylvania of the essential ingredients for making iron. In the first sixty-seven years of Pennsylvania iron production between 1716 and 1783, eighty-four ironworks had arisen. With the coming of peace, eighty-three additional ironworks were built in the next seventeen years. Fewer than half of these were located in the already more densely settled southeastern counties. Some 30 percent were in the sparser frontier region between the Susquehanna and the Allegheny Mountains (including the

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Page 6 Bald Eagle Valley), and 24 percent were in the western counties. At the start of the Civil War, Pennsylvania alone would be producing half the nation’s iron.14 The westward march of ironmaking stemmed from the growing demand of the westward-moving settlers for more and more iron. In part it was the taking advantage of the raw materials of the area to turn a profit. Leading the factors, however, was the nearly insatiable appetite of iron furnaces and forges for the charcoal that fueled them. Thousands of acres of forest were cleared each year for this purpose, and in that era, once cleared, valley lands were not replanted with trees but passed immediately into agriculture. Hence the steady westward advance of the colliers (charcoal makers) and ironmasters into virgin timberlands. Ironmaking first came to the greater Bald Eagle Valley in 1791 when two Revolutionary War colonels, Samuel Miles and John Patton (both of Philadelphia), acquired land on Spring Creek immediately east of present-day State College and erected Centre Furnace. Even as it went into blast in 1792, General Philip Benner, an iron producer from Philadelphia and veteran of the Revolution, was buying land along a portion of Spring Creek near Bellefonte. There his Rock Forge went into operation the next year.15 By 1800 at least six other forges were operating along Spring Creek. Early in the new century three additional furnaces went into blast in the greater Bald Eagle Valley. Logan Furnace appeared on Logan Branch near Bellefonte in 1802,Tussey Furnace on Slab Cabin Creek near Pine Grove Mills in 1810, and, that same year, Washington Furnace on Little Fishing Creek just over the boundary in Clinton County.16 It was into this region at this stage in its development that a thirty-three-year-old immigrant from Ireland, Roland Curtin, came in 1797. Armed with an education and a shrewd mind but little else, within a dozen years he found the niche in which he would make his mark. Beginning in 1810 as a partner in an iron forge on the Bald Eagle Creek, he would go on to build smelting furnaces and a rolling mill, acquire a vast acreage, and sire a large family. He became one of the area’s major producers of charcoal iron. Sons, grandsons, and finally a great-grandson would continue in the business he founded until 1922. The story of the Curtins and their enterprise form an important part of the history of America’s iron and steel industry.

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Page 7 2 Curtin Comes to the Bald Eagle Valley A native of Ireland, Roland Curtin was looking for a fresh start as he disembarked from the ship that brought him to Philadelphia in 1795. Tradition has it that he was fleeing France after getting into trouble with the authorities while studying there for the priesthood. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he recorded and preserved almost nothing of his past, so what we know today of his pre-America years comes almost entirely from second-and third-hand family stories and a small amount of supporting evidence in primary sources and scholarly works. Similarly, no record exists of his two-year stay in Philadelphia before he moved westward to the wilds of Central Pennsylvania. Once on the frontier he left behind his former way of life and whatever career he may have planned to pursue. For a dozen years he made the most of such challenges and opportunities as came his way, seeking opportunities to move ahead. Finally, in 1810, he entered a line of endeavor that would establish him and his family: the charcoal-iron business.

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Page 8 Irish Origins According to family tradition, Roland was born in the “Old Curtin House” at Dysert, County Clare, in western Ireland, in 1764. As was true of many Irish families, the Curtins claimed descent from early kings and during the late Middle Ages the name was graced by a line of distinguished Gaelic poets, bards, and scholars. Roland was the oldest of nine children of Austin and Mary O’Laughlin Curtin. By the mid-eighteenth century, the family (sometimes called “MacCurtin”) was said to be longtime landowners in the area. That Austin could afford to educate at least two of his six sons, Roland and Constans, seems to confirm that claim. Both boys attended O’Halloran’s Classical School in nearby Ennis, and later went on to college or university for additional training.1 Nothing is known of how Roland spent the balance of his life in Ireland before leaving for France in 1793. In Revolutionary France Roland was twenty-nine years old when he arrived in Paris, presumably to continue his education. There, according to family tradition, he intended to study for the priesthood at the Irish College. An independent source lends support at this point: records of the Irish College show a priest named Patrick Curtin on the faculty. According to the family, Patrick was the eldest brother of Austin Curtin and uncle to Roland. College records listing only family names of Irish students “remaining’’ at the college after August 1792 included one “MacCurtin.” Although Roland allegedly did not arrive until the next year, he may have been the MacCurtin in question. However, even if so, it does not prove that Roland necessarily intended to follow his uncle into the priesthood. Because England had suppressed Roman Catholic seminaries in Ireland, Irish candidates for holy orders often did study at the Irish College. But not all the students became priests and it would have been unusual for one as old as Roland to be starting priestly studies. It was also uncommon for first sons who stood to inherit family lands to enter the priesthood, although Uncle Patrick, eldest son in the previous generation, had done so. Finally, the apparent haste with which Roland later forsook first his vocation and then the Catholic faith raises questions. As a mature adult

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Page 9 rather than an adolescent when he began his training, he would not be expected to change on such fundamental matters so easily. It may be that his going to the Irish College had been a matter of expediency: to escape a personal or family problem or because of involvement in one of the many waves of rebellion against the English that rippled across Ireland in those years.2 Whatever his reason for being there, Roland’s stay in Paris was brief. France, then in the midst of its great revolution, was entering the difficult “Reign of Terror.” Somehow Roland found himself in trouble with the authorities. Parisian neighbors of the Irish College frequently clashed with the young clerics-in-training, whom they suspected of harboring opposition to the Revolution and its antireligious manifestations. Students were sometimes injured in these affairs, and on one such occasion in September 1793, thirteen of them, including “MacCurtin,” were arrested. Of the group, MacCurtin and a few others petitioned for release on grounds they were studying to earn a livelihood and fervently sympathized with the Republic. Indeed, they maintained, Irish people as a whole would be following the example of the French were they not held back by the superior force of Britain.3 The students’ appeal went unheeded. Writing nearly a century after the event, one of Roland’s nephews declared that his uncle, “after witnessing a number of executions by the guillotine, fled to America, concealing himself with five other students on a vessel until it was safely out at sea.’’4 Although Curtin may have seen executions and been distressed, it is unlikely any of the blade’s victims were Irish students. A more embellished account of his departure, probably based on family sources, appeared in a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, newspaper in 1936. It portrayed Curtin as narrowly escaping execution: Because of his priestly studies, young Curtin …was spared the horrors of the guillotine, but was informed that he would be shot at sunrise in the tyrant Robespierre’s garden. The shock turned his fine auburn hair white during the night. In the morning the corporal of the firing squad, an Irishman, whispered to the young student that the soldiers had arranged to shoot with blank cartridges, but to fall when the guns went off. This Curtin did and was thrown into a rude coffin and shoved into a corner of the garden below the brick wall. After dark, at the end of the most uncomfortable day, he crawled out and went over the wall and escaped to the coast.5

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Page 10 In spite of the story’s detail, little evidence supports the dramatic account. It is doubtful that foreign students involved in street clashes would be executed or that such executions would be carried out in Robespierre’s own garden. Later in the United States, when he applied for naturalization, Curtin declared that he had left Ireland in 1795 and made no reference to having been in France.6 Perhaps the omission was to avoid muddying the proceedings, or perhaps he fled from France back to Ireland before continuing on to America. It is even possible that he was not the MacCurtin enrolled at the Irish College. Only that Roland Curtin had white hair can be verified. His portrait, hanging today in the dining room of Curtin Mansion in Central Pennsylvania, shows him with snow-white hair. It dates from his declining years, however, so it neither confirms nor refutes the alleged overnight change of many years earlier. From Philadelphia to the Bald Eagle Valley Once in Philadelphia, Curtin was again lost to history, until he suddenly appeared in the Bald Eagle Valley in 1797. He was not even listed in the port city’s annual street directories of the period. Sometime during his stay, however, he became acquainted with James, Henry, and Nathaniel Philips. The brothers were agents in Philadelphia for their father, John Leigh Philips, a merchant of Manchester, England. Carrying on an extensive export business, the brothers sometimes found it necessary to accept land as payment for goods bought by some of their American customers. In January 1795, Henry Philips added to those holdings by purchasing a tract of some 79,000 acres in the central part of the state from Robert Morris, a financier of the American Revolution. Visiting his new purchase that same summer, Philips brought along two surveyors, a German named Behe and a Polish count, Charles Trcziyulny, who were to survey the lands and lay out a community. Because the owner preferred to spend his own time hunting deer and other large game, he designated Trcziyulny manager of the project. When the surveying was complete, Trcziyulny returned to Philadelphia to secure settlers. He persuaded twelve recent immigrants and their families, almost all of whom were German, to come out in 1796. Early the following year, Henry and James Philips visited the settlement, bringing with them several men who were to begin building the town. In this group was Roland Curtin.7 That Curtin initially intended to settle in Philipsburg, as the place was

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Page 11 called, is suggested by an 1813 map of that town showing “the Curtin Tract.”8 The new settlement, however, was probably too remote from civilization for him. It was in a densely forested area in the mountains twenty-five to thirty miles west of Milesburg, then the westernmost settled community of the region. For whatever reason, Curtin moved back to Milesburg, and there he took charge of a store set up by the Philips brothers to serve as a supply base for their wilderness settlement. Among other things, he purchased supplies and livestock for Henry Philips and the other Philipsburg settlers. He took locally grown produce and wild animal pelts also in exchange for goods. Curtin soon became the owner of the store. Even Milesburg at the close of the eighteenth century was barely beyond the frontier stage. The mix of new settlement and persistent frontier was reflected in the records of Curtin’s store. He offered for sale such local farm products as corn, rye, flour, onions, pork, and whiskey, and livestock including milk cows, yoke of oxen, and horses. He also stocked both necessities and luxuries from Philadelphia, such as candles, ribbon, cloth, thread, buttons, cotton stockings, handkerchiefs, and ladies’ hats. There were even a few imported items such as coffee, tea, tobacco (especially “Spanish sigars”), ginger, wines, and brandies. At the same time, Curtin regularly accepted in trade deer skins and bear skin and the pelts of foxes, wolves, wildcats, and raccoons from such customers as fur-trader William Stockes. A few of his customers were Native Americans, including “Big John the Indian,” who exchanged five pairs of moccasins and seven bearskins for five purple shawls.9 Marriage, Business, and Politics Thirty-five years old in 1799 and running his own store, Curtin decided to marry. On November 25 he took as his bride nineteen-year-old Margery Gregg, niece of the local congressman, Andrew Gregg. Little is known about the marriage other than that between 1801 and 1810 the couple had six sons: Austin (named for Roland’s father), James, Roland Jr., and John, and two who died in infancy. Neither marriage nor owning the store in Milesburg tied Curtin permanently to that community. Within a year he shifted both store and residence to the nearby town of Bellefonte, sensing that it offered better prospects. In creating Centre County in 1800, the legislature had selected Bellefonte rather than Milesburg as its official seat. Because Milesburg “stood at the

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Page 12 head of navigation” on Bald Eagle Creek, its residents had assumed the honor would come to their town, but a few enterprising citizens of nearby Bellefonte outmaneuvered them. Loading a flatboat with used furniture, they drew it by team up Spring Creek to Bellefonte and sent word to the legislature that “the first boat of the season, with freight aboard’’ had arrived at Bellefonte. This misleading suggestion that their community, rather than Milesburg, was at the head of navigation apparently carried the day.10 Curtin’s calculations regarding opportunities in the county seat were accurate. By opening that bustling young community’s second store, he thrived. In 1802 he petitioned the county court for citizenship. Richard Miles attested to Curtin’s “good moral character” despite having, as pro-thonotary, signed one of three charges of fornication and bastardy brought against Curtin by a local woman between 1798 and 1800. The charges were quashed when Curtin, though denying the offenses, agreed to pay the woman $80 plus court costs.11 The next year, 1803, Curtin was elected county coroner, and when the treasurership fell vacant in 1804 the county commissioners appointed him to that post. The creation of the Bellefonte Academy in 1805 brought Curtin to its board of trustees. From 1806 until 1809 he served as high sheriff of Centre County and a member of the Bellefonte Borough Council. Other early honors included appointment to the board that selected the seat of Clearfield County (1805), serving as a viewer to fix the dividing line between Howard and Walker Townships (1809), membership on a team to survey water use in Bellefonte, and appointment as a commissioner to establish Rush Township (the latter two in 1814).12 During this period, Curtin persuaded his youngest brother, Constans, to join him at Bellefonte. After following Roland to O’Halloran’s school at Ennis, Constans decided on a career in medicine and began his studies at the University in Dublin. Because Bellefonte needed physicians, Roland urged him to come and open a practice there. Arriving in 1807, Constans quickly concluded he was inadequately prepared for practice in America, so he went to Philadelphia for additional study under Dr. Benjamin Rush, who had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Returning to Bellefonte in 1809, he married Martha Potter Gregg, the daughter of Andrew Gregg (by then a U.S. Senator) and a cousin of Roland’s wife, Margery. Constans would practice medicine in Bellefonte until his death in 1842. Meanwhile, Roland’s and Constans’s sister, Mary (and her husband Thaddeus Brew), also arrived from Ireland and settled in Bellefonte in 1831. Unlike her brothers, the Brews remained Catholic.13

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Page 13 During his first decade of storekeeping and holding public office in Bellefonte, Curtin began to acquire real estate. His early purchases consisted of town lots in Milesburg and Bellefonte and some nearby farmland, none of which suggested that he was about to embark on iron manufacturing. The first purchase was 300 acres of farmland in the Nittany Valley acquired in 1799 from a widow, Margaret Wilson, for $50 at a sheriff’s sale. Between 1804 and 1808 he bought twelve town lots: three in Milesburg and nine in Bellefonte. Between 1807 and 1810 he also purchased three tracts totaling 748 acres in Spring Township near Bellefonte and a 290-acre farm in Howard Township.14 Two of the latter acquisitions reveal something of the nature of the economy at the time and help explain Curtin’s reputation for sharp dealing. When, in 1808, he purchased 208 acres in Spring Township from innkeeper James Green for $2,080, currency was hard to come by, so by agreement he paid only $700 in cash. The balance was an order on a third person for 100 gallons of whiskey at 50 cents a gallon, plus “a quantity of brandey, wine and spirits to be delivered some time next spring.” Green was to pay Curtin for carriage costs (not to exceed $200) on the liquor. The innkeeper’s acceptance of partial payment in liquor reflected not only the strong local demand for spirits but also the use of liquor as a medium of exchange. Frontier farmers with surplus grain often converted it into whiskey because it was less bulky and easier to market in that form. Locally, whiskey often was substituted for currency in paying debts, or exchanged with storekeepers for products that could not be produced at home, or sometimes simply sold to raise cash. Curtin himself, as a storekeeper, carried a large inventory of liquor. In 1803 he wrote that the conversion of many of ironmaster John Dunlop’s workers to Methodism had slowed his sales of whiskey in Bellefonte. Nonetheless, he continued to “empty the barrels tolerably fast, and …send a few to Chicklemouch [Clearfield] and Moshannon [Philipsburg].”15 Curtin’s acquisition of the estate of the late Thomas Askey in 1809 seems to have been an instance in which he used his position as sheriff to advance his personal interests. Askey had died intestate, leaving a widow and ten children. One of the older children petitioned the county court for an inquest to partition the land among the heirs. The court named the high sheriff— Curtin—and twelve jurors to a board of inquiry. That body fixed the worth of the estate at $16 an acre, for a total of $4,640. Inasmuch as dividing the farm would lessen its overall value, the inquest proposed that the property be sold at public auction and the returns be divided among the heirs. The court so ordered, and Curtin, by then no longer high sheriff, purchased the

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Page 14 lands for $7.60 an acre, or $2,204. Several lawsuits followed, and in 1812 the court ordered Curtin to return nearly 84 acres to three of Askey’s sons and to sell 57 acres for one dollar to another heir.16 The next decade would largely alter the course of Roland Curtin’s life. In 1810 he formed his partnership with Moses Boggs to launch a career in iron. They built a forge that year, but in 1815 suddenly terminated their partnership. Curtin bought up the property and proceeded to erect nearby a furnace for smelting iron. His domestic arrangements also changed. Curtin’s wife, Margery, died on January 5, 1813, while giving birth to a daughter who died that same day. Until he married again in September 1814, Curtin’s sons lived with the Boileau family, who operated the tollbooth on the road between Bellefonte and Milesburg. Curtin’s second wife, Jane Gregg, was a cousin of the first. Only twenty-three years old, she was less than half her husband’s age. She too would bear Roland seven children: sons Andrew Gregg and Constans, and daughters Martha, Ellen, Margery, Nancy, and Julia. This marriage considerably improved Curtin’s social and economic positions in the community. His new father-inlaw, Andrew Gregg, upon retiring from the U.S. Senate in March 1813, became active in local business. He was also intimately tied to many of the leading families. Mrs. Gregg, in fact, was born Martha Potter, daughter of General James Potter, the first white to explore the Bald Eagle Valley. In keeping with his growing status, Curtin also changed religion, becoming a Presbyterian. Exactly when is not known, but he and Jane were married in Bellefonte’s Presbyterian church by its pastor. Two years later both Curtin and his father-in-law sat as members of Session, and in 1820 Roland had his sons baptized in the same church.17 Whether this conversion was accompanied by changes in his inner beliefs cannot be known, but outwardly it represented an important step toward fuller acceptance into the local power structure. That group, dominated by Scots-Irish Presbyterians and English and German Protestants, had little regard for Irish Roman Catholics.

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Page 15 3 Founding the Eagle Ironworks In the spring of 1810, the year he turned forty-six, Roland Curtin and his new partner Moses Boggs acquired the land along Bald Eagle Creek where they constructed their iron forge. Although nearing old age by the standards of that era, Curtin was entering a field in which he had neither training nor experience. How he came to make such a choice is not clear. He would have known, of course, that ironmaking formed the basis of many Pennsylvania fortunes and that, as often as not, successful ironmasters began with little or no previous background in iron. Furthermore, Centre County entrepreneurs had pioneered profitably with iron production locally for nearly two decades. Another important factor was that all the essential raw materials (rich iron ore and limestone deposits and extensive hardwood forests) were abundantly available in the area. Where Curtin got the capital needed to finance this new venture is also uncertain. That he had some money accumulated for investment is clear from his recent purchases of town lots and rural farmland. Part would have come from the profits of his Bellefonte store, and the rest from his positions in public office, from Boggs, and from borrowing. With the establishment of “Eagle Forge” (as it was known), Curtin began a forty-year career in iron. The same event marked the start of the Curtin

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Page 16 family enterprise that endured for more than a century. The partnership with Boggs, however, ended abruptly five years later when Curtin bought out his partner’s share of the business. Having already acquired vast tracts of both agricultural and forest lands, he proceeded to erect his own charcoal-fueled, cold-blast iron furnace. He entered what was fast becoming the Commonwealth’s foremost industry and soon was master of his own “iron plantation.” Setting up Eagle Forge Curtin’s decision to enter the iron business with a refining forge made a great deal of sense. A forge required less initial investment than a furnace, and because its operations were not as complicated, less special expertise was called for. A partnership offered the advantages of shared initial costs and responsibilities. On the other hand, it also required joint decision-making and splitting profits if any were earned. Because Curtin was already deeply involved in running his store and other interests, he apparently left most of the day-to-day management to Boggs. Why he chose Boggs as his partner is even less evident. Boggs may have had capital to invest, and possibly previous contact with ironmaking, and if he was related to Andrew Boggs, co-manager with John Logan of the Logan Ironworks near Bellefonte, he may have worked or observed operations there 1 It is more certain that Boggs brought access to a choice site along Bald Eagle Creek on which to build the ironworks. He was engaged to marry a daughter of Philip Antes, owner of a site bordering directly on the creek immediately downstream from Antes’s gristmill.2 Despite the shrewd miller-sawyer’s relationship with Boggs, Antes made a quick profit from the sale of the site. The 78-acre tract for which he charged the partners $1,000 had cost him but $130 only seven weeks before. Protecting his own interests, Antes required Boggs and Curtin to agree not to construct a gristmill or sawmill on the land or on an adjoining seven-acre tract with house and outbuildings that he sold them for $147.47.3 Taking advantage of the stream’s potential for generating waterpower, the partners erected their forge on the larger tract (about 100 yards northwest of the present-day restored furnace). Within a year the forge was in operation, using pig iron obtained from nearby furnaces.

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Page 17 The function of Eagle Forge was to refine pig iron (the product of a blast furnace where iron was separated from its ore) into wrought iron. Because pig iron contained a considerable amount of carbon, it was hard, somewhat brittle, and once cooled could not be further shaped. To change it to more malleable wrought iron, it had to be “decarbonized’’ by removing part of the carbon. This involved repeated heating of the pig with a hot blast in small furnaces (called chaferies), a process that burned off much of the carbon. Giant, heavy, power-driven trip-hammers then pounded the metal to compress and consolidate it. Waterwheels fed by a race from the creek powered both the blasts and the hammers. This meant also that large supplies of charcoal had to be available nearby to fuel the forge fires. The basic equipment of such a forge consisted of two or more small furnaces or fires, two or more large power-driven trip-hammers, carts for moving stock around, assorted hand hammers, anvils, tongs, and assorted other tools for manipulating hot bars of iron. These were all housed in a large shed-like building, usually of wood-frame construction. The number of employees depended on the number of fires and hammers to be operated and orders for iron to be filled. The earliest extant time books for Eagle Forge (September 1820) indicate three fires worked by six men. In the course of the next eleven months (October 1820 through August 1821) usually eight people were working at any given time, although as many as sixteen were on the payroll for at least a few days during the month in question. Also, the turnover of workers was substantial. By August only two of the sixteen working a year earlier remained.4 The Iron Business, 1810–1828 The year 1810 was a good time to enter the iron business. The local region was thriving, and Centre County’s population of 4,112 in 1800 had swelled to 10,681 by 1810. A decade later it stood at 13,716, an increase of 234 percent in twenty years.5 The area, half-frontier when Curtin arrived in 1797, had by 1820 evolved into a region of settled farms and rural villages. Small clearings with humble log cabins had given way to modest farms with fenced fields and wood-frame, brick or even stone houses. From livelihoods only slightly above subsistence, local incomes had risen enough to support a more substantial way of life. Farmers and village dwellers alike were using

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Page 18 ever more products made of iron: nails, bolts, and screws for construction; hinges and locks for doors; stoves for cooking meals and heating homes; iron for cutlery, knives, and guns; iron shoes for horses and iron tires for wagon and buggy wheels; and innumerable other utensils, tools, implements, and gadgets. On the world scene the Napoleonic Wars between England and France (and their respective allies) were helping to drive up iron prices. Attempts by each of the warring parties to prevent supplies from reaching the other wreaked havoc on commerce generally. To win respect for the right of American shippers as neutrals to haul goods (at handsome profits) to both sides, Congress in 1809 imposed an embargo forbidding American ships to haul any goods, including war supplies, to either England or France. When the United States declared war on England in 1812, the British navy promptly blockaded American ports, choking off imports and exports alike. During the conflict, Pittsburgh became the armaments depot for warfare waged on and around Lake Erie. Once peace arrived in 1815, the fast-growing town at the head of the Ohio River served as the jumping-off point and supply base for the flood of settlers moving into the Great Lakes region and beyond. Given those stresses and opportunities, the demand for American-made iron increased and prices remained high. Between 1811 and 1828 Curtin sold hammered bar iron in Pittsburgh for between $150 and $220 a ton.6 Eagle Forge, 1810–1818 An important contributor to the growth of Curtin’s enterprise was Andrew Gregg, who became his father-in-law in September 1814. It was the former senator’s business and social connections, not his political influence, that most benefited Curtin. After leaving public office in March 1813, Gregg joined with a group of associates to form a quasibanking association in Bellefonte and was elected president when it opened in November. Roland Curtin became its first customer, followed during the next few days by Philip Benner, John Dunlop, and other area ironmasters and business leaders. They were interested not just in depositing funds or borrowing money, but also in converting the personal notes received from their customers into cash.7 When directors were chosen in January 1814, Curtin and many of the same ironmasters and other local businessmen became directors of the bank. In

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Page 19 March, with a new state banking law in place, the associates, with the same officers and directors, reorganized as the Central Bank of Pennsylvania.8 Gregg’s Bellefonte bank handled both Curtin’s personal account and that of the Curtin & Boggs partnership. It is not clear whether those accounts represented all, most, or only a portion of the incomes and expenditures of either Curtin or the partnership, but it was the only bank within several score miles in any direction. In any event, from 1814 through March 1819 an average of more than $50,000 a year passed through Curtin’s personal account. Moreover, in March and April 1815 he paid off $5,600 in notes of the partnership from his personal account. By contrast, only $15,580 passed through the account of Curtin & Boggs from November 26, 1813, through all of 1814, and very little after that year.9 Because the terms of the partnership agreement are not known, why Curtin prospered even as the partnership fell behind remains a mystery. During Eagle Forge’s first eight years of operation, it had to depend on others for the pig iron it used. The nearest sources were Logan Furnace (located about 10 miles away in Bellefonte) or Washington Furnace (some 15 miles down the Bald Eagle Valley). Between 25 and 30 miles away respectively were Centre Furnace and Tussey Furnace. After 1816 Philip Benner’s new Rock Furnace was in blast some 12 miles away. From the fragmentary records that do remain, it is evident that Curtin & Boggs traded extensively with at least Tussey and Logan Furnaces. Tussey was operated by Roland’s nephew Andrew Curtin, a son of one of his brothers still living in Ireland.10 The furnace’s account books for 1813 show that in spite of the distance between the two ironworks, Tussey had almost daily transactions with Curtin and his forge. Whether the store at Eagle Forge was selling supplies to Tussey or the store at Tussey was selling to Curtin and Eagle Forge is not always clear. Either way, the range of goods exchanged was considerable: meats (bacon, pickled and dried beef, and pork), sundries (coffee, tea, sugar, and tobacco), work supplies (a dozen shovels, a caster’s hat, twenty pairs of coarse shoes), “ chopped stuff” for livestock, and miscellaneous items (shingle nails, harness leather, washboards, ink powder, ledgers, ladies’ shoes, fish oil, a cow bell, a cutting knife, and jugs). Among the iron transactions, most involved sales of bar iron, for there were only a few mentions of pig iron. This may have been because Curtin & Boggs, without actually buying the pigs, were paid by Tussey to convert them into bars for Tussey’s customers. There were also instances of Curtin & Boggs paying cash in advance for hauling pigs and exchanging bar iron for supplies.11

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Page 20 The Eagle Ironworks account books for 1817–19 show that the largest local customer for its bar iron was the Bellefonte firm of Valentines & Thomas, new operators of Logan Furnace. Although that firm had its own forge, there may well have been busy periods when it sent some pig iron to Eagle Forge to be made into bar iron for its customers. Again, such transactions might have shown in the books only as the sale of bar iron, not first as a purchase of pig from Valentines & Thomas followed by the sale of wrought iron back to that firm.12 However, most of the bar iron produced by Curtin was used not locally but at distant markets. Because Pittsburgh lacked access to European iron, the price there was usually, but not always, higher than at seaboard cities such as New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. As a result, most Central Pennsylvania bar iron, including Curtin’s, made its way westward over mountain trails on the backs of pack horses or mules—a round-trip that usually took three weeks. When the Pittsburgh market was glutted or prices on the coast improved, the region’s iron sailed down the Bald Eagle and other tributaries into the Susquehanna River. At Harrisburg or Columbia, part was transferred to wagons and hauled overland to Philadelphia. The rest continued down the river to Baltimore.13 Preliminaries to Establishing an Iron Furnace From the start, Curtin was intent on establishing a far more extensive enterprise than the forge. He wanted to erect a blast furnace where he could produce his own pig iron. This would ensure a steady supply at cost for his forge, reduce hauling distances and expenses, cut out the profit paid to furnace owners, and increase his earnings. For this he would need a considerable amount of real estate: forestland with timber to make into charcoal, properties containing iron ore, another site near a stream for waterpower for his furnace, and good farmland for growing provisions for his employees. Curtin began in 1810, purchasing 263 acres of mountain timberland from Benjamin Lucas at 17 cents an acre. Then, making use of an important contact—Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, under whom his brother Constans had studied medicine—he acquired another 12,000 acres. As early as 1806, Rush had asked Roland Curtin to prepare a report for him to use in court in Philadelphia against “intruders” who were squatting on his extensive landholdings in Centre County. Although Rush expected to win his

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Page 21 case, he was “still willing’’ to sell the lands “on liberal terms” and invited Curtin to find buyers. In 1811 Curtin himself purchased twenty-eight tracts of Rush’s mountainland for $2,938.43 (about 25 cents an acre). Part of the sale was on credit: for two years Rush held Curtin’s mortgage on the land for a portion of the selling price. Curtin also obtained a warrant for 142 acres of forestland from the state in 1816.14 The only likely use for most of this land was harvesting its timber to make charcoal. That Curtin bought so much forestland indicates that he was making longrange plans and fully realized the enormous amounts of timber needed to supply both a forge and a furnace for a long span of years. Meanwhile, iron ore was discovered on property owned by the surveyor, Count Charles Trcziyulny, just east of Bellefonte about four and a half miles from Eagle Forge. When the ore assayed high, Curtin and Trcziyulny jointly opened the pit.15 In May 1814 the Count sold Curtin 121⁄2 acres of his homestead farm for $2,808.50 (more than $220 an acre). Curtin bought additional portions of Trcziyulny’s farm in 1822 and 1826 at much lower rates: $20 and $11 an acre respectively, probably because they contained little or no ore. “Yellow Bank,” as the mine was called, got its name from the color of the clay mixed with the iron in the ore. This bank served the Curtins as one of their two principal sources of ore as long as they were in business.16 To secure their hold on Bald Eagle Creek, Curtin & Boggs in 1814 jointly acquired additional frontage there. Another tract of nearly nine acres from Philip Antes cost them $20 an acre and contained the usual stipulation against erecting a gristmill or sawmill; seven other acres from a different owner cost more than $45 each. Curtin on his own next acquired 125 1/2 acres in 1816 at $3 an acre. Apparently this was the land on which he would erect Eagle Furnace in 1818.17 Between 1810 and 1822 as opportunities arose, Curtin continued purchasing farmland: 237 acres in Boggs Township, 363 acres in Howard Township, and 420 acres in Spring Township. The total cost was $2,945 ($2.60 an acre in Boggs, $5 in Howard, and $7.20 in Spring). He picked up yet another 200 acres in Howard Township for $97 at a sheriff’sale.18 Curtin continued to engage in sharp dealing to acquire what he wanted. For example, in November 1821 he entered into a three-year partnership with a surveyor named William Wilson. His new partner was to search out old surveys, vacant tracts, and imperfect titles to land in Centre County, and the plan was that whenever these could be bought up “advantageously” Curtin was to acquire them and split the profits equally with Wilson. The success of the scheme is not known, but Wilson turned in at least two lists of

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Page 22 such properties: one in May 1823 with eight tracts, the second in June 1832 (suggesting the agreement had been extended) with four more.19 The furnace was probably financed from profits earned by Eagle Forge during the War of 1812 and the postwar boom. In any event, Curtin already had established ties with Andrew Gregg and the Bellefonte bank that could be used as sources of information and loans. Possibly Gregg helped even more directly. He at least considered (and possibly gave) a secured loan in excess of $6,000 to his son-in-law about the time Curtin erected his furnace in June 1818.20 Meanwhile, Curtin and Boggs dissolved their partnership in 1815. Three years later Curtin bought the 78-acre tract and Boggs’s share of the forging business for $5,000.21 On his own after that, Curtin immediately proceeded to erect a charcoal-fueled, cold-blast smelting furnace. The obstacles to such a development at the time were immense even after the capital was raised and land was purchased. As Roland Curtin’s great-grandson later observed: “Everything required had to be transported on flat-boats pushed up the Bald Eagle Creek or on pack horses over mountain trails, roads cut thru forests, dams built, ore mined, wood chopped during the winter, and in summer converted into charcoal, waterwheels and blowing machinery for furnaces and forges constructed, somehow, before a pound of iron was made.”22 Curtin built his new structure, named “Eagle Furnace,” about one and a half miles south of Eagle Forge on the land recently purchased along the Bald Eagle Creek. Standing perhaps a quarter-mile from the creek’s south bank, the furnace bellows were powered by the same small stream, Antes Run, along which Philip Antes had built his gristmill and sawmill two decades before. An entry in the Bar Iron Accounts Book for June 19,1819, marked the close of Curtin’s dependence on others for the pig iron used at his forge: “Iron drawn by J. Parsons of the 2nd furnace Blast.”23 With an Eye to the future: 1821–1828 That Roland Curtin had decided to cast his lot with iron production was proved when he moved to the furnace site. Sometime between August 1819 and March 1821 he turned his Bellefonte store over to others and took up residence with his family in what later would be called ‘‘the Old Furnace House.”24 From there he directed the affairs of his furnace, forge, and growing plantation east and northeast of Milesburg. Although Curtin continued

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Page 23

Curtin Eagle Ironworks from the west side of Bald Eagle Creek, ca. 1865. First line of buildings (left to right):forge (behind trees), worker homes, sheds, four-story gristmill, millpond, worker homes. Background (left to right):furnace with chimney, large horse barn, ironmaster’s mansion (behind gristmill).

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Page 24 to own property in Bellefonte and to follow affairs in the county seat, the family fortunes now depended almost wholly on the ironworks. Even as he took over direct management of his ironworks, he continued to expand his real-estate holdings. New opportunities arose when Philip Antes in 1825 decided to sell off his remaining properties in the Bald Eagle Valley and start afresh in Clearfield County. This enabled Curtin to purchase Antes’s 57-acre homestead with gristmill and sawmill at the juncture of Antes Run and the Bald Eagle Creek bordering on Eagle Forge.25 Within a few years of getting this tract, Curtin there built himself a new “forge house” (known today as Curtin Mansion); in 1848 his sons erected Pleasant Furnace on the same tract. Similarly, the deaths by 1828 of Samuel Miles and James Harris, major landholders in the area, brought their farms to market. The motive behind these land purchases can be found at least in part in Curtin’s family situation. Although he was sixty-four years old in 1828, he had a young and fertile wife and six minor children for whom he had to provide. Jane that year would present him with a new daughter, and four years later yet another, the last. Beyond supporting these dependents, the three eldest sons had come of age: Austin was twenty-seven; James, twenty-two; and Roland Jr., twenty. Curtin was determined to provide these young men with livelihoods for themselves and the families they could soon be expected to have. Not far behind were his three younger sons: John, age eighteen; Andrew Gregg, thirteen; and Constans, eleven. In accord with custom, Curtin probably expected his daughters to find their fortunes in judicious marriages. It was Curtin’s practice to introduce his sons to the family business as soon as they completed their educations. How much schooling Austin, James, and Roland Jr. received is not known, but because their father had been a trustee of the Bellefonte Academy from its founding in 1805, it seems likely they had at least some schooling there. Also uncertain is the age at which each of the boys began work. Firm records of 1827 show that twenty-six-year-old Austin ordered goods and charged them to the forge’s account.26 James was eighteen in 1824 when he was listed as a clerk at the ironworks. Roland Jr. at the age of eighteen in 1826 was transporting Curtin-made iron to market in both Baltimore and Pittsburgh.27 Then, in 1828, Curtin formed a business “association” called “Roland Curtin & Sons” with the three older sons. In the absence of documentation spelling out the terms of this arrangement, its exact nature cannot be determined. Although the sons clearly regarded it as notable in their careers, their father appears to have wielded final authority for most if not all of the next

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Page 25 twenty years.28 Whoever held real control, the Curtins, father and sons, were poised to launch the most fevered expansion in the firm’s history. Before turning to that subject, however, an examination of exactly how the business operated, and of the nature of life on the iron plantation, is in order.

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Page 27 4 Operations at the Eagle Ironworks The production of iron at Eagle Ironworks before 1830 involved no new technology. American ironmasters at that time made iron by using methods learned in or imported from England and the Continent, where they had evolved centuries earlier. The essential processes involved five steps: producing charcoal in pits in the forest to fuel furnaces and forges; digging iron ore from shallow mines and cleaning it; separating iron from ore in charcoal-fueled, coldblast furnaces; converting the resulting pig iron into bars of wrought iron at refining forges equipped with giant hammers, and finally, transporting the iron to market for sale. Most ironmasters acquired the skills they needed by working at an existing ironworks or by directly observing one already in production. Some hired skilled workers away from other firms and used their expertise. To make up for his own lack of experience in ironmaking, Roland Curtin probably visited local furnaces and forges and questioned their operators before going into the business himself. His records show that he also on occasion hired experienced workers away from area furnaces and forges just as he would later lose some of his workers to them.

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Page 28 Making Charcoal Charcoal production was a major undertaking at the Eagle Ironworks, just as it was at nearly every other Pennsylvania ironworks before mid-century.1Each day’s operation of the furnace required about 600 bushels of charcoal, the amount that could be made from all the usable timber on perhaps two-thirds of an acre of forestland.2 Depending on how many days it was in operation, a furnace would consume the wood from about 200 acres each year. Forges tended to use nearly as much in converting the pig iron to wrought iron.3 Even Curtin’s new rolling mill, for the most part fueled by bituminous coal, used some charcoal after 1830. Wood-cutting The first step in making charcoal—cutting large quantities of wood and stacking it in “cords’’—required little skill. In the course of a year as many as 100 men and boys did that work for Curtin. The great bulk of the cutting was done during the autumn and winter months. The workday began early as the men and boys carried their saws, axes, wedges, hammers, and a length or two of rope into the forest. They always took along something for lunch, and some perhaps took a little chewing tobacco or alcohol as well. Once there, they felled the trees, trimmed away the smaller limbs, and cut the trunks and larger limbs into four-foot lengths. Any of the lengths greater than six inches thick had to be split, because larger chunks would not char properly during coaling. Although almost any kind of wood could be used, hardwoods made the best charcoal. As the men worked, they stacked the wood in cords 4 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 8 feet long. A good woodcutter could average three cords a day.4During the wood-cutting season it was necessary to cut and stack enough to supply the whole season—somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 cords. Because the average acre yielded about 30 cords, this meant clearing between 300 and 400 acres of timber.5 The cordwood remained stacked in the forest until time to convert it to charcoal. Coaling Coaling was far more sensitive work. To get good charcoal required a combination of good hardwood (hickory, ash, and oak were preferred), good

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Wood prepared for charcoal burn. weather while coaling, and the talents of a skilled “collier.”6 The collier directed the work at the coaling pits, assisted by two or three helpers who often had earlier cut the wood. Such teams might tend several pits located near one another at the same time. Coaling for the most part was done between April and October, the dry and windless days of summer being best. Long downpours of rain could hamper operations, but worse, a high wind could whip up a fire that would turn the smoldering wood into ashes. Upon finding a clearing in the forest near the stacked cordwood, the collier picked out a dry, level area where the coaling would take place. There he and his helpers set up camp, settling in for several weeks at a time. They brought with them their tools, food and drink, blankets, and other essentials. Next they built a small hut or teepee-like structure for shelter while sleeping. That finished, the collier selected a flat, dry spot protected from the wind, which his helpers cleared of all rocks, brush, and other debris. There he marked out a flat, circular area called a “pit” 30 or so feet in diameter and built at its center a small “chimney” made of thin splits of wood. Meanwhile, drivers began bringing from between twenty-five and thirty cords of wood in mule-drawn carts or wagons to each developing pit. There, standing the pieces of wood on end, the collier and helpers stacked the wood tightly around the chimney out to the edge of the circular pit. Once the first layer was in place, second and third layers were added atop in like

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Page 30 manner. Workers completed the stacking by placing a layer of wood horizontally on top, forming a rounded mound some 15 feet high in all. The collier and helpers next covered the entire mound with small, dry branches and leaves and sealed it with wet leaves, loose soil, chunks of sod or clay.7This was to prevent air from entering except through a few holes carefully placed in the sides of the mound. When all was ready, the chimney was filled with dry leaves or grass and small twigs and set afire. Once the fire was under way, the chimney was capped and covered with leaves and soil. This limited the supply of oxygen so that the fire would only smolder rather than flame. The whole purpose of coaling was to drive all moisture and volatile gases from the wood, leaving behind nearly pure carbon. To allow the wood to burn, of course, would reduce it to ashes. The collier and his helpers carefully monitored the smoldering pit for the next ten days to two weeks required to complete the “burn.’’ First the moisture in the wood was “sweated” out. As that stage drew to a close, the “carbonizing” of the wood began, marked by a gradual change in the color of the smoke from yellow-gray to a bluish hue. During the process the pit shrank in size by about a third. This necessitated a worker or two walking atop the mound, carefully tamping down the cover so as to fill in any empty spaces. This was hazardous, for a careless misstep or too heavy a stomp could result in breaking through and plunging into the glowing mass below. When the collier deemed the carbonizing finished, he and his crew completely blocked all air holes. The fire went out and the slow process of cooling began. After several days the workers carefully removed the top and raked the charcoal into small, well-separated piles to limit loss in the event a still-warm charcoal ember should spark into flame. Later yet, the fuel was loaded onto wagons drawn by six-mule teams. With “wonderful teamsters driving from a saddled lead-mule and loudly cracking their long cart whips,” the wagons made their way to the “charcoal bank” near the furnace.8 Even as the charcoal was being hauled, a jolt of the wagon or sudden gust of wind could cause a glowing ember in the charcoal to flame up and a whole load to be lost. To prevent this, the teamsters carried a shovel and a bucket of water to douse any fires. Once at the furnace yard the charcoal had to be “flatted” before being put in the coal shed. Flatting involved spreading the charcoal on a flat, clean surface, then having a driver and mule drag a wooden plank or small log back and forth over it. This broke up the larger chunks to keep the furnace from being clogged later. The charcoal was then stored in sheds under cover, where it remained until needed for the furnace.

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Page 31 Mining Iron Ore Most of the iron ore used at the Eagle Ironworks was brown hematite found in deposits or pockets of varying size near the surface. That used by Curtin came chiefly from two open-pit mines ranging from 10 to 50 feet deep. Both were located between three and five miles from Eagle Furnace just east of Bellefonte. The first was “Yellow Bank,” on the land Curtin acquired from Charles Trcziyulny between 1814 and 1826. The thickness of the ore pocket there ranged from 18 inches to 5 or 6 feet and was covered in some places by as little as six inches of topsoil. Nearby, the second mine, “Red Bank,” got its name from the blood-red color of the clay in its ore. There the sand and clay covering atop the ore ranged from between 2 or 3 feet and 12 to 15 feet. Its ore was of “excellent quality.”9 The workers began work at 7:00 A.M. Some, depending on where they lived, had to walk considerable distances. One reported leaving home at 5:30 A.M. and working from 7:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. before walking back home. Given the relative shallowness of these mines, burrowing far into the earth was unnecessary. The miners labored in open-air quarries instead of deep mines. Operations began when an experienced miner made test holes perhaps 2½ feet in diameter and 20 to 25 feet deep. Shorthandled picks and hammers were his principal tools. Other miners would take over, employing picks, shovels, crowbars, and sometimes a little blasting powder, and throw the ore as far out as possible. When they reached depths too great for throwing, they loaded the ore into buckets that other laborers pulled to the surface. Once dug, the ore was trundled by wheelbarrow to where it was cleaned. The several thousand tons of ore used at the furnace each year consisted mostly of lumps of brown hematite mixed with much clay, stone, and soil. To reduce the tonnage hauled to the furnace, as much waste material as possible was removed beforehand. Until midcentury this was done by “dry-screening,” which involved spreading the lumps of ore on levels or floors. Once the lumps dried, workers broke them up by driving horse- or mule-drawn heavy cast-iron breakers back and forth over them. The crushed ore was then separated by hand from dust and sand, using screens supported between upright posts. This tedious process could be carried on only in dry weather.10 Once ‘‘clean,” the ore was loaded on specially built carts that teams of horses or mules drew to the furnace. The carts followed a crude road paralleling Antes Run through Curtin Narrows, a gap in Nittany Mountain that stood between the mines and the furnace.

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Page 32 The Operation of Eagle Furnace For the period 1818–37 the iron was separated from its ore at Eagle Furnace, fueled by charcoal. In the absence of either pictures or a written description, the dimensions and appearance of the furnace can only be approximated from essentially similar Curtin smelteries used later: Martha Furnace (1836–48) and Pleasant Furnace (1848–1921). The outer stack would have been a hollow, truncated, stone pyramid with a flat top, rising 25 to 30 feet from a 25-foot square base. The stone blocks were cut from solid rock in the nearby mountains and hauled to the site, where they were dressed by hand into 2-foot-square blocks about 6 feet long and carefully fitted into place without mortar. Running from top to bottom at the center of the stack was the hollow, bottle-shaped furnace proper. Raw materials were fed in at the top through its “mouth” or “tunnel head,” which was perhaps 2 feet in diameter. Below the tunnel head the furnace gradually widened to 8 feet. This was the ‘‘bosh,” where the actual smelting took place. Below the bosh, the interior of the furnace narrowed sharply into the “crucible,” less than 3 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet high. There the molten iron settled as it separated from the impurities in the ore. At the base or floor of the crucible was the “hearth stone,” carved from local sandstone. Throughout, the interior was lined with firebrick made of special clay that was able to withstand high temperatures. At about eight-year intervals such furnaces had to be relined, while hearthstones lasted only about a year.11 It is not known whether Eagle Furnace stood at the base of a natural or man-made hillock to facilitate charging it with raw materials from the top. Whichever, a trestle or bridge would have led from the hillock to a wood-frame “charging house” built atop the stack. Raw materials were stored there, because once in blast a furnace had to be fed regularly day and night around the clock. One side of the charging house was stocked with ore and limestone, the other half held perhaps 15 handcars loaded with charcoal for charging during the night. By day charcoal was carted over the bridge from the nearby “Coal Bank.” Two open arches in the sides of the furnace at its base gave access to the interior. One was the “tuyere arch,” which contained the tuyere or pipe through which the “blast” of compressed air entered the furnace about 18 inches above the floor. The other was the “casting arch” where the furnace

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Charcoal-fueled iron furnace.

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Water-powered finance blast machinery. was tapped when the pig iron was ready. Sheds known as the “tuyere room” and the “casting house” covered each arch and the workspace in front of it, offering workers protection as they labored. The essential “blast” of compressed air for the furnace was generated in the “blast house” located on a millrace from Antes Run not far from the furnace. This small wooden shed covered a set of leather bellows powered by an overshot waterwheel and connected by an iron pipe to the furnace. Through that pipe the compressed air entered the furnace. When first ready for use (or whenever it was restarted after a shutdown), the furnace had to be “blown in.’’ This process consisted of a workman, called the “filler,” and his helpers loading the furnace with charcoal. Next the charcoal was set afire at the top and allowed to burn down to the hearth, then the furnace was refilled and allowed to burn back up. It took several days to heat and dry the interior thoroughly and establish a glowing bed of coals in the bosh.

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Page 35 The furnace was then “charged”—that is, iron ore, charcoal, and limestone were added—and the blast was turned on. Compressed air from the blast house entered the furnace through the tuyere nozzle. Although the gauge pressure was only about one pound a square inch, it was enough to force a steady supply of oxygen to the fire, increasing its intensity. Once “blown in,” furnaces operated, so far as possible, twenty-four hours a day with a workforce of perhaps thirty men and boys working two twelve-hour shifts. As was the custom among Central Pennsylvania ironmasters, Curtin banked his furnace fire on Saturday nights for observance of the Sabbath next day. The workers labored under the supervision of an experienced skilled “founder.” At Curtin-owned furnaces a member of the family apparently usually filled this role. The founder’s decisions largely determined the success or failure of each clay’s work. One of the more important responsibilities was to assess the quality of the ore, charcoal, and limestone to determine which proportion of each to feed into the furnace. As Hugh Laird Curtin, the last ironmaster, commented years later, a furnace could be “almost as sensitive as [a person’s] stomach.” Improper heating during the “blowing in,’’ chilling caused by blockage of the blast, irregular filling, or overloading “would soon upset it.” Furnace records from the early 1840s bear that out: in 1840 the furnace “blowed out” on January 7, April 6, May 13, October 3 (when a new hearth had to be installed), and November 12. The next year it “stopped up” on January 5, blowed out on March 31, May 22, and August 26, and “stopped up” on November 29 and December 27. Although the term “blow-out” was usually used, most of these interruptions were not deliberate “blow-outs” for major repairs, such as relining the furnace with firebricks. Instead, they seem to have been short-term “upsets” that caused bothersome delays.12 Once the furnace was under way, the filler loaded into it about twenty bushels of charcoal, 700 or so pounds of ore, and enough limestone to assure a proper flux. When the initial charge sank about 10 feet, the filler added another. This process was repeated regularly until the crucible was filled with molten iron and ready to be tapped. As each charge reached a temperature approximating 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, the iron in the ore began to liquefy. Being the heaviest element present, the iron sank to the bottom of the crucible. The other impurities, meanwhile, united with the limestone to form a less heavy, molten waste called “slag,” which floated atop the iron. At the open side of the upper half of the crucible, the “keeper” and his helper watched over the “cinder,” which was forming like scum over the iron. When the tuyere nozzle’s opening turned black, it was

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Tapping Pleasant Furnace by running molten iron into “sow and pigs” molds, ca. 1920. time for them to work the cinder forward and out. When at last the batch was ready for tapping, a full crew of workers was summoned to the casting house to perform their particular duties. The tapping began with the keeper and his helper first draining the molten slag off to one side, where it would be out of the way. When cooled and hard, workers with sledgehammers broke it up and hauled it to the slag heap. Next, the guttermen tapped the lower part of the crucible, directing the flow of glowing, molten iron into the molds they earlier had dug in the clay-and-sand floor of the casting room. A baffle was placed at the far end of the first “sow” mold, and the molten iron was allowed to flow into it. When the “sow” filled, the iron flowed over into the smaller ‘‘pig” molds at right angles to it, creating the traditional “sow with pigs” pattern that gave pig iron its name. Once the first set of molds was filled, the baffle was placed at the end of the second “sow” and the second set was filled, then the third, and later sets until the crucible was empty. Each tapping produced about one and a half tons of pig iron.13 When cool, the pigs were ready for shipping to the forge to be converted into bars of wrought iron and sold.

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Page 37 Eagle Forge The pig iron from the furnace was changed to wrought iron at Eagle Forge. Bellefonte ironmaster Robert Valentine in 1877 defined wrought iron as “iron that, separated from carbon and other impurities, can no longer be readily reduced to a fluid condition, but when heated to a red or white heat, may be hammered, rolled or welded, and so wrought into any shape desired.”14 Stripping the iron of carbon and other impurities, and working the metal, took away the hard brittleness that made shaping pig iron impossible once it cooled. The resulting change in molecular composition gave wrought iron a fibrous structure, softer than pig, less brittle and more malleable. This made it possible for blacksmiths at their regular forges or smithies to work the iron more easily into a wide variety of shapes. Curtin & Boggs built Eagle Forge in “Walloon style.” Originally developed in Belgium, that style was widely adopted in England and colonial America during the eighteenth century. It involved two types of “hearths” or “fires”:‘‘finery” hearths and “chafery” hearths used in tandem. Among the earliest records of Eagle Forge are entries in 1821 reading “Finery hammer started this morning [January 8]” and noting that workers were “taking out anvil block at chafery [December 20].”15 Both types of hearth resembled large blacksmith forges, with a crucible made of cast-iron plates, a stack or chimney, and blast machinery consisting of leather Swedish bellows powered by waterwheels. The refining process began with the worker, or “finer,” piling charcoal in the crucible of the finery hearth. To prevent the soon-to-be-melted pigs from sticking to the hearth itself, he previously covered the iron plates with a layer of slag. The finer and his helper then placed a charge of between 250 and 280 pounds of pig iron on the charcoal, lighted the fire, turned on an air blast of about 1½ pounds, and directed it into the fire. This soon brought the charge to the melting point, resulting in molten iron dripping down through the charcoal to the bottom of the crucible. As it flowed by the air blast, the carbon in the iron was oxidized. At this point the finer, using a long iron bar called a “ringer,” began stirring and working the semi-solid metal to ensure that it was being evenly exposed on all sides to the blast. Next came the refining proper, when the finer and his helper slid long iron bars beneath the partially decarbonized iron in the crucible. Breaking up and lifting the mass, they repeatedly exposed it to direct contact with the

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Water-powered trip hammer at Eagle Ironworks Forge, early twentieth century. blast. This removed any remaining carbon and other impurities, such as silicon and phosphorous. As the iron became purer, its melting point rose and it became stiffer and more difficult to work. It was now also tougher and malleable. Carefully watching changes in the appearance of both the charge and the slag, the finer knew when the decarbonizing was complete. Having thus “come to nature” (as it was called), the finer and his helper shifted the iron to the finery hammer. There they pounded it with the giant power hammer, consolidating the metal and squeezing out additional impurities in the form of cinder. The mass of iron became a thick square slab of iron called a “bloom.” Cut in half, the “half-blooms” were returned to the finery hearth for a final heat. The purpose this time was not to remelt, but to weld the iron. After about an hour, the finer took the glowing half-bloom from the fire and, using the power hammer, shaped it to resemble a rough, square-end dumbbell called an “anchony.” The anchonies went to the chafery fire, where they were alternately heated and pounded by the chafery hammer into a relatively smooth bar of wrought iron. In the early days at Eagle Forge when the bars were to be carried to market in Pittsburgh on the backs of packhorses or mules, they were heated and given a “U’’ shape conforming to the animals’ backs so that they might be borne more securely and comfortably.

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Page 39 Transportation Problems Despite Central Pennsylvania’s many advantages for producing iron, the lack of an adequate transportation system presented a formidable handicap. Waterways were the principal means of transport in most places at the opening of the nineteenth century, but as already noted the streams and creeks in and around Centre County for the most part were not navigable. For longer distances the only navigable river system was the Susquehanna, which flowed to the southeast toward Philadelphia and Baltimore. Unfortunately, it was shallow much of the year and flawed by treacherous, rocky stretches. A lack of improved roads hampered local land travel, and even the few that existed changed to impassable mud during spring thaws and periods of rain. Travel by land also involved mountains to be crossed, unbridged streams and creeks to be forded, and swampy areas to be avoided. Improvements were difficult given the sparse, widely scattered population to be served and lack of means to pay for such amenities. Transport within Eagle Ironworks and with local communities involved hauling immense quantities of goods for relatively short distances. For example, each year thousands of tons of ore, charcoal, and iron had to move as much as ten miles from Curtin’s mines and forests to his furnaces and forge. Also large quantities of foodstuffs, staples, and manufactured goods had to be transported up to twenty-five miles to and from suppliers and customers in and around Milesburg, Bellefonte, and other nearby towns. As for marketing iron, only a small fraction could be used locally because of the area’s relatively scant population. Centre County ironmasters had to send between two-thirds and five-sixths of their bar iron nearly 200 miles to Pittsburgh in the west, or more than 250 miles to Philadelphia or Baltimore at the east, and still farther if shipped on to New York City or abroad.16 Internal and Local Land Transportation Curtin provided for almost all the transportation within his ironworks and plantation. His corps of drivers, carters, and teamsters maintained a fleet of wagons and carts and cared for and drove between sixty and eighty horses and mules. In the off-season he paid some of his employees and tenants to build and repair roads on or between his properties. He also worked to promote improved public trails, roads, and bridges within the region. In the early days, heavy forests, rough topography, and the

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Page 40 paucity and poverty of settlers made rapid development of a local network impossible. Instead the problem was tackled piecemeal by those who stood to benefit most from access: tavernkeepers and innkeepers, gristmill and sawmill operators, storekeepers, and, particularly, ironmasters. A committee would shape a proposal and draw a map for a road connecting a nearby settlement to their place of business, draft a petition, secure signatures, and present it to the county court for action. The court acted favorably on some, authorizing a road and allocating tax money to pay for it. The county administration then hired citizens, or accepted their labor in lieu of taxes, and built the approved roads. Roland Curtin proposed two or three such roads to his property, and his name appeared repeatedly on petitions supporting similar proposals by others.17 Wider afield, the state legislature named Curtin a commissioner for at least two roads to unite Centre County with other parts of the state. The first, in 1812, authorized a turnpike connecting Northumberland, Sunbury, Aaronsburg, Bellefonte, and Milesburg with the West Branch of the Susquehanna in Clearfield County; the second, in 1825, approved the Milesburg & Smethport Turnpike. After several years of promotional work, the depression of 1819 frustrated construction of the first pike. Work actually began on the latter turnpike in 1825. Curtin became one of the original managers of the Bellefonte & Philipsburg Turnpike in 1821 and in 1841 was its president.18 Distance Transportation by Pack Animal to the West Early in the nineteenth century, Central Pennsylvania ironmasters moved most of their iron to Pittsburgh on the backs of packhorses or mules. Prices there, insulated by distance and the inaccessibility of European iron, were usually higher than at the seaboard. In preparation for the journey, each animal had to have about 300 pounds of the “U”shaped bars fitted to its back. Then Curtin himself, one of his sons, or a trusted employee led the party of helpers and string of loaded animals over crude Indian trails through the forests, fording numerous rivers and streams and crossing two major mountain ranges before reaching Pittsburgh. Each night on the road the animals had to be unloaded to rest, and each morning reloaded for the next leg of the journey. Later, as roads improved, Curtin hauled his iron in horse-drawn wagons to the Iron City. On January 13, 1823, for example, he set out for Pittsburgh with five teams, returning February 4, a twenty-one-day round trip. Son

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Page 41 Roland Jr. was only eighteen years old when in 1826 he began transporting wagonloads of iron to the same city, and in 1830 John Pierce received $655.25 for “carriage” of more than 40 tons of blooms (slabs of wrought iron) and bar iron to Pittsburgh.19 Distance Transportation by Water South and East When prices at Pittsburgh were low, or simply because hauling goods there was so difficult, Curtin and neighboring ironmasters also shipped iron to eastern markets by water. Until the mid-1830s this was possible only when the streams and rivers were filled by rains or melting snow and water levels were high enough to float the heavily-laden wooden vessels carrying the iron. That limited shipments to the season of spring freshets except for occasional periods of persistent rain. The carriers made their way down the Bald Eagle or other tributaries into the rock-strewn Susquehanna, then down that river to Harrisburg or Columbia, where part of the load might be transferred to wagons for Philadelphia. The rest continued downriver to Baltimore. Sometimes it was there reloaded on ships for transport to New York or even Liverpool, England. The earliest carriers by water were “arks”—snub–nose, flat-bottom barges with sides. Curtin bought them from local builders for $80 to $85 apiece. When the iron reached its destination, the arks usually were sold as lumber or for scrap at whatever they would bring, and the men would either walk home or buy horses and ride back. Supposedly the first ark from Centre County on the Susquehanna started from Penns Creek in 1807. As early as May 1810 Milesburg ironmasters Potter & Miles sent 28 tons of iron to Baltimore by ark. There they received $107.50 a ton, payable a third in cash, a third in 60 days, and the balance in 120 days. Inasmuch as this record was preserved in the files of Roland Curtin, it may be that part of the load was from his forge.20 Curtin’s records show that he regularly shipped his own iron by ark at least from 1819 on: one ton in May 1819, more than 33 tons in March 1820. The next year, 1821, saw the departure of frequent loads for Baltimore: 26 tons in February, another ark-load in March, more than 6 tons in early April, two arks at the end of the month, and in May another 26 tons. Two arks were employed in both 1822 and 1823, a small one belonging to Morgan Malone that carried 25 tons, and a “large ark’’ that held more than 40 tons. In 1826 one ark carried 71 tons of iron; a second carried 14 tons, 3 tons of which were headed for Liverpool.21 The March freshet of 1835 bore a total of 47

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Page 42 arks laden with 1,350 tons of pig iron and 765 tons of bar (wrought) iron down the Bald Eagle. Of the seven firms involved, Curtin was one of the lesser shippers that year, sending only six arks with 270 tons of bar iron.22 Arking iron could be dangerous for both cargo and boatmen. Currents and rapids from springtime flooding, melting snow, and hidden rocks in the waterways led to accidents. Sometimes a large part of the year’s earnings was spilled into the river. The spilled bars might be salvaged by farmers with teams of horses the next summer when the river was low, or they might be simply lost. The forge time book for March 16, 1844, recorded that employee David Koonz had started off with four arks, but three days later reported that he had “sunk an ark at Muncy Dam.” Worse, a life might be lost. In March 1826, for example, the Bellefonte Patriot noted that one of Curtin’s arks, loaded with iron, had sunk and that a young boatman named Peters drowned, leaving a wife and child.23 The unsystematic and spotty nature of Curtin’s accounts makes it impossible to calculate the total cost of such shipments. What he paid boatmen, however, was occasionally recorded. They were sometimes paid by the ton for a particular trip, other times simply by their destination. For example, in 1829 Curtin paid Henry Barnhart $262.60 “for carriage 40 T, 8 cwt blooms to Baltimore @ $6.50.” The next year “for going down river,” $119; “for arking flour and blooms,” $123; and “By carriage, 48 T 10 cwt flour and blooms to Philadelphia, $315.25.’’ In 1831 Curtin paid Barnhart $1,424.50 “for carriage of 239 tons iron to Port Deposit [on the Union Canal just east of Harrisburg] in 6 arks.” Apparently Barnhart was in charge of a small flotilla of arks, with assistance from others. Whether they were paid separately or from Barnhart’s wage is not clear. That same year Roland Curtin Jr. paid two men $115 each for taking arks “down the river” to Port Deposit.24Clearly transport by arks was slow and time-consuming, costly, dangerous, and unreliable. It was also the only feasible means for trading with southern, eastern, and foreign markets. Although by the 1830s the character of iron production was becoming increasingly industrial and commercial, it still took place in a strongly agrarian framework. The basic economy, the very setting of furnaces and forges, the work cycles, and the lifestyles of ironmasters and ironworkers all remained as wedded to agriculture as to industry. It is to the workings of the iron plantation that we turn next.

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Page 43 5 Life on the “Iron Plantation” From the beginning of ironmaking in Pennsylvania until the industry began to urbanize after 1840, nearly all production took place on what were called iron plantations.1 These were large, heavily forested, sometimes partially mountainous tracts, well removed from settled areas. In the absence of an adequate transportation system, it was simply more economical for ironmasters to move the relatively smaller amounts of iron to urban markets than it would have been to transport enormous quantities of ore, limestone, and charcoal to ironworks located in towns or cities. Even though built in forests, these ironworks did not long remain isolated. The ironworkers and those performing such auxiliary services as mining and charcoal-making, along with their families, constituted communities often in excess of a 100 persons. Moreover, as the timber nearest the ironworks was cut for charcoal, land suited to farming passed directly into agriculture and the new ironworks became industrial facilities located in rural areas surrounded by farms. Replanting trees for future coaling operations was rarely practiced until after the Civil War. The main portion of Roland Curtins plantation was in an area already thinly settled when he acquired it. By 1810, people had been moving into the vicinity for nearly thirty years, and two villages—Milesburg and Bellefonte—

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Page 44 were within a few miles of his new establishment. Thus, although remote, the ironworks itself and the core of the plantation were not isolated. At the same time, the thousands of acres of mountain timberlands that made up a substantial part of his overall holdings long remained a wooded wilderness. Company Housing Attracting laborers to such out-of-the-way places required more than announcing that work was available. The location of ironworks and the nature of the work to be done required that ironmasters provide “free” housing nearby for at least their key employees. Such accommodations usually took the form of worker ‘‘villages” consisting at first of a few log and plaster cabins and later of small frame houses. With his plantation nearing its peak in 1832, Curtin reported having more than sixty houses scattered across his holdings for seventy-five or so employees and their families.2 Bachelors in the group lived in company-run boardinghouses; the others, with their families, had small individual dwellings provided by Curtin. Such housing evolved over the years as the ironworks expanded. At first it consisted of a cluster of cabins near the forge, some of which probably came with the property when it was acquired from Philip Antes. Next a string of ten houses close to Eagle Furnace was added when that facility was erected in 1818. By the time it “blew out” for the last time in 1837, more houses had been added nearby to accommodate hands at a new rolling mill. When the Curtins erected Martha Furnace in the early 1830s, worker housing was part of that establishment too. Finally, what became today’s historic “Curtin Village” took shape when the Curtins in 1848 erected Pleasant Furnace near Eagle Forge and added more houses there.3 Self-Sufficiency Still, attracting workers involved more than jobs and “free” housing. Ironmasters also had to ensure access to a convenient, relatively inexpensive supply of food and other necessities. Supplying the needs of the workers, combined with remote locations and the need to operate the iron planta-

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Page 45 tion economically, forced owners to aim at making their establishments self-sufficient communities as much as possible. This meant having garden tracts near company housing where worker families could produce some of their own food. It also involved having adequate farmlands growing staples that workers would not have time to produce themselves. Finally, the farms must also provide enough hay and grain to feed the horses, mules, and other livestock that powered transportation within and around the ironworks. These needs were satisfied when Curtin acquired hundreds of acres of farmland near his ironworks. The Company Store Because there were few if any merchants near most iron plantations, owners usually set up stores of their own, where workers secured goods there they could not or preferred not to make themselves. Such stores considerably reduced the need for cash, which was rare in any event. Although some employees took their wages in cash, the distance they would have to go for alternative supplies made it most convenient to be paid in the form of credit at the company store. Then, whenever they bought groceries or supplies their purchases were debited against their current and future wage credits. This arrangement served the interests of both working families and ironmasters. Workers had a convenient source for goods they needed and credit with which to buy them. Owners made a profit from operating the store and did not need to keep much cash on hand to meet payrolls—only enough to pay cash wages to those who wanted that arrangement and to balance accounts at settlement time with those leaving the ironworks. When the ironworks was built and housing, food, and other necessities were available, workers came. To the extent that they had to be experienced or skilled in ironmaking, they were hired away from other ironworks in the area or attracted westward from southeastern Pennsylvania, where ironmaking was already established. At some plantations a few may even have come directly from European ironworks. The bulk of unskilled workers more than likely were local, wage-seeking farmers and farmers’ sons. Others would have been newcomers to the area or foreign-born immigrants seeking homes and a job. With only time book listings of the earliest employees to go by, the names suggest that Curtin’s employees were of English and German stock with a sprinkling of Scots, Irish, and Scots-Irish. The first listing of forge

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Page 46 employees in 1817, for instance, included two Bargers (of German extraction) and a Cox, a Pearson, a Russell, and a Sears, apparently of English backgrounds. By 1820–21 additional English-sounding names included Adams, Bathurst, Britton, Goodfellow, and White; Keith, a Scottish name; and German families with the names Esinhour, Kensel, Meyers, Wortz, and Zeigler. Irish names, Calahan, Delany, Devine, Kelley, Kilgore, McGinley, and McGuire among others, did not appear until the 1840s and 1850s. The federal census of 1850, which indicated place of birth for each person, revealed that 87 percent of Curtin employees that year were born in Pennsylvania, the remainder being foreignborn. Other Village Amenities Plantation villages usually had amenities in addition to the store. Some were available from the beginning, others were added over the years. For facilities at the Eagle Ironworks, villagers at first owed as much to Philip Antes, original owner of the land, as to the Curtins. For example, Antes’s log-cabin gristmill and sawmill were both available for grinding grain and flour and for roughing out lumber for a decade before Curtin purchased, rebuilt, and modernized those facilities. A devout Methodist, Antes was also responsible for the church that adjoined the village. The area’s first Methodist congregation organized at his home in 1787 and for several years held services at his gristmill. Then, in 1806, Antes and his wife gave the congregation a trust deed to a quarter-acre of land on which to build a church. They later safeguarded that plot by specifically excluding it in the deed by which they conveyed the rest of their Boggs Township properties to Roland Curtin in 1825. Some of Rolands descendants subsequently contributed to the church, and many villagers worshiped there. Known as Eagle Chapel in the 1830s, after the Civil War it became Curtin Methodist Church.4 Small Baptist and Adventist churches later appeared north and west of the forge. They too attracted village dwellers, as well as other Curtin employees and tenants. What became Curtin Village School also originated in part with Antes. The earliest known school in Boggs Township was held in a schoolhouse at Antes Mill. Its first teacher was an English immigrant named Bathurst, whose descendants later made up a significant part of the workforce of the Eagle Ironworks throughout its 110-year history. When, in the mid–1830s,

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Curtin Village School near the close of the nineteenth century. the Pennsylvania Assembly mandated the establishment of public schools, Roland Curtin sold a quarter-acre lot with a schoolhouse already on it to the Boggs Township school directors for $225.5 The building was either the one originally constructed by Antes or a replacement built when Curtin took over the property. There most of the village children received all the formal education they would ever get. There too, several generations of young Curtins attended until they were old enough to attend school in Bellefonte. Near the turn of the century the little one-room school was replaced by a larger, two-floor, four-room, red-brick building that stood midway between the plantation village and the rolling mill, near Curtin Methodist Church. The Villagers, Other Tenants, and Employees Those who lived with their families in Curtin-provided housing worked chiefly at the furnaces, the forge, and the rolling mill. The men in these

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Page 48 households—and their sons when they were old enough—were expected to be available for work year-round in the mills. It was important that they live near their work. Because the ironworks ran almost continuously for long stretches, most workers only had time enough to grow a part of the family’s food supply. Others living in company housing included the few full-time skilled craftsmen essential for operating the ironworks. When not at the furnace or forge, they added to the community’s self-sufficiency. Blacksmiths made and repaired metal tools and equipment, among other things, and shoed horses; carpenter-wagonmakers made and repaired wood tools, vehicles, implements, and furniture and built and maintained wooden structures; a miller operated the gristmill. Also living in companyfurnished housing were a few of the more experienced drivers, colliers, and an occasional miner who may have served as foremen of sorts over more transient workers in those departments. Altogether these groups constituted only a portion of the whole workforce associated with the Eagle Ironworks plantation. For example, over the years Curtin bought up many farms, only some of which were contiguous to one another or to the ironworks. The families who worked them, planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops, usually worked for shares of the output. Their work was little different from that of any tenant farmers, except that most of what they raised went to the ironworks. From time to time some of them, and their sons, earned extra income by also working for the Curtins at cutting wood, driving, or other tasks. That made them eligible for credit at the company store and gave the Curtins more flexibility in their labor supply. Those who processed raw materials for the ironworks—woodcutters, colliers, and miners—for the most part did not live in company-provided housing. They either had homes of their own or rented dwellings near their work, which was located miles from the furnace, forge, or rolling mill. Feeding the Workforce Food for the workers and their families was provided in several ways. Meat, flour, and meal, for example, were available as “provisions” through the store. Each year Curtin supervised a slaughter of hogs and cattle that provided much of the meat. Many of the animals were raised on his farms, others were purchased from farmers in the area. Already-processed pork,

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Miles Dukeman, last blacksmith at Curtin Village, ca. 1912. beef, and bacon were also available from nearby farmers. In 1830, for example, the forge bought 895 pounds of pork from Robert Pennington, a local farmer, paying him 4½ cents a pound and selling it to the workers for 7 cents a pound.6 In 1850, however, workers’ accounts were debited for meat and other products they bought at the store, and the money was credited directly to the store accounts of the suppliers with no apparent profit to the store.7 Curtin’s farms also produced much of the corn that was ground into meal at his gristmill, as well as the wheat and rye that were milled into flour. Curtin’s cows gave milk, and his orchards yielded fruit that helped feed the workforce. Part of the milk was made into butter and cheese, and the apples were turned into cider and apple butter. Exactly how each of these products made its way to the workers’ tables and on what terms is uncertain. The arrangements probably changed repeatedly during the century or so that the ironworks was in operation. One common arrangement was for Curtin employees or area farmers to make large batches of butter, cheese, or apple butter and to market it through the store. The maker was credited for the value of the products, and the

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Page 50 accounts of the workers and their families were debited when they bought them. Surplus potatoes, apples, and turnips, among other foodstuffs grown by employees and tenants, were similarly distributed. The plantation villagers and other employees supplemented what was available at the store by their own efforts. Workers’ wives, daughters, and younger sons planted potato patches and tended vegetable gardens in and around the village. The women, of course, baked bread and canned, dried, and otherwise preserved food for winter. Some families fed their table-waste to a pig that would be butchered in the fall, and kept a few chickens for eggs and meat. Occasionally a family had its own cow. In early spring some families tapped maple trees, boiling down the sap for maple sugar. Others kept beehives or raided wild “bee trees” in the forest for honey. For sport, but also for food, plantation men and boys fished the streams and hunted pheasants, wild turkeys, and small game near the village, and deer in the mountains. Almost everything else had to be bought from the stock of goods purchased from outside sources by the store. Its stock of foodstuffs included flour, meat, butter, eggs, and cheese and such beverages as coffee, tea, and chocolate. The store also carried sugar, molasses, salt, and pepper. For those who indulged in tobacco and alcohol, chewing tobacco, cigars, and snuff (for Roland Curtin among others), as well as whiskey, were offered.8 Clothing, Footwear, and Miscellaneous Items Working families could afford to purchase little of the clothing they wore. For the most part, women and girls of the village made it. At the start, in 1810, homespun and dressed deerskin would still have been common. By the 1830s, however, the store offered a large selection of machine-made cloth from the textile mills of New England and Philadelphia as well as other sewing necessities. Purchases of cloth in 1830 included muslin, calico, gingham, check, bolts of cloth of various colors, cord, red flannel, and ticking. Perhaps for the Curtin ladies or for Sunday dresses for the wives of the more prosperous employees, silk, crepe, velvet, lace, and ribbon, and buckrarn for linings, were also available. Among the accessories were needles, thimbles, pins, thread, patterns, and buttons. Some workers had sufficient skill to make their own shoes and boots, a few even making extras that they sold through the store for added income.

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Page 51 Even so, many villagers purchased some clothing and footwear from the store. These included items required by the ironworkers, such as heavy aprons, ‘‘coarse” shoes, and boots. However, in February 1831 the store for example, also laid in twenty-nine pairs of coarse boys’ shoes, sixty-four pairs of “fine shoes,” and seventeen pairs of boots. It also sold ladies’ shoes. Local ‘ skilled shoemakers provided the store with most of the footwear it offered for sale, the remainder being extras made by villagers. Among other items sold at the store in the 1830s were “spectacles” (eye-glasses), hats, bandanna handkerchiefs, socks (stockings), hair combs, writing paper, gunpowder, shot and lead, cowbells, glue, and lanterns. Such household items as cups and saucers, drinking glasses, earthenware, wash bowls, jugs, bottles, knives and forks, and table linen were also sold. Occasionally special orders were taken for such items as school textbooks, a “hymn book for his wife,” or a snuffbox. Other Uses of Company Store The company store met a number of the community’s social needs too. It was a popular place for exchanging news and gossip, and workers often stopped by for a drink and stayed to swap stories. The store’s credit system offered an easy way to raise funds by subscription. To pay the local preacher, to meet church expenses, to hire a schoolteacher for the season, or to help with the medical expenses of an injured or ill fellow-worker, employees simply authorized a debit against their account; the actual cash was paid out by the store. Similarly, when the local school tax or poor tax was due, assessments were debited to individual accounts and paid by the store on their behalf.9 Credits to workers’ accounts came from numerous sources other than the amounts due them as wages each month. Sometimes these credits were earned by performing extra work for the Curtins or by producing something that could be sold through the store. People could even earn credits by working or performing services for one another, the performer receiving credits, the recipient having his account debited. On February 22, 1850, for example, the Journal showed a credit of $4.75 to Charles Grassmyer, a forge worker, for mending the shoes of five other employees. Each of them, in turn, was debited in the Journal for that work. On March 3 Grassmyer earned another $6.00 for making nine pairs of shoes for other workers. On

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Page 52 March 16 Henry Bathurst earned $10.50 for hauling firewood to John and Austin Curtin and to a number of the worker families.10 At election time some workers received additional credits. Under the heading “Sundries dr[debited] to the forge” were credits of a dollar or two each to specific workers “for cash at Election.”11 Not only did the Curtins give their workers time off to vote on election day, it appears they also sometimes purchased votes for favored causes or candidates. Making Iron on an Agricultural Calendar So long as charcoal-iron production took place on self-sufficient rural plantations, and workers received wages in the form of store credits rather than cash, the industry operated on an essentially agricultural calendar. To be sure, furnace workers, unlike farmers, worked around the clock in two twelve-hour shifts because iron-smelting, as far as possible, was a continuous, twenty-four-hour process. But otherwise, ironworkers generally followed an agrarian work schedule fixed by hours of sunlight, shifting weather patterns, and changing seasons. And, after all, they had to help produce part of the community food supply. The importance of agricultural activities is evidenced by how often ironworkers performed them. Sometimes workers were excused from industrial duties at times that were critical for crops. But also, when ironwork was slack they were often assigned to farming jobs. Using entries scattered across Eagle Furnace and Eagle Forge time books of the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, the outline of the farm year was clearly discernible. It began with the coming of spring, when, in late March or early April, ironworkers helped to scatter manure from the horse barns on the still-frozen fields as fertilizer. Once thawing was complete and the fields were dry, usually by late April, plowing commenced. In early May, as plowing continued, ironworkers individually were given time to put in their gardens and help plant corn and potatoes. The first hay was “made” in June, with some ironworkers mowing, raking, and drying it and hauling it to the barns. That same month witnessed some workers hoeing weeds from both gardens and cornfields. July was usually the busiest month for farm work. Grain had to be harvested, a second cutting of hay was made, and the battle with weeds continued in the cornfields. It was also often unbearably hot for ironmaking. Accordingly, furnace men, forge hands, and miners alike were assigned to

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Page 53 cradling and stacking wheat, oats, and rye and mowing hay. August saw continuing haymaking and the start of plowing preparatory to planting next year’s wheat, rye, and oats in September. Following the frosts of September, it was time to begin harvesting corn. Plowing and planting winter wheat continued, and if the summer had not been too dry a third cutting of hay was made. By October some corn was husked from the stalks as it stood in the field; the rest was cut, stacked, and left to dry. Later the stacks would be hauled to the barn, where the ears of corn were removed and the fodder was stored until fed to the cattle. Throughout the late fall and winter as time could be found, wheat, rye, and oats were threshed, separating the grain from the straw, which would be used as bedding for the livestock. In October, apples were picked and stored, cider and apple butter were made, and the winter’s supply of potatoes were dug. Also, the last of the grain crops were stored in the barns to be threshed during the winter. Because butchering required cold weather, the slaughter of beef cattle and hogs usually took place in December or January. In 1845 the plantation villagers devoted an entire week to preparing collectively the year’s meat supply. Four other ironworkers that same season were each given a day off to do their own butchering. Once iron production became thoroughly industrialized and moved to urban areas, these ties to agriculture largely ended. The time books of urban ironworks carried no record of planting or harvesting crops, or notations about workers’ being excused to plant a garden or help with butchering. Relations Between the Mansion and the Village Although the Curtins lived in one or more of the “big houses,” a world apart from their employees, who lived with their families in the plantation village, the lives of the two intermingled. The furnace, forge, and rolling-mill hands encountered the ironmaster and his sons regularly, often daily; the miners, woodcutters, and colliers did so less frequently. In the ironworks the Curtins decided what would be done when, how, and by whom, who would be hired or fired, and who would or would not live in company housing. They set the terms of employment, kept the records, and determined which days would be worked and which would not. In their encounters with employees they issued orders, admonitions, and corrections, and perhaps even paid an occasional compliment or tendered a ‘‘thank you.” They granted or

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Page 54 denied workers’ requests and favors, and resolved disputes that arose in the workplace and village. The Curtins knew most of their workers well, having lived among them and employed them in some instances for generations. Some they favored above others and made sure they received steadier employment at higher rates of pay. Often sons of more valued employees found work on the plantation at such tender ages and high rates as to suggest they were hired chiefly to supplement their fathers’ incomes. Before the Civil War, Americans prided themselves on their rough equality and democratic ways, but society still prescribed deference to one’s “betters.” Plantation villagers stepped aside if a Curtin approached and came if one summoned them, and while the Curtins addressed villagers by their first names or nicknames, workers addressed the ironmaster as “Mister Curtin” and his sons by their first names preceded by a “Mister.’’ Village women and the “ladies” living in the mansion were also in regular contact. Federal census schedules reveal that the various Curtin households often had one or more live-in servants, sometimes an African American.12But they also hired women and girls from the village to do daywork at the “big house,” performing such household chores as scrubbing, cleaning, laundering, ironing, sewing, cooking, serving, and baby-sitting. A boy or two from the village might be employed to run errands, empty ashes, split kindling, and carry firewood. With their duties finished at day’s end, these domestic workers left the relative splendor of the mansion for the crowded bleakness of their village homes. There, one can be certain, they told of the wonders they had seen, heard, tasted, and touched in the “big house,” perhaps with some exaggerating. Within days any gossip picked up there became conversational currency throughout the village. Similarly the residents of the mansion picked up stray news items regarding which of the young people were “courting,” who was engaged to whom, who was pregnant, who was ill, which families were at odds with one another. In their early years the Curtin children played with their counterparts from the village, and all were briefly taught in the village school. Sometime around age ten to twelve their paths diverged and the young Curtins shifted to school in Bellefonte, the boys eventually going to the academy there. As they grew older, the village children had less time for play and more chores to do when not in school. Few went beyond the elementary level before going to work. Some of the stronger boys at age fourteen and fifteen were already on the ironworks payroll; their sisters either were busy helping their

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Page 55 mothers feed, clothe, and care for their family, or worked as domestic servants for the Curtins. The time books of the ironworks indicate that the Curtins frequently traveled to Bellefonte, to Harrisburg, and to Philadelphia. Many of these trips were related to business, of course, but others combined business and pleasure and some were wholly for pleasure. In return they entertained relatives and friends from the same and other cities. Villagers similarly made visits to their relatives and friends, though usually not at such distances. Their entertainment included attending religious camp meetings, going to circuses and horse races, and enjoying picnics and holiday parades. The younger men frequently belonged to militia groups and attended military musters and parades. The gulf between their respective lifestyles and the imbalance in the relative powers of mansion dwellers and villagers produced mixed attitudes toward one another. Villagers both respected the Curtins and disliked them. Some named their sons for Roland Curtin and his sons and sought out the Curtins for advice and assistance in legal matters. But some employees and other locals did not care much for the Curtins. To them, Roland Sr. was a “foreigner,” an Irishman living among employees nearly all of whom were American-born of colonial era British or German stock. Moreover, the Curtins, living as they did in the “big house” wearing “finery” (compared with the clothing of their farmer-worker neighbors), their education, and their sometimes overbearing attitudes toward the employees produced resentment, envy, and jealousy. The Curtins both depended on the workers and looked down on them for their shortcomings. Essentially the relationship between the ironmaster and the workers was paternalistic. The ironmaster assumed the attitude and responsibilities of surrogate parent of the dependent workers and their families. He provided housing for them, gave them work and a livelihood, and saw himself as central to their lives. Hugh Laird Curtin, the last of the family ironmasters, held that romantic view of his family’s role as late as 1935 when he wrote:”Did not the Iron Master and his wife have to provide for all? From the mansion, the center of all activities on the estate, joys and sorrows, directions and even support must be forthcoming. When a shut-down or depression came, it was not possible to send workers or their families off to new employment. Work was made there in order that they might live.”13 But there was another side to paternalism. The ironmaster also kept the workers ‘‘in their place.” In another passage written for that same address

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Page 56 (one wisely omitted from the finished speech), the last of the Curtin ironmasters hinted at a darker side of the relationship, condescension toward those beneath him: “There was an old hostler about the place who had been in charge of the driving horses for years. It became necessary to reduce expenses and I decided to drop him. When I told him, he said, ‘Why, Lairdy, you know you can’t discharge me—I raised you boys!’ Only the action of a considerate mare settled the matter some years later.”14

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Page 57 6 Years of Expansion The establishment of Roland Curtin & Sons in 1828 marked the beginning of the greatest expansion ever for the family enterprise. Despite falling iron prices beginning the next year, the senior partner continued to buy land, undertook a rash of costly construction projects, and spent substantial sums on new housing for his laborers, himself, and his managers and clerks (his older sons). By 1835 these undertakings reached a peak in terms of acreage, facilities, housing, and scope of operations. Roland Curtin Sr.’s motivation was not simply providing for his large and growing family. Remote though his properties were from markets and centers of population, he did keep abreast of changing political and technological conditions related to iron production and prices and sought ways of adjusting to them. At the nation’s capital in the late 1820s and early 1830s, Congress was debating the merits of lowering tariff protection. The Assembly in Harrisburg was examining the Commonwealth’s transportation problems. Should Pennsylvania construct its own canal system, as New York had successfully done earlier? And what was to be the role of railroads? Throughout the period in both England and America, demand was growing for more iron at lower prices. Earlier English inventions for coping with these problems belatedly were attracting the serious attention of American

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Page 58 ironmasters, including Curtin. The English had found ways to replace ever scarcer charcoal with mineral fuels in smelting furnaces and later in rolling mills, which were displacing forges for converting pig iron into wrought iron. Despite America’s seemingly inexhaustible forests, charcoal was becoming scarcer and more expensive to produce here too. On the positive side, Roland Curtin was shrewd, informed, and resourceful. And he no longer worked alone. His sons were entering the business with him. Most of them shared at least part of his energy and drive, which bode well for the future. The increased market for iron also held out promise of increased profits. But even as Eagle Ironworks reached its crest, clouds were forming on the horizon. The expansion had caused financial strain for the family; in 1837 a general economic depression had set in; and, what was most threatening, railroads were beginning to alter the iron industry. Although railroads did not reach Centre County until the 1860s, their rapid spread across the nation created enormous demands for inexpensive boilerplate for locomotives and iron rails for tracks. As matters turned out, ironworks that employed the new technology met these needs much more easily than firms that adhered to making cold-blast charcoal iron the old way. Railroads and canals had the further effect of speeding the shift of iron production from rural plantations to urban centers by providing inexpensive transportation of raw materials to such centers. Would the Curtins and other Central Pennsylvania ironmasters meet these challenges that threatened their very existence? Curtin, Politics, and Iron Prices Congress, wrestling with the protective tariff question in 1832, instructed U.S. Treasury Secretary Thomas McLane to gather information by directly surveying America’s manufacturers. Accordingly, a questionnaire was sent out regarding the present state of individual firms and the impact that the manufacturers believed lowering tariff rates to 12.5 percent might have. It is not surprising that they vehemently opposed any cuts. Any threat to protection of iron was a sensitive spot for most Central Pennsylvania ironmasters. The issue had already weakened their traditional support of the Democratic Party and would soon drive them first into the pro-tariff Whig Party and by the 1860s into the new Republican coalition. Curtin moved more quickly than most. In the mid-1820s he, his father-in-

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Page 59 law Andrew Gregg, and most Centre County ironmasters were Democrats. In 1828 he was active in the campaign to elect Andrew Jackson president. Four years later, however, local iron interests were becoming divided. James Irvin and James Potter, for example, supported Jackson’s reelection; Curtin and Joseph Miles, among others, supported Henry Clay and protectionism. By 1844 all would be Whigs.1 Curtin’s response to McLane’s questions concerning tariff reductions revealed that he had thoughtfully considered both his own problems and those of the industry at large. Iron prices had been high through 1828, he pointed out, because of the low cost of provisions and store goods following the War of 1812. “Labor sunk accordingly, which enabled the iron-masters…to make a handsome profit.” However, ‘‘the rage” to construct more ironworks since that date had glutted markets and caused both provisions and labor to rise rapidly in cost. Accordingly iron prices fell “at home, at Pittsburgh, and on the seaboard.” At Pittsburgh, where bar iron had long ranged from $150 to $220 a ton, by 1832 had fallen, even with high tariffs, to $110; at Baltimore in 1828 it brought $105, in 1832 only $80.2 Almost to a man, ironmasters in their responses predicted that reduced rates would bring only ruin and disaster. Curtin gave a less negative reply. A fortunate few in the interior of the country “who own a good ore bank, and plenty of wood contiguous to their works” [such as himself, he could have added] would “be able to escape the shipwreck,” but only because most of their competitors would have gone broke. It would be better, he suggested, for Congress to continue the present rates for another ten years. After that, American ironmasters “would disregard all competition from abroad; for during that time they would become more versed in the knowledge of labor-saving machinery; more stone coal banks would be discovered; the canals and railroads would be fully completed; the fertile part of the country would be more improved; the population would become more dense; and labor and provisions would be more easily procured, and at a much cheaper rate.”3 Curtin had put his finger on several of the problems of the industry in Central Pennsylvania and hinted at others. There was a need for improved transportation that experiments with canals and railroads would probably meet. Meanwhile, ironmasters needed time to learn about and adjust to the shifting technology of the industry—from charcoal to mineral fuels in smelting furnaces, for example, and substituting rolling mills with puddling furnaces for obsolete “finery forges.” Then, as the population of the richer farming districts grew, a more abundant supply of workers and a greater availability of foodstuffs would again lower costs for iron producers.

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Page 60 In effect, Curtin’s response spelled out the strategy he already was following and continued to follow. It included expanding output, ensuring an adequate supply of charcoal and iron ore, remaining open to supplementing or replacing charcoal with “stone coal” (anthracite or coked bituminous coal), pushing for improvements in transportation, and experimenting with a rolling mill to save labor. Transportation Improvements The completion of the Erie Canal across New York State in 1825 and its immediate success were both a threat and challenge to Pennsylvanians. Predictions that such a canal would be impractical had been disproved. To the contrary, it brought immediate profits, growth, and development to its terminal cities (Buffalo and Albany) and to the countryside through which it passed. With its help, New York City was not long in becoming the nation’s premier seaport. Envious Philadelphia merchants began to clamor for a similar canal across Pennsylvania, one that would allow them to tap the trade and commerce of the Midwest and the Great Lakes region that otherwise would go to New York City.4 The system, developed and built by the state of Pennsylvania, consisted of a combination railroad-canal connecting Philadelphia with Pittsburgh. The main line of the system began with a railroad from the port city westward to Columbia on the Susquehanna. From there, as a canal, it followed the Susquehanna River north, then the Juniata River west to the Allegheny Front. A stationary engine next pulled the car-boats up the mountainside to a railroad that ran them to Johnstown, where they were lowered into the canal that carried them on to Pittsburgh. But there were also branch lines. One continued north along the Susquehanna to Sunbury and then divided into two canals, one that followed the West Branch of the Susquehanna as far as Lock Haven and one that followed the North Branch of the same river to the New York border. Bypasses were dredged and locks installed to get around falls, rapids, and shallows in the rivers. Except when levees broke or ice blocked waterways from mid-winter until the spring thaw, the canal system operated most of the year free of most of the disadvantages of arking. Instead of rapid and risky one-way runs on swollen streams in the spring, mules now towed larger canal boats along placid canals. Round-trips were the rule. The chief

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Page 61 drawback was the cost of boatmen’s wages and tolls. Inasmuch as Central Pennsylvania ironmasters could only benefit from such a system, most were strong supporters of the plan. Although clumsy and financially unprofitable, Pennsylvania’s canal system nonetheless improved transportation until the railroads solved the problem even better. For Centre County residents both the Main Line and the West Branch canals were too distant to use. The West Branch, ending at Lock Haven, was closer, however, and would be accessible to Bellefonte if there were a connection. In April 1834 the state legislature authorized the Bald Eagle & Spring Creek Navigation Company to supply that missing link. Ironmasters Roland Curtin, Bond Valentine, James Irvin, W. W. Potter, and Joseph Miles were among the commissioners named in the legislation. On November 1, 1838, the canal reached Dowdy’s Hole, at the back door of Curtin’s Eagle Forge, before work stopped for lack of funds. Construction did not resume until the Panic of 1837 had run its course. Finally, on September 1,1848, the boat Jane Curtin docked at Bellefonte with the first load of merchandise for that town.5 An unusually detailed account of a canal boat run to Baltimore by Roland Curtin Jr. in 1841 is instructive. The young man, his boat loaded with 15 tons of iron, made the trip in June. Before the canal, the Bald Eagle and the Susquehanna would have been too shallow for such a voyage so late in the season. At Columbia, two customers from nearby Lancaster bought a little more than two tons each at $80 and $85 a ton. The remainder went to Baltimore, where two other customers paid $90 a ton. Of the four customers, three paid in cash and one gave his six-month note. The total sales amounted to $1,270. Expenses included $100 to the captain of the canal boat; $7 for weighing, wharfage, and storage; $5 freight on the iron unloaded at Columbia for Lancaster; and $6.25 for that hauled on to Baltimore. Roland Jr. brought back $130 worth of fish and salt and paid $10 for a colt and $12 for a subscription to the Harrisburg Telegraph & Intelligencer. For some payments he listed amounts without explanation: $612 to J. Boggs & Company, $3 to “E. Hutchison at Lewistown,” and $25 “sent to H. H. Kennie which I never expect to get.” He kept $56 worth of “Tide water Notes” for himself and gave his father $244. The balance, $59.75, went for ‘‘expences &c.”6 More often the Curtins simply turned iron over to a canal boat captain for delivery: Rec’d 2d Dec 1844 of C&J Curtin at Eagle Forge eight tons billets wire iron on board the Canal Boat Union of Beech Creek which I engage to deliver to Messrs Toml. Murphy & Co. at Haver daGasse

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Page 62 [Havre de Grace] they paying seven dollars and fifty cents per ton freight. 8 tons in 342 bars. [signed] James Hay7 The Curtins regularly shipped iron over the canal from the first thaws in March until it froze over the next winter, but they also each year sent a few arkloads down on the spring freshets. Apparently they believed that the lower costs more than offset the risks involved.8 Although the earliest railroad construction began simultaneously with the digging of the canal in Pennsylvania, no rail line reached Curtin properties until the Civil War. Roland Curtin nonetheless took an interest in the development of rail transportation, as his response to McLane’s questionnaire shows. The New Technology American methods of iron production had lagged seriously behind those of England since before the Revolution. As a consequence, British ironmasters outproduced and undersold American iron manufacturers even in the domestic markets of the United States. Beginning in the 1750s, British ironmasters gradually shifted from charcoal to mineral fuels for their smelting furnaces. A generation later, in the 1780s, they developed rolling mills equipped with “puddling furnaces” as replacements for forges that converted pig iron into wrought iron. They had also moved to stronger furnace blasts produced by blowing tubs rather than bellows, used heated rather than cold air blasts, and replaced waterwheels with more reliable steam engines for power. Coal fuels came into use in England because that country’s forests were nearing depletion and the cost of making charcoal had risen sharply. By contrast, bituminous coal was abundant and inexpensive. When coked (a process resembling the charring or “coaling” of wood) it could be substituted for charcoal. The new fuel proved to be not only cheaper but also superior in some ways. For example, charcoal limited iron production by precluding the use of larger smelting furnaces. The additional weight of raw materials fed into a larger furnace would crush and pack together the charcoal, smothering the smelting process. So long as charcoal was used, greater output could be achieved only by erecting additional furnaces. On the other hand, coal fuels, because they were less frangible, did not crumble and could

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Page 63 be used in much larger furnaces. This allowed expanded output with far less investment of capital than would be necessary if more small charcoal furnaces were built. Similarly, the usual heating furnaces used at refining forges for heating and reheating pig iron were small and obliged to use charcoal fuel. Pig iron placed in a heating furnace with coal would be spoiled because the iron would absorb sulfur and other impurities from the coal. The new puddling furnaces eliminated that problem by having two chambers separated by a partial partition. In the first chamber, the fuel, whether coal or charcoal, was burned to generate heat. Then the heat, taken up by a blast of compressed air, passed over the partition into the second chamber, where it heated the pig iron. Because there was no direct contact between the fuel and the iron, no contamination took place. Puddling furnaces could also be larger then heating furnaces and by subsequently passing the glowing pigs repeatedly between giant power-driven trains of rolls rather than hammering them, larger batches of wrought iron could be turned out faster than with the older triphammers.9 Little wonder the British were stealing American iron markets. Although most American ironmasters were aware of these developments, they clung to their accustomed ways. In part this was because in America forest resources for making charcoal seemed endless. Moreover, the ironmasters’ capital was already tied up in the old equipment, and high tariff rates between 1816 and 1833 protected them from excessive competition from abroad. As wood for charcoal became scarcer and tariff rates were lowered, American producers increasingly found it necessary to try new methods. The first American rolling mill with a puddling furnace was built at Plumsock, near Connellsville, in western Pennsylvania in 1816. Ironmaster Isaac Meason had gone to Wales, there engaged Thomas C. Lewis—a man familiar with the new technology—and persuaded him to migrate to America to design and construct a mill. Lewis did, but within three years he left Plumsock for Pittsburgh, carrying the new technology with him. By 1824 one of Curtin’s competitors, Valentines & Thomas of Bellefonte, was operating the first rolling mill with puddling furnaces in the Centre County area. Eagle Rolling Mill In 1829 Roland Curtin took the first steps to build Centre County’s second rolling mill. On February 21 he agreed to buy from Morgan Malone 150

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Puddling furnace of the 1830s. acres of land on the east bank of Bald Eagle Creek a little southwest of Eagle Furnace for $3,000. He was to get possession on May 1, 1830, with the right to cut timber and to have use of a sawmill there as early as March 15. Payments were to start on June 1 and spread over four years. In fact, they were made ahead of schedule and clear tide to 101 acres passed to Curtin in August 1832.10 Meanwhile, in March 1829, Curtin went to Pittsburgh, where he engaged the same Thomas C. Lewis to come to the Eagle Iron Works. Lewis was to “attend to the erection and full completion of a rolling and slitting mill together with its various appendages, and all other works’’ that Curtin might think proper to construct. Agreeing to work with “diligence and fidelity,” Lewis promised to complete the facility with “promptitude and zeal.” In return he was to receive a house and a garden, such firewood or stone coal as he needed, an annual salary of $500, his expenses for moving from Pittsburgh, and free board until his family arrived.11 Equipment in the new plant at first consisted of a puddling furnace, a heating furnace, and two trains of rolls, one for bar iron, the other a finishing train. Later a squeezer and shears were added. A waterwheel powered the rolling mill during the first half of its history. Later two large waterpowered turbine wheels proved more effective. In 1849, the first year for which there is data, the mill gave employment to ten men and boys and used a half-

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Page 65 dozen horses and mules in its operations. It consumed 17,500 bushel of bituminous coal to produce 546 tons of wire billet and shovel plate. In conjunction with the forge, the total annual output of the Eagle Ironworks that year was valued at $58,000.12 As might be expected, the products of the rolling mill changed often during its more than eight decades of operation. Among the most frequently listed items were wire billets, shovel plate, boiler plate, merchant bar iron, and rods.13 A local newspaper reported years later that between 1835 and 1866 the rolling mill was “a stirring place.” Once the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Canal was completed, its basin emptied directly into the forebay of the rolling mill. There stood the mill’s store, where the firm sold its iron to local customers. Roland Jr. was the manager and in charge of retail sales, and young Constans Curtin, just out of school, kept the books. Numerous customers, drawn from Centre and adjoining counties, “daily [brought] their wagons to be loaded.”14 Continued Expansion Not relying entirely on the new technology, Curtin also sought to expand output by starting a second iron plantation some 15 miles up the Bald Eagle Creek from his main works. This acquisition, called Martha Furnace after his eldest daughter, was to have a charcoal furnace and forge much like the Eagle Works. It would not only increase his supply of pig iron but also be an important step toward providing for his older children. Built in 1832–33, the furnace stood on a 95 1/2-acre tract that cost $2,000. To this would eventually be added more than 1,700 additional acres.15 The outcome of this venture will be discussed later. In addition to the substantial land purchases related to construction of the rolling mill and setting up Martha Furnace, Curtin sought out and bought still other lands. For example, in 1828 and 1829 he tried to buy 800 acres along the lower Bald Eagle Creek from the estate of the late Thomas Billington of Philadelphia. His interest in that property dated from at least 1805, when he was Billington’s agent for the land. His attempt to buy it in 1818 led only to wrangling among the heirs that wound up in the courts. In 1828, because “so many [heirs were] concerned who think and act independently of each other,” he tried to deal with some of them in order to circumvent the agent of the estate. Then, with or without permission or

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Page 66 payment, Curtin began hauling ore from the property. “You will have the goodness to note the quantity that we may derive something from it,’’ one of Bilhngton’s sons wrote him. In the end Curtin’s payments to some of the heirs drew him into a legal tangle that dragged on for at least another decade without securing him title to the property.16 Meanwhile, by 1843 Curtin purchased at least ten additional pieces of land totaling 1,666 acres and costing nearly $15,850. None appears to have been vital to his ironmaking.17 Rebuilding the Gristmill Curtin’s purchase of the last of Philip Antes’s holdings on the Bald Eagle in 1825 gave him possession of the log gristmill and sawmill built late in the previous century. Sometime near 1830, Curtin decided to make flour-grinding more profitable. He rebuilt the mill dam and erected an all-new 50-by-60-foot, four-story, all-stone gristmill equipped with two runs of stone (by the late 1880s two additional runs of stone would be added). This facility not only accommodated the needs of Curtin and his employees but attracted custom work from a large part of the region: the Bald Eagle Valley where it stood, Nittany Valley to the east, and the Bald Eagle ridges to the west. For the duration of the Eagle Ironworks and beyond, the great stone gristmill was the most imposing structure owned by Curtin. Although no information related to its construction has been located, it would certainly have cost several thousand dollars to build and equip.18 New Housing In addition to expanding the ironworks and landholdings, Curtin built three homes for himself and two for his sons, who were managing different parts of the works. The New “Forge House” The first home Curtin built was what today is called “Curtin Mansion” or the “Ironmaster’s House.” Built near the forge on the land purchased from Antes in 1825, it was known at the time simply as “the new forge house.”

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Gristmill at Curtin Village, ca. 1923. Originally built in 1830 to replace log gristmill established earlier by Philip Antes. The main portion was 50 feet square and two and a half stories high and built of rough fieldstone covered with a layer of stucco. It had five bays and was in the Federal or Adams style. The basic floor plan of all three levels was the same: a wide central hallway and stairs running the depth of the house, with two large square rooms on either side. The first floor provided common living space: a dining room, a living room, and two parlors. Master, guest, and other bedrooms made up the second floor, and the half-story third level provided space for servant quarters and the children. To the rear was a two-story 18-by-20-foot extension that was either the original building to which the main part was added, or an addition to the main part of the building. A large kitchen occupied the first floor, and the floor above provided a sewing room and additional workspace for servants. Although the exact date of construction is not known, 1830 or 1831 is traditionally given. Entries in the company blotter book for house-building materials and debited to the forge support that time frame. Between March 1829 and October 1830 appear the purchase of 2,000 shingles for $8, two

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Page 68 tons of plaster for $35, and a total of $29.75 for sawing 21,035 feet of boards and “butting” 48 logs. One forge workman received $80 “for 4 mo. work at house @ $20/mo.” An additional ton and a half of plaster was purchased later, along with “45 window lights @ 8c per light” and four pins “for porch.” Some furnishings for the ‘‘Forge house” were acquired in 1833: “8 window cornishes” for $10.60, a mahogany bureau for $35, a large dining table for $12, a maple sideboard for $80, and a dollar for repairing”Venecian blinds.”19 In May 1828 Roland Curtin’s daughter Nancy was the last of his children born in the “Old Furnace House” near Eagle Furnace. The family continued living there until 1831, after which records show a change of residence from Howard to Boggs Township, the location of what is today known as Curtin Mansion. The absence of further references to the old furnace house raises the possibility that it may have burned or been torn down about the time that Eagle Furnace went out of blast at the end of 1837. Curtin’s occupation of his new house was brief and divided into two periods. The first was from early 1831 through early 1834, when he moved to Bellefonte to live in the house of his recently deceased father-in-law. The second was from sometime between April 1837 and April 1839, when he came back to the mansion to live until 1844, when he retired to Bellefonte for the last time.20 Rolling Mill Hill House About 1830 Curtin built a second substantial house near the new Eagle Rolling Mill. Rolling Mill Hill House, as it was known, was a two-and-a-half-story, 40-by-20-foot white wood-frame dwelling built in simple Georgian style. Residents of the workers’ village regarded its setting on a shady knoll extending back into the mountains as “impressive.” A broad porch stretched across the front of the building; at the back was a 20-by-40-foot kitchen wing. It, like Curtin Mansion, had a central hallway extending the depth of the building, with rooms on either side. Whichever of the sons or grandsons happened to be managing the rolling mill lived here at different times. In the 1920s the house was sold to Will Allen, longtime operator of the gristmill at Curtin Village. It was torn down in 1970 to make way for Interstate 80.21 Martha Furnace Mansion The third of the new large homes erected by the Curtins was the ironmaster’s house at Martha Furnace. Built of red brick in 1831, it in many ways

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Page 69 mirrored Curtin Mansion. It too was a two-and-a-half-story house in the Federal style with a grand stairway and a distinctive fireplace in each room. The house still stands near the remains of the furnace stack it was built to serve. For many decades home to the John I. Thompson family, who took over there from the Curtins in the 1850s, the house had substantial additions in the early twentieth century and still stands today.22 New Worker Housing Around the millpond that served both Eagle Forge and the gristmill, Curtin added houses to the ones Antes had already built on the property. Their purpose was to accommodate forge workers. The area later would be expanded into “Curtin Village,” which is described in detail below. Separate houses for workers and their families at Martha Furnace were also built at this time, and two new houses were added to the string of ten originally built for Eagle Furnace employees. All twelve were now set aside for employees of the new rolling mill. Gathering Clouds With enormous expenditure of time and money and the increasing assistance of his sons, Roland Curtin had by 1835 pushed his iron kingdom to its outer limits. A steady flow of profits was all that was needed for him to begin retiring debts and to enjoy fully the role of established ironmaster. Unfortunately, tariff rates and iron prices remained low and Curtin faced having to refinance his debt. As yet unanticipated, the Panic of 1837 and the depression it preceded lay just over the horizon. Worse still, as American ironmasters adopted new technology, the rate of change was speeding up. During the late 1820s and early 1830s, interest in using anthracite coal for smelting iron grew. The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1825 offered a gold medal to whoever would first manufacture more than 20 tons of pig iron using only hard coal for fuel. Not long after, the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company promised free waterpower and reduced coal prices to the firm that first found a successful way of smelting iron with anthracite. By the end of the 1830s, Nicholas Biddle & Associates was offering a $5,000 prize to the first person to keep an anthracite furnace in blast for at least three months. The race was on, and winners were produced in

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Page 70 1840. By the end of that year, nine anthracite furnaces were in operation on the rim of the hard-coal fields in southeastern and east Central Pennsylvania.23 Meanwhile, from 1834 onward, American ironmasters successfully experimented with hot blasts in their smelting furnaces to increase production. That same decade America’s first trains drawn by steam locomotives over iron tracks appeared. The forces were now in place to begin the “creative destruction” that would further weaken and ultimately destroy Curtin’s works and the others of its kind.

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Page 71 7 Roland Curtin, the Final Years Between 1832 and 1835 Roland Curtin enjoyed a final few years at the top. Although about to turn seventy, he was enjoying good health, his family was flourishing, and his enterprise was expanding as never before. Between 1829 and 1843 he purchased 3,650 acres of land, which cost him more than $31,500. How much more it cost to construct Martha Furnace, the rolling mill, the four-story stone gristmill, the three mansions (New Forge House, Rolling Mill Hill House, and Martha Furnace House), and housing for his workers in that same period can only be imagined. Doing all this while netting a combined total of less than $15,000 for 1829, 1830, and 1831 suggested that there might be trouble ahead. By 1835 time and luck began running out. The great expansion, far from advancing the family’s prosperity, turned into a scramble to avoid bankruptcy. Creditors began clamoring for payment, most of the property had to be mortgaged, and sheriff’s sales were threatened. In the end, Roland Curtin’s creditors drove him from the field and instead dealt with his younger sons. Turning the property over to the next generation, he and Jane retired for the last time to Bellefonte in 1844.

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Page 72 The Kingdom at Its Peak Roland Curtin was in an expansive mood on April 18,1832, as he answered Treasury Secretary McLane’s questions about the state of his business. He wrote with enthusiasm about his holdings, which were then nearing their pinnacle. He was in partnership with three of his sons, he noted, and owned “one forge, with six fires, one furnace, and one rolling mill, now in operation, and propelled by water power.” He continued: We are … preparing to erect another furnace and forge on said Bald Eagle creek. … I own about thirty thousand acres of land, a part whereof is very fertile, and well improved and tenanted. A considerable portion is composed of ridge and barren land, calculated to supply iron works with timber and iron ore. My head and tail races are very long, for the purpose of procuring a sufficiency of water power; and my dams have been erected at a considerable expense. There are upwards of sixty-two houses occupied by the workmen, besides four good and substantial houses for myself, managers, and clerks. I… calculate the various plantations, the ore and wood tracts, the buildings, the grist and saw mills, the water power and machinery, during the existing tariff, worth to me and family two hundred thousand dollars.1 The works employed about 75 ironworkers and 100 woodchoppers, he went on, plus a few women who worked in the boardinghouses. A total of 69 horses and four yoke of oxen provided transportation. During the previous year an output of 625 tons of iron had yielded a profit of “above six thousand dollars.” The additional furnace and forge that the Curtins were ‘‘preparing to erect” on the Bald Eagle Creek referred to the Martha Furnace venture. The 1,800 acres making up that plantation were purchased between the date of the letter to McLane and 1835. Curtin also bought land having no apparent connection with any of his ironworks: 139 acres in Boggs Township, 180 in Potter, 420 in Howard, 72 in Spring, and a town lot in Milesburg, all for an additional $4,721. One final recorded land purchase was a 105-acre tract in Howard Township that cost him $600 in 1843.2 What was the nature of Curtin’s landholdings? The heart of the Eagle Ironworks plantation consisted of a 900-acre tract of contiguous land in

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Curtin Eagle Ironworks Plantation from the south, ca. 1870. Foreground (left to right): church, school. Background (left to right): worker homes in Curtin Village, four-story stone gristmill, worker homes, furnace (with plume of smoke), ironmaster’s mansion, manager’s house, company store. Notice that fifty years of charcoal-making had already largely stripped nearby mountains of trees.

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Page 74 Boggs and Howard Townships through which the Bald Eagle Creek flowed for one and a half miles. Of that tract, 200 or so acres were “good meadow land in a fine state of cultivation,” used for pasturing and growing feed for the horses, mules, and other livestock connected with the ironworks. Another 250 acres of “fine lime-stone soil” well suited for agriculture was used chiefly to provide foodstuffs for the Curtins and the people of the plantation. Altogether, the Eagle Ironworks (the forge, the furnace, the rolling mill, and various waterwheels); the gristmill; housing (the mansions of the Curtin family), substantial housing for other managers and clerks, and fifty-eight workers’ houses near the forge and rolling mill; and barns, storage sheds, offices, and the company store occupied another 150 acres. The remaining 300 acres, though “not especially improved,” were partially timbered and so were useful in connection with the ironworks.3 Some 13,300 acres of ridge and barrens land, most of it in Howard Township, supplied the charcoal that fueled both furnace and forge. The Curtins also either owned outright or had mineral rights to seven major ore properties consisting of 2,124 acres of land. In fact, only small portions of the seven properties had tested and proven deposits or working mines on them. The remainder was improved or quasi-improved farmland with high ore potential. In addition to the two principal active mines already described (Yellow Bank and Red Bank, which together occupied 555 acres of ore land), Curtin held five other mining properties in reserve. In most instances the ore probably was equal in quality with that of the active mines and could have been as easily mined. But with ample supplies of ore already available, spending money to develop the reserve banks made little sense. One, the 267-acre ‘‘Dysart Farm Bank,” immediately adjoined Red Bank. It contained brown hematite ore essentially the same as that mined at its neighbor. In 1822, “fossil ores” (so called because they appeared to contain small fossils) were found on a 600-acre tract within two miles of Eagle Furnace. Continuing in that same range and adjoining the fossil ore bank was “Harris Farm Bank,” a 300-acre tract in Spring Township that contained dark brown hematite ores.4 The owner, James Harris, leased Curtin 10 acres for seven years. Curtin was to dig the ore and pay Harris 25 cents a wagonload. If he dug a well on the property adequate for a farm family, he would get the ore free for three years. In 1828 Curtin bought that property outright from the executors of the Harris estate.5 Potentially a more valuable ore property was “Logan Bank,” a 30-acre tract in Spring Township, two miles south of Bellefonte. It contained a bed

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Page 75 of pipe ore from 2 to 10 feet thick running in some places 120 feet deep. It would be operated from the 1860s through the 1880s but after that was not used because of regular flooding by surface water.6 Construction of the Tyrone Railroad within a half-mile of the bank a few years later could have made transporting that ore very convenient. By then, however, only a general revival of the charcoal-iron industry in the area, or the substitution of mineral coal for charcoal, could have justified the investment necessary to install modern pumping machinery.7 Finally, as part of the Martha Furnace venture, the Curtins owned “Tar Hollow Bank” in the “Barrens” region of Patton Township. The ore from that source tested 44.3 percent iron, and the pits were no more than 25 feet deep.8 Though the distance was only four to five miles, Bald Eagle Mountain stood between the ore bank and the furnace, making transport difficult. Curtin’s remaining holdings were farms and other real estate located in nine of the townships and two of the boroughs of Centre County. Many of these were the “tenanted” properties mentioned in the letter to McLane. Roland Curtin constantly added to his already vast domain through 1835 but sold or disposed of relatively little real estate before that date. He sold a town lot or two in Milesburg, occasionally a two-to-three-acre plot to acquaintances or employees needing land on which to build homes of their own, and, as previously noted, lands that the courts forced him to return to previous owners because of purchasing irregularities or disputes over ownership. The Martha Furnace Venture When Curtin decided to start a second plantation upstream from the Eagle Works, his principal consideration was access to adequate charcoal. Once erected, the new furnace operated for about twenty years until 1855. The Curtins owned it, however, only until 1848. Although timber was plentiful, the location otherwise had severe limitations that in the end proved fatal. There was the difficulty of transporting the ore over Bald Eagle Mountain from the Tar Hollow Bank, but also, because the Curtins never built the planned forge at Martha Furnace, the pig iron produced there had to be hauled by wagon 15 miles or so to the main works to be worked into wrought iron.9 Furthermore, these acquisitions added substantial costs at a time when Curtin’s funds were already stretched. In addition to $2,000 for the tract on

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Page 76 which the furnace was built, 990 additional acres traceable in county deed books cost the Curtins $9,250 more. Beyond that was the cost of another 800 acres not found in the county records.10 The size of the new furnace was not unusual. It stood 32 feet high with an 8-foot bosh, it had an annual capacity of 1,180 tons of pig, and it used 70 employees and 60 horses and mules in its operations.11 The plantation was similar to that at the Eagle Works, having a two-story brick ironmaster’s house, such necessary outbuildings as a charcoal house, stabling for eight teams, sixteen log and five frame two-story tenant houses, and one sawmill scattered across more than twenty tracts of adjoining land.12 The new furnace did fulfill Roland Sr.’s family objectives, at least temporarily. At different times sons James, Roland Jr., and John resided there as managers. James never married. Roland Jr. took a wife in 1834 and launched the next generation of Curtins the following year when he fathered the first of his nine children. John, youngest son of Curtin’s first marriage, moved to Martha Furnace in 1838, and there his second child was born two years later. He had married and begun a family of seven children in 1837.13 If Martha Furnace was intended to double the Curtins’ output of pig iron, that goal was never realized. Instead, the new furnace came into blast just in time to replace pig iron lost when the Curtins gave up on Eagle Furnace in late 1837. Whether the old furnace burned down or developed flaws that could not be remedied is not known. In any event, had Martha Furnace not existed the rolling mill and forge would have had to rely on non-Curtin sources for pig iron or close down. Despite its importance to overall operations and the substantial amount of pig it did produce, Martha Furnace was not a profitable venture for the Curtins. Changes in the management seem to have made no difference. James and his father started the furnace, and Roland Jr. joined in the management by 1835 but returned to the Eagle Works by 1840. John assisted James after 1838 and became principal manager when James surrendered the position in 1842 and returned to the main works. John remained in charge until the Curtins abandoned it in 1848.14 The 1835 mortgage It was hardly surprising that by 1835 Curtin found himself in grave financial difficulty. A greater mystery was how he had so long managed to remain sol-

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Page 77 vent while operating his extensive business, maintaining and housing his workers and their families, and supporting and schooling his own large and growing brood, all the while building major facilities and acquiring more than $30,000 worth of real estate. His spending began catching up with him as early as October 1833. Simon Gratz of Philadelphia wrote to remind Curtin that $1,000 for land purchased earlier had fallen due the first of the month. ‘‘This with the former sum of 1000 D’rs makes the amount now due 2000 D’rs with Int. I now most earnestly beg you to remit this amount.”15 In June 1835 another Philadelphian, George M. Strone, informed Curtin that he was initiating legal action for $7,072.66 then overdue him.16 About the same time Curtin’s friend, Judge Thomas Burnside of Bellefonte, warned that yet other Philadelphians were making inquiry as to whether any liens, judgments, or other actions were pending against Curtin in the Pennsylvania or U.S. courts. The judge replied there were not and added: “[Roland Curtin] is a clever man, and cannot exactly see why your company should be so particular. I have no doubt but that every dependence can be placed on what he says.”17 On July 3, 1835, Curtin was obliged to mortgage $40,000 worth of his most valuable properties as security for a loan of $20,000 from a Philadelphia insurance company (The Pennsylvania Company for Insurance on Lives and Granting Annuities). Included was most of his developed real estate (nine Bellefonte lots and five farms totaling 874 acres with all buildings and improvements on them. So were his Eagle Ironworks properties: 140 1/2 acres with Eagle Furnace, its coal house, manager’s house, worker housing, stables, and offices; 78 1/2 acres that included Eagle Forge; 57 acres occupied by the gristmill, the sawmill, the new mansion house, and other outbuildings; 101 acres with the rolling mill, the store, the manager’s house, and worker housing; and an adjoining 54-acre tract. Even included were fifteen of the mountain tracts totaling more than 6,000 acres of timberland originally purchased from Benjamin Rush in 1811.18 Except for Martha Furnace plantation, not yet paid for, Curtin pledged his entire iron-producing complex. And this while the economy was booming. Further Difficulties On a national level the good times continued through 1835 and 1836. Even the price of iron improved. Any hope that Curtin might regain his economic

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Page 78 footing, however, collapsed in 1837 when panic swept the business community. The result was a major depression of several years’ duration that was particularly hard on ironmasters. More than 40 percent of all 282 blast furnaces in Pennsylvania (including more than half the cold-blast charcoal furnaces) failed or went under the sheriff’s hammer between 1843 and 1850. So did a third of the state’s 112 forges, and 18 percent of its rolling mills. In Centre County, five of nine ironworks failed or were sold at sheriff’s sales, and one solvent firm, Valentines & Thomas of Bellefonte, unsuccessfully tried through much of 1843 to find someone to lease their works.19 In 1842 and 1843 the Curtins among themselves modified the nominal ownership and management of their holdings. The precise nature of the changes is not clear, but it was apparently an attempt to avoid losing the enterprise to debt. The various Curtin iron properties had been managed by two overlapping entities. “R. Curtin & Sons” (the informal partnership of Roland Sr., Austin, James, and Roland Jr.) had controlled Eagle Furnace, Eagle Rolling Mill, and Eagle Forge since 1828; “James Curtin & Co.” (Roland Sr., James, and possibly Roland Jr.) had been set up in the early 1830s to establish Martha Furnace. In their stead was now created a new partnership involving none of those in the two existing firms. “C. & J. Curtin” involved only Constans and John, two of Roland Sr.’s three younger sons.20 The new arrangement resembled Roland Sr.’s earlier “agreements,’’ “partnerships,” and “understandings” with his sons in that it was oral, inexplicit, and informal rather than written, spelled out, and enforceable at law. Whatever the terms, Roland Sr. continued to be widely perceived as still in charge of his business enterprises and real estate. All subsequent legal actions for debt in the local courts, for instance, were brought against R. Curtin & Sons, James Curtin & Co., or individual family members. That did not change until 1848, when Roland finally signed formal written Articles of Agreement with his six sons, giving them joint ownership of virtually all his real estate and buildings. Meanwhile, in March 1843, Roland Sr. gave son Constans an essentially worthless conditional promissory note for $3,000 with interest “for the aid and assistance rendered me … as clerk and manager at Eagle Iron Works.” Payment was to begin “after the debts due to my creditors will be fully discharged.”21 In August of the same year, Austin, James, Roland Jr., and John Curtin announced in a Bellefonte newspaper the dissolution by mutual consent of their partnership for carrying on the Eagle Iron Works and Martha Furnace. When and under what terms that partnership had been formed was not stated, nor was it indicated what the future relationship of the four

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Page 79 brothers would be.22 Whatever the details, one thing was clear: accounts were being settled and organizational changes were being made. Finally, Roland Sr. physically distanced himself from his iron properties by moving from the mansion in Boggs Township to Bellefonte in November 1844. In all likelihood his direct control of the firm’s business affairs decreased.23 In the meantime, legal actions launched against the Curtins by their creditors became a major problem. The county sheriff’s Execution Book listed twenty-six different actions brought in the County Court against the Curtins in 1843 alone for debts ranging from $93 to $4,664 and totaling nearly $22,200. By the end of the year some of the same complainants were back, their particular debts having not been settled by the first court order. What these executions amounted to is uncertain. One or two ordered sheriff’s sales, but in other instances the sheriff simply seized and held personal property, such as bar iron, until a settlement or understanding was reached between the Curtins and the particular creditor.24 On August 3, 1843, unspecified personal property belonging to the Curtins was sold at a sheriff’s sale at Martha Furnace. The time book comment that day noted only “Sale at Furnace. Genl Irvin and sheriff were here.” Exactly what was sold to quiet which debts was unclear. The purchasers were James Irvin (a solvent local ironmaster, a member of Congress, and brother-in-law of Roland Curtin Jr.) and James Potter (a cousin of Mrs. Roland Curtin Sr. and also a grandchild, as she was, of the earlier James Potter who first explored the Bald Eagle Valley). Instead of carrying off or taking possession of their purchase that day, the buyers entered into Articles of Agreement with John and Constans Curtin, leaving in their hands “the property of Roland Curtin, Austin Curtin, James Curtin, and Roland Curtin Junr … as contained in the sheriff’s return of his execution.” The brothers were to return the property to its new owners in the same condition as received at the end of one year. The Articles further stipulated that the brothers would own the property when they paid Irvin and Potter in full for “all of the liabilities” incurred on behalf of Roland Curtin & Sons and James Curtin & Company, plus the money they were “bound to pay for the property by the sheriff’s sale.”25 Even at the time there was confusion regarding the exact status of the Curtins’ various ironworks. Whoever reported to the Ironmasters’ Convention in Philadelphia in 1849, for example, mistakenly declared that Martha and Eagle Furnaces had both been sold at sheriff’s sales and that the rolling mill and forge had failed, all in 1843. County court and sheriff reports and local newspaper accounts do not show these events taking place. Moreover,

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Page 80 holders of the 1835 mortgage against the Eagle Works would not have brought suit. That debt was not in default and eventually was paid in full. Martha Furnace and its lands, on the other hand, did go to the sheriff’s sale but not until 1848. The Close of Roland Curtin’s career Eventually the unsatisfied debts at Martha Furnace came to judgment. On May 17, 1848, the County Court ordered the sheriff to seize the furnace and the land on which it stood and sell them at public auction. The sale, advertised for July 1, included the tract on which stood the furnace, the two-story brick house, an office, dwelling houses for workers, and other outbuildings. Also listed were more than 7,100 acres of additional land related to the operation. The order did not surprise the Curtins. By April their usual workforce of twenty to twenty-five furnace men had been cut in half. The final entry in the time book on May 11 read simply: “Furnace blows out this morning.’’ On May 23 John Curtin moved back to the Eagle Works.26 The day after blowing out Martha Furnace, Roland Curtin Sr. entered into formal Articles of Agreement with his sons to convey nearly all his property to them by July 1. Included were Martha Furnace, the Eagle Iron Works, and “all the real estate, lands or tenements” owned by him in the boroughs of Bellefonte and Milesburg, and nine surrounding townships. The exception was the life estate he held in properties his wife Jane had inherited from her father. In return the sons agreed to pay off all their father’s debts and liabilities and to pay their parents during their natural lives the sum of $600 in cash each year, plus four tons of “good merchantable Bar Iron to be delivered at the works.” Once the debts were satisfied, they were to give to their mother’s brother, Andrew Gregg, $15,000 in trust for the benefit of their five sisters.27 The degree, if any, to which Roland Sr. was involved in running the business after July 1 is unknown. However, it is difficult to imagine him not offering advice, and perhaps he even issued orders from time to time during the final two years of his life. The results of the sheriff’s sale at Martha’s Furnace were inconclusive. With iron furnaces failing all across the state, apparently no one wanted to acquire more than small pieces of the real estate. Thus, much of the property somehow remained in the hands of the Curtins. On November 30, 1848, Thomas Wilson and Robert Elder paid the sheriff $2,399 for a portion of

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Page 81 Table 1. Purchases and sales of land by Roland Curtin, 1796–1850 Purchases

Sales

Period

Acres

Price

Acres

1796–1805 1806–1815 1816–1825 1826–1835 1836–1845 1846–1850 Totals

300 14,626 2,663 3,546 393 0 21,528

$ 50 13,600 15,665 33,183 1,375 0 $63,873

0 274 150 67 2,212 668 3,371

Price $

0 1,498 1,030 718 43,223 2,946 $49,415

SOURCE: Calculated from tables of the land purchases and sales made by Roland Curtin as recorded in County Deed Books, Curtin Family Manuscripts, and the CIP. The tables are on file in CMA. Martha Furnace land in Halfmoon Township. A year later, December 1, 1849, James Irvin paid $4,400 for a different 150-acre tract in Huston Township. Then, in 1850, Irvin s brother-in-law Moses Thompson (perhaps representing the interests of the creditors) put Martha Furnace back into operation making iron there for five years before shutting down perma-nently. Meanwhile, the Curtins retained at least clouded title to the property until 1865, when Moses Thompson and his son John I. Thompson bought it from them for $30,000. A “Statement of Account” in the Curtin Papers shows that as late as July 1, 1877, Thompson still owed the Curtins $3,864 principal plus accumulated interest.28 After 1835 Roland Curtin began to dispose of some of his real estate holdings (see Table 1). Even in distress he tenaciously clung to all his good ore lands, most of his better timberlands, and the basic plantation. In part he had no choice because that property was mortgaged. Anything it brought in a sale would go to the mortgage holder and put the Curtins out of business. Instead, he sold tracts from which the timber had already been cut and made into charcoal, they being of no further use to the ironworks. Other sold tracts were unmortgaged lands remote from the main plantation. Using price per acre as the measure, some of these tracts must have been relatively good farmland in Howard, Boggs, and Spring Townships.29 Before surrendering his business to his sons, Roland undertook with them the construction of a new furnace. It was located very near Eagle Forge and would supply that facility with the pig iron no longer available from Martha Furnace. When the plans were first made is uncertain, but masons began erecting the stack in April, a month before Martha Furnace was blown out and the Articles of Agreement were drawn up. The stack was completed

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Page 82 June 15, and on July 1 the sons took over their father’s business.30 How the Curtins could afford the new facility remains a mystery, even though they built it, as much as possible, using materials salvaged from the ruins of Eagle Furnace, which had closed a decade earlier. Though down, the Curtins remained creative and resourceful. The patriarch of the family, however, was to die on November 8, 1850. The notice, five days later, in the Bellefonte Democratic Whig offered a brief appraisal of Roland Curtin: “He was an enlightened, useful, and enterprising citizen, and ardent friend of his country, a kind, benevolent, righteous and honest man. The immense crowd … at this funeral was the best evidence of the esteem in which he was held.” The list of attributes was more appropriate to the occasion than candid. No question was ever raised about his patriotism, and that he was enterprising, had done much that was useful, and was enlightened (in the sense of keeping abreast of trends in the iron industry) is evident from the ironworks he founded, expanded, and passed on to his descendants. One of the larger such enterprises in the area, the enterprise supported him and his sizable family in considerable comfort. Over the course of the past forty years it had also provided livelihoods for several hundred individuals, and continued to do so for more than another fifty years. On the other hand, the accuracy of ‘‘kind, benevolent, righteous and honest,” and his being held in esteem, was debatable among those who had known and dealt with him over the years. Some clearly admired and respected him. Employees and neighbors alike named their sons Roland, Austin, and Constans, previously uncommon names in the area except among the Curtins. They also turned to the ironmaster for help in business matters: for advice or loans, or to be administrator of their estates or guardian of their minor children. The local courts, too, sometimes appointed him guardian of an orphan or executor of an estate. A letter he received after having helped settle the estate of Richard Malone shows how one such honor backfired. It can be seen either as illustrating the suspicions some had of him, or as evidence of how those who envied him sought to finagle handouts. Settling the estate of Malone, who died in 1801, took years, running through two sets of administrators before the court asked Curtin to act as executor. In 1828 Curtin received a letter from Thomas and Rebecca Howard, son-in-law and daughter of Malone, then residents of Ohio. Apparently a not-too-literate lawyer penned the letter for the Howards. After presenting a hard-luck story describing their need, the couple asked Curtin for “twenty or thirty Dollars” to help them in

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Page 83 their “extreme nesaisity [sic].” Because Curtin had apparently ignored earlier requests, they feared his heart was “hardened against the unfortunate heirs of Richard Malone dec’d who once lived in opulence.” If he would just mail them the sum requested, they added, “you are welcome to the rest if there is any more [emphasis added].” A note from the lawyer accompanied the request he had written for the Howards. “I have never seen you personally,” he wrote Curtin, “but they have always told me that they believed that you have acted honestly in the administration of that estate. They tell me likewise there is something coming yet,’’ he added, urging Curtin to assist them.31 The gratuitous suggestion that Curtin was holding back from the estate money that they had no objection to his keeping if only he would send them the amount they had requested probably further hardened his heart. Curtin’s reputation for ruthlessness, sharp dealing, and closeness with money when dealing with others persisted. Jealousy and envy of his wealth, position, and lifestyle, and bias against his Irish Catholic origins, may well have contributed to that hostility. Even so, there is support for the charges against him. For example, recorded instances of his benevolences or generosity are few, and contributions he gave were small. For example, he sometimes added $1.00 to the subscriptions raised by his employees for nearby Eagle Chapel, and on one occasion he charged $3.20 to his own account for a stovepipe for the Catholic church in Bellefonte, possibly at the behest of his sister who worshiped there.32 More positive evidence included, as noted earlier, the way in which Curtin had acquired the Askey estate, which led to lawsuits that Curtin lost. His arrangement with the surveyor Wilson to seek out lands with imperfect title to acquire, and his going behind the back of the executor of the Billington estate to make deals with some of the heirs, suggest deviousness. After several dealings with Curtin, Philip Antes took the unusual precaution of having the following affixed in writing to one deed: “N[ota]. B[ene]. Before the signing hereof it is understood and agreed that as Philip Antes is the owner of the land on the north side of the Bald Eagle Creek, he and the said Roland Curtin are to hold the middle of the creek as their dividing line.”33 Over the years, Curtin spent much time in court. In good and bad years alike he was suing or being sued over land titles and debts, quick to enlist the courts when money was owed him, very slow when the obligations were his. Nonetheless, although Curtin’s drive and ambition led him to overreach, he was persistent and resourceful to the end. It would now be for his children and grandchildren to carry forward his achievements.

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Page 85 8 The Curtins and Their Workforce in 1850 Sources and Problems Because the Curtins were prominent, wealthy, and educated, a considerable body of information concerning them remains. Even in the absence of personal memoirs and diaries, sketching outlines of their lives is not difficult. Most sources on the family have already been cited and need not be rehearsed here. By contrast, data on the working people of the Eagle Ironworks is meager. Just determining the names of those who worked for the Curtins is difficult. First, there were many levels or degrees of employment. Some workers were similar to those who appeared later in industrial factory settings; they worked nearly full-time at the ironworks and lived in housing provided by the Curtins. Others were tenants on Curtin-owned farms in the area who for the most part farmed, but sometimes supplemented their incomes with part-time work in and around the ironworks. Still others lived in homes or on farms they owned or rented from other landlords and worked for the Curtins by mutual agreement as needed. A good number were teenage sons of the workers and farmers already mentioned who worked part-time at miscellaneous tasks. Finally, there were temporary workers who labored to accumulate a small stake before moving on. Another factor was the records kept by the Curtins, which were neither meticulous nor consistent. Apparently no lists of all employees at a given

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Page 86 time were drawn up, and constructing such lists from the remaining records is nearly impossible. Time books, for example, usually recorded only individuals working at or around the furnace and forge without indicating what functions each performed. Sometimes these records included the names of colliers who were supplying charcoal, for example, but not of miners who were digging iron ore. Frequently records of forge workers and nearly always those of rolling-mill employees were maintained separately and subsequently lost. As was common in similar nineteenthcentury records, names were not spelled consistently and terminology was used carelessly. Similarly, mathematical calculations were not always accurate, and if profit and loss balances were struck they were not preserved. Even when workers’ names can be determined, learning much else about them is difficult. Workers preserved almost no family letters, papers, scrapbooks, or other personal records, and only rarely did newspapers or official records mention them. What is known of them—who they were, the work they did, what their daily lives were like—can only be pieced together from the surviving records of the ironworks. The one major exception to these complaints is the year 1850. A relatively detailed company journal for the years 1848—51 remains. Each month it has entries for the various workers regardless of job (excepting rolling-mill employees) that indicate the specific task performed, the number of days worked or amounts produced, the rate of pay, and the total wages credited to the worker’s account. Other entries during the month give total debits from each account for stores, provisions, and other expenses at the company store. There is also a set of time books for the same period which lists furnace workers by name, indicating which days they worked and often including terse comments about notable events, the workers, the weather, or the functioning or malfunctioning of equipment. Supplementing this information is data available in the federal manuscript census of 1850. That year, for the first time, the census devoted a full line to information about each person in each household, including name, age, gender, place of birth, occupation of adult males, and whether children attended school. Also available from 1850 on were township tax assessment books that on separate pages listed landowners, tenants, and unmarried men, recorded their occupations and how many acres of land and horses and cows they owned, as well as the amount of tax owed. Combined, these sources provide a glimpse of the people who lived and worked at the ironworks at the midpoint of the nineteenth century.

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Page 87 The Curtins The manuscript federal census schedules show that Roland Curtin spent 1850, the eighty-sixth and final year of his life, in retirement in Bellefonte with his wife Jane. She had inherited the house they lived in from her father, Former Senator Andrew Gregg. With them were their three younger daughters, Margery, Nancy, and Julia, and two teenage girls who were probably live-in servants. Older daughters Martha and Honora Ellen had married and now lived elsewhere with their husbands and children. Son Andrew Gregg Curtin, his wife, their two small children, and a nineteen-year-old servant girl, also lived in Bellefonte, where Andrew practiced law. He was already involved in politics, actively campaigning for Whig presidential candidates William Henry Harrison in 1840, Henry Clay in 1844, and Zachary Taylor in 1848. The latter year he was a member of the Electoral College that named Taylor President of the United States. Meanwhile in Boggs Township, Roland Curtin’s five other sons were jointly managing the family’s iron enterprise. Austin Curtin, with wife Rebecca and two children, shared their home with Rebecca’s brother Archibald Bathurst and his wife and infant daughter. Bathurst worked at the forge that Austin apparently managed. At Curtin Mansion, three doors away, John Curtin lived with his wife, five children, and a teenage servant girl. He was ironmaster at Pleasant Furnace. James Curtin, a bachelor, was housed next door. William R. Alexander, a clerk from the ironworks, roomed with him. Waiting on the two was Thomas Turner, a black live-in house servant. Management of the rolling mill (a mile and a half to the south) fell to Roland Curtin Jr. He and his wife lived in the “big house,” on Rolling Mill Hill with their six small sons and his youngest brother, Constans Curtin. At that time, thirty-four-year-old Constans was a bachelor who clerked at the rolling-mill store and kept the firm’s books. The Employees The ironworks employees in 1850 included members of families who had settled in the valley before the Curtins and had worked for them for decades. Earliest and longest in service were the Bathurst and Barger families.

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Page 88 Between the 1820s and 1840s other names that would persist cropped up: Britton, Cheesman, Eckley, Evans, Funk, Goodfellow, Grassmyer, Leathers, Lucas, Miller, Nyman, Stine, Taylor, Watkins, and White. By 1850, Bryan, Doughman (later changed to Dukeman), Gingher, Jacobs, Pease, and Shultz had appeared. Several of these would continue in service to the end in 1921-22. For 1850 a total of 181 individuals appeared for varying lengths of time on the ironworks payrolls. This did not include tenant farmers of the Curtins unless they also worked part-time at some facet of ironmaking. The company journal shows that 168 people labored at the forge or the furnace, in the mines, or cutting wood and making charcoal. Not listed were thirteen rolling-mill employees whose names were found in the federal census and on township tax rolls. Only 48 of the 181 workers did not appear in federal census schedules. The census taker missed some, and others moved either into or out of the community after the census was taken. In all, 71 were tenants of the Curtins, living in the workers’ village or other Curtin-owned facilities. Of those in the census, 84 headed the households in which they lived, 41 appear to have been sons in such households, 6 were boarders, and 2 lived in a household made up of five brothers and a sister. The great majority—87 percent—of those in the census were American-born, all in Pennsylvania. The handful of foreign-born included fifteen from Ireland, two from Germany, and one from Scotland. At most, eight of the Irish had been driven to the New World since 1846 by the great potato famine. The others had lived in the United States for at least six years.1 Just as the ironworks was owned and managed by Curtin family members, many of the workers were also interrelated. Sharing the same family names were father-and-son teams, brothers, and cousins. If the premarital family names of wives could be determined, the number of closely related family members would quite possibly double. Ten Bathursts, descendants of the English-born schoolmaster who early in the nineteenth century taught at Antes Mill, made up the largest group. Next were nine members of the Lucas family, apparently kinfolk all of Benedict Lucas, who first settled in the Bald Eagle Valley in 1786. There were six Watkins family members on the payroll; five Prices and Longs; four Bargers, Hunters, and Kulers; and three each of the Bryan, Cose, Johnston, Lizer, Miller, Packer, Peoples, Taylor, Walker, and White families. These eighteen families provided seventy-seven workers or more than 40 percent of the total workforce in 1850.

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Page 89 The Work Year The work year in this still preindustrial era was far less structured, and the workers were freer from regimentation than iron and steelworkers of the post–Civil War era would be. As was common at the time, every day including New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and Christmas were considered workdays at the ironworks. The exception was Sundays, when, as was customary among Central Pennsylvania ironmasters, the Curtins banked their furnaces in observance of the Sabbath.2 Otherwise the goal was to run the furnace twenty-four hours a day, six days a week, all year long, and to run the forge and rolling mill twelve hours a day, six days a week during daylight hours. That schedule, however, was never realized. Flooding came with spring thaws and heavy rains, machines frequently broke down, waterwheels froze, raw materials ran out, and occasional shortages of orders led to shutdowns. When such things happened the Curtins shifted the workers to other tasks, such as repairing roads and buildings, hauling slag, or fixing fences, which allowed them to continue earning wages. When other assignments were not available, the men still worked, even if they did not receive wage credits at the store. There was always something to do: gardens or small farm plots of their own to care for, chores to be done, home repairs to make, shoes to mend, tools to repair, neighbors to help. Also, people could earn money by hiring oneself out by the day as a farm laborer. With standing credit at the store, housing so long as they were Curtin tenants, and the ability to produce much of their own food, Curtin employees were not totally dependent on wages. Not one worker in 1850 was credited with working that year’s full quota of 314 workdays. Totals shown on the books varied from one workday for William Carlow, who served as furnacekeeper for a day, to 304 1/2 days for John Bryan, a driver. James Burns, a carpenter-wagonmaker, worked 301 days. Except that they had twelve-hour rather than eighthour shifts, only 16 others labored more than the 250-day work year typical of modern factory workers (five days a week for fifty weeks). Another 18 worked between 180 and 249 days, 71 put in from 31 to 179 days, and 18 worked one month or less. The remaining 56 were paid for amounts they produced rather than by days of labor, or they were rolling-mill employees for whom records are not available. Among those working relatively few days were men just starting careers at the ironworks, others leaving after years of service, nearby farmers augmenting their incomes with part-time work, youngsters being

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Page 90 introduced to the world of adult work, and transients who labored briefly before moving on. Time book notations recorded a variety of personal reasons for which individuals might not be at work for one or more days—for instance, illness, planting a garden, or harvesting a crop. When family members or friends died, workers attended their funerals. Now and then an absent worker went on a spree, imbibed too freely, or slipped away to gamble at the horse races. The Curtins sometimes gave individual workers days off for such occasions as a circus come to town, an approved political rally or voting, or a religious revival or camp meeting.3 Both the number of full-time workers needed and the number actually hired for the various operations (wood-cutting and farming were not included) varied from month to month (see Table 2). Operations at the ironworks required between 60 and 83 employees working full-time. To get that amount of work done, however, the Curtins had to employ between 70 and 106 men and boys each month. The numbers were lowest in winter, January through March; ran high April through October when charcoal-making was under way; then sank once more in November and December. Affecting the number at any given time, of course, were such other factors as the season, foul weather, the iron market, equipment breakdowns, or availability of raw materials. The number of necessary workers, in turn, was distributed across the various functions of the enterprise. The equivalent of eight to sixteen men worked full-time at coaling from April through November, twelve to nineteen in mining. The actual production of iron required between thirty and thirty-six men: eight to ten ironworkers (stockmen, fillers, keepers, and guttermen) ran the furnace; nine to fourteen operated the forge; and about thirteen the rolling mill. Two blacksmiths and two carpenters served both the ironworks and plantation: the blacksmiths worked chiefly at the furnace and the carpenters one each at the furnace and forge. Carting and hauling required another six to ten full-time drivers and between five and eleven men and boys worked at “sundry” tasks. Most but not all drivers and “sundry workers’’ labored at the furnace and were carried on its time books.4 This workforce was drawn from two groups. The first included 70 or so dependable, experienced, or skilled workers who were essential to the operation. The Curtins provided housing for most of them (50) in the workers’ village or at other properties they owned. Several who wanted or needed more room than was available in one of the village houses, and had

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Page 91 Table 2. Eagle Ironworks labor force, 1850 Month January February March April May June July August September October November December

No. Needed Full-time

Actual No. Employed

61 61 61 78 81 83 83 79 80 78 71 60

70 71 74 100 102 90 106 94 95 85 83 71

SOURCE: Calculated from Journal, 1850, reel 2, C1P. NOTE: The number of full-time workers needed was determined by dividing the total number of days worked by all employees by the total number of workdays in a given month. The actual number hired consisted of all workers employed that month regardless of the number of days worked by each. the means, acquired a bit of property and built a home of their own, but continued to work full-time at the ironworks. Most headed families and were thirty or more years old. Twenty-five labored at least 200 days during the year, providing leadership in all facets of day-wage work from mining and coaling to ironmaking, driving, or sundry work. Nearly all spent most of their time at a single task, although a few occasionally shifted to other jobs as needed during the year. Another 15 were forge hands paid by tons produced rather than by the day. Information on the 13 rollingmill employees is limited. By contrast, the second group consisted of a pool of 110 or so inexperienced and unskilled men and boys. Available to work when and if needed, they performed whatever tasks had to be done. Few were on the payroll as many as 180 days during 1850, most for far less time. At least 27 were young, ranging from twelve to twenty-one years of age. Another 25, ages unknown, were not in the census, suggesting a high percentage of transients. Of those in the census, 30 were sons or boarders rather than heads of households. No more than a dozen of this group engaged in actual ironwork. The majority worked as colliers’ helpers, miners, drivers, or sundry workers

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Page 92 Table 3. Annual income of workers, by category, 1850 Wage $600–699 500–599 400–449 450–499 350–399 300–349 250–299 200–249 150–199 100–149 50–99 1–49 Totals

All Workers

Charcoal

Miners

Crafts

Forge

Furnace

Drivers

Sundry

1 0 3 1 4 8 4 17 19 31 34 46 168

0 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 8 13 20 14 62

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 5 5 6 8 8 33

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 2 3 9

1 0 2 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 2 2 17

0 0 1 0 1 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 9

0 0 0 0 0 1 3 2 1 2 0 3 12

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 6 2 15 26

SOURCE: Calculated from Journal, 1850, reel 2, CIP. Wages In 1850 the wages of workers at the Eagle Ironworks were calculated on one of two bases. The great majority were paid by the day. The remainder, chiefly woodcutters and forge hands, were paid per unit of output: woodcutters by the cord, forge hands by tons of iron bars or blooms produced. The system used for rolling-mill employees is not known. Whether paid by the day or unit of output, rates varied considerably from worker to worker (Table 3). Total wage credits received for the year ranged from a low of $1 to William Carlow for his one day as furnacekeeper, to $648 earned by one William Funk, who seems to have been foreman of the forge workers. Variances in rates depended on a number of factors other than task performed (Table 4). Age, degree of skill, experience, and the perceived value of a worker’s overall contribution were also involved. The lowest rate, 27 cents a day, went to George Bryan (not listed in the census), who for twenty days that year worked at sundry labor. At the other end of the scale was $1.54 a day paid to Lawrence Bathurst Sr., a forty-eight-year-old collier who lived with his family in Curtin-owned housing in Howard Township. A few colliers and furnace workers received between $1.40 and $1.54 a day. Nearly all the coalers (colliers’ helpers) and most craftsmen (blacksmiths and carpenters) earned between a $1.00 and $1.20 a day; the remaining furnace men between 80 cents and $1.09; drivers from 80 to 99 cents, and miners between 70 and 79 cents. Sundry workers had the widest range, from 29

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Page 93 Table 4. Day rates paid, by category of workers, 1850 Day Rate

All

Charcoal

Miners

Crafts

Furnace

Drivers

Sundry

$1.40–1.54 ———— $1.10–1.19 1.00–1.09 0.90–0.99 0.80–0.89 0.70–0.79 0.60–0.69 0.50–0.59 0.40–0.49 0.30–0.39 0.20–0.29 Totals

5 — 7 35 10 21 38 12 8 17 6 2 161

3 — 1 22 3 3 5 4 1 0 0 0 42

0 — 2 0 1 0 24 0 1 5 2 0 35

0 — 4 2 0 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 11

2 — 0 8 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 15

0 — 0 0 2 10 0 1 0 6 0 0 19

0 — 0 3 1 5 7 6 5 6 4 2 39

Source: Calculated from Journal, 1850, reel 2, CIP. cents to $1.09, with the majority near 70 cents. Regardless of job category, almost all workers who received less than 50 cents a day were teenage sons of other employees. Most Curtin employees worked as much for a livelihood as for wages. In spite of their low wage credits, the workers did not seem overly concerned about them. Journal records indicate credit for finished work sometimes posted one month, several months, or even a year or more after it was earned. In 1850 the combined value of wage credits earned by the workforce amounted to $22,338 for the year’s work.5 The men, in fact, received only about a fifth of that in the form of cash. Their debits for goods and provisions amounted to $18,019, or nearly 81 percent of earnings. At most their combined credit balances amounted to $4,319.6 Store accounts ran from one year to the next. Ordinarily workers received cash only at “settlement,” when they were leaving employment. From time to time, however, the company journal did indicate an “order to cash” ranging from a few cents to a few dollars to workers who presumably needed or wanted a little cash for use other than at the company store. An examination of the workforce by category of work yields further insights (Table 5). The categories were woodcutters and coalers (colliers and their helpers), who produced the charcoal; miners, who dug out and processed the ore; the skilled carpenters and blacksmiths, who made and repaired tools and other equipment; furnace, forge, and rolling-mill employees, who smelted iron, converted it to wrought iron, and shaped it for market; drivers, who

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Page 94 Table 5. Miscellaneous information on employees by groups, 1850 Numbers (of persons in census) Employee Grouping Total Number In Census Boggs Twp Total employees Charcoal makers Miners Craftsmen Furnacemen Forgemen Rolling-mill hands Drivers Sundry workers

181 63 32 10 9 16 13 12 26

133 39 26 7 8 12 13 8 20

Total Employees

181

73

63 32 10 9 16 13 12 26

62 81 70 89 75 100 67 77

Charcoal makers Miners Craftsmen Furnacemen Forgemen Rolling-mill hands Drivers Sundry workers

96 20 11 6 7 12 13 8 19

Curtin Tenant

Foreign Born Pa. Born Avg. Age

71 11 5 4 7 14 10 7 16

Percentages (of those in census) 70 30 50 42 86 88 92 100 67 95

18 16 40 78 88 77 58 62

Heads of Family

18 0 13 1 0 1 3 0 0

116 39 13 6 8 11 10 8 20

32 35 32 38 42 38 33 27 22

84 25 16 7 8 11 10 4 3

14

87

NA

63

0 50 14 0 8 23 0 0

100 50 86 100 92 77 100 100

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

64 62 100 100 92 77 50 15

SOURCES: Journal and Time Books, 1850; Federal Manuscript Census Materials, 1850; Township Tax Assessment Books.

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Page 95 transported raw materials and both pig and wrought iron from place to place as required; and sundry workers, who stepped in to do whatever tasks remained to be done. Charcoal Makers Much of the wood-cutting and coaling in 1850 was done in the mountains of Howard Township north and west of the Bald Eagle Creek. This was between five and ten miles from the forge and furnace on mountainous tracts originally purchased from Benjamin Rush four decades earlier. Forty years of almost continuous operation at the forge, twenty years at Eagle Furnace, and then two years at Pleasant Furnace had long since depleted most woodlands nearer at hand.7 Sixty-three men and boys that year were hired to cut wood and make charcoal.8 They, of all Curtin employees, were the least dependent and least subject to direct control. They lived farther away than most other employees, and only thirteen (about a fifth) were tenants of the Curtiiis. Of the total, only forty-one were listed in the census, and nearly half—nineteen— lived in Howard Township, many in the mountains or in the narrow hollows between the mountains. If they reported an occupation to the census taker, they said they were farmers or “colliers.” Many of those not in the census had surnames common in the area since the Revolution. These probably included “ridge runners,” mountain folk who avoided unnecessary contacts with valley dwellers, government agents, and tax collectors. They scratched together livelihoods out of small-scale mixed farming, hunting and fishing, selling animal pelts, making whiskey in illegal stills, and occasionally hiring themselves out to cut wood and make charcoal.9 In all, fifty-five men and boys cut and stacked 10,885 cords of wood during the winter of 1849–50. This included men who later in the season made charcoal, and six regular employees of the ironworks trying to add to their incomes. Lot Eakley, the season’s champion, reported 600 cords. J. Kelley Smith, with 570 cords, was second, while three others cut more than 400 cords each. If any of these had sons or others assisting them it went unrecorded.10 Woodcutters, on average, received 40 cents a cord; their combined incomes for the season totaled $4,338. Between April and November, eighteen of the woodcutters joined fifteen other workers to assist with coaling. Lawrence Bathurst Sr., Bennet Lucas, and Nicholas Foy received between $1.44 and $1.54 a day for their work as colliers. Those assisting them earned from 69 cents to $1.11 a day.

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Page 96 Altogether the colliers and helpers labored 2,462 days, for which they were paid $2,696. The Curtins that year had a total outlay of $7,034 for the labor involved in producing the charcoal they used in making iron.11 Although perhaps unrepresentative of all sixty-three, the forty-one woodcutters and coalers listed in the census tended to be mature, responsible family men rather than transients or single young men. Their average age was thirty-six, and only five were younger than twenty. Twenty-five headed households, thirteen were sons living at home, one lived with his brothers, and two were boarders. Family teams dominated charcoal production more than any other phase of work on the iron plantation. Nine of the Lucas clan, six of the Watkins family, and five Longs worked at both cutting wood and coaling. On the other hand, although Lawrence Bathurst Sr. was the highest-paid collier, his kinfolk all worked at or around the ironworks. The Miners In terms of distance from the ironworks and independence from direct supervision by the Curtins, the circumstances of the thirty-two miners resembled those of the woodcutters and coalers.12 For the most part the miners worked in Spring Township near Bellefonte, some three to five miles from the furnace and forge. At least ten of them resided in Spring Township, the others in nearby portions of Walker or Boggs Townships. An even smaller proportion (16 percent, or five individuals) were tenants of the Curtins. A major difference between the two groups, however, was their origins. To a man the woodcutters and coalers were natives of Pennsylvania, but fully half the miners (eleven Irish and two Germans) were foreign-born. Irish-born Edward Dowling and Pennsylvania-born William Hunter Sr. received the highest daily wages, $1.18 and $1.10 respectively. They probably were foremen. The remainder of the miners over the age of twenty received between 70 and 78 cents a day. Seven teenage boys were paid between 34 and 55 cents a day. Three families provided a third of the total mining crew. They were German-born Joseph Kuler Sr., with teenage sons John, James, and Joseph; German-born Peter Lizer, with sons John, age nineteen, and William, age eighteen; and William Hunter Sr., a native of Pennsylvania, with his thirteen-year-old son William Jr. and a man named Thornton Hunter, whose age and relationship were not recorded. Unlike wood-cutting and coaling, mining operations took place year-round, with nearly as many miners working in winter as in summer. Ten of the core group of miners worked eleven or twelve months of the year,

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Page 97 putting in a total of more than 200 days each. This one-third of the group accounted for more than half the total days spent in the mines in 1850. Also unlike the woodcutters and coalers, twenty-six (more than 80 percent) of the miners appeared in the census. Of those, sixteen were heads of family and eight were sons. Their average age was thirty-two; only drivers and sundry workers had a lower average age. The Craftsmen (Blacksmiths, Carpenters, Stonecutters) The smallest category of worker consisted of seven blacksmiths (plus two sundry workers who did some smithing), two carpenters, and a stone cutter. Except for the stone cutter, the craftsmen usually worked with the furnace and forge crews. Blacksmith Jonathan Foulk worked at the furnace for the first nine months of 1850 before being replaced for the rest of the year by William Jones. Reversing the pattern, Allen Bathurst worked January through March, then was replaced for the next nine months by James F. McGinley. Carpenters James Burns worked all year with the furnace crew, James Taylor at the forge. Jeremiah Glenn, the stonecutter, worked for the Curtins only occasionally, putting in a total of 72.5 days during 1850. Seven of the ten craftsmen appeared in the census. All were heads of family, and all except Glenn (who was Irish and a resident of Howard Township) were Pennsylvania-born and lived in Boggs Township. Five were tenants of the Curtins living in the village adjoining the furnace and forge. The day wage for blacksmiths ranged from 76 cents to $1.15, except for a transient who received 50 cents a day. Burns, the carpenter, received $1.15 a day; Glenn, the stonecutter, 85 cents. Burns earned $346.51 that year. Taylor, paid by the number of tons of iron he crated, earned $227.46. Blacksmiths Foulk and McGinley earned $210.26 and $185.75, and part-time blacksmiths earned between $24.00 and $61.94. Ironworkers (Furnace, Forge and Rolling-mill Hands) Thirty-eight workers were involved in the direct production of iron. Nine were at the furnace (two stockers, two fillers, three keepers, and two gutter-men), sixteen were at the forge, and thirteen were at the rolling mill (ten rollers and three puddlers). Working at least part of their time with the furnace crew were the seven blacksmiths, one carpenter (the other carpenter worked at the forge), eleven drivers, and fifteen sundry workers. Bathursts were involved in all steps of ironmaking: as noted earlier, Lawrence Sr. cut

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Page 98 wood and was a collier; James R. alternately worked as a filler, a coal flatter, and a stocker at the forge; Lawrence J. was a keeper; and Samuel was a gutter-man. Allen was a blacksmith, while James H. and Lawrence H. were sundry workers, as were Thomas and William, who also “ran pig iron’’ at the furnace. Archibald, brother-in-law of Austin Curtin, was a forge hand. As might be expected, the ironworkers were the most mature and best paid (except for a few colliers) of all Curtin employees. With an average age of thirty-seven twenty-nine of them (88 percent) were heads of family. By far the highest proportion were listed in the census (87 percent) and lived in Curtin-provided housing (82 percent), nearly all of which was in Curtin Village or near the rolling mill. Some 94 percent of them resided in Boggs Township.13 All but one of the furnace and forge hands were natives of Pennsylvania. The exception was Irish-born Robert McKain, who worked at the forge. On the other hand, three of thirteen rolling-mill hands were foreign-born: Patrick Daugherty and Michael Delany, who were Irish, and James Williams, a Scottish puddler. Of the ironworkers, the furnace men were paid by the day. George McCulloch, who stocked ore, received $1.52 a day for 261 days. Adam Walker, who was also a furnace stocker, received 90 cents a day for 125 days during the first six months of the year. The fillers at the furnace received between 96 cents and $1 a day. George Fulton worked a total of 261 days in the course of twelve months. James R. Bathurst worked 125 days in six months. Working in his stead for the next six months were three temporary workers. Lawrence J. Bathurst and John Price Sr. worked as furnacekeepers, putting in more than 270 days each over the twelve-month span. Samuel Bathurst and William Miller shared the duty of gutterman through the year, assisted by four men (three of whom were Bathursts) who “ran pig” during the second half of the year. Four men divided up the work of stocking the forge, none working more than five months. Seven worked at forging the full twelve months: William Funk, Archibald and William Bathurst, Charles Grassmyer, David Holabaugh, George Peoples, and William White. Eight others worked between one and eight months. Forge hands usually worked as two-man teams and were paid by tons produced. The output per month and the rates per man varied, possibly depending on the condition of the iron or how it was to be shaped. Most frequently the rates were $3 or $4 a ton. In January, for example, the team of William Funk and Charles Grassmyer put out 6 1/2 tons of iron. Funk received $26 ($4 a ton), Grassmyer received $19.50 ($3 a ton).

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Ironworkers with tools at Curtin Village, ca. 1915.

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Page 100 Drivers Twelve regulars did most of the driving of horses and mules, assisted by eight part-time workers shifted from “sundry” and other work categories. For bookkeeping purposes, all drivers were carried in the furnace time book. Unfortunately, the entries did not indicate what particular tasks the various drivers performed. It is safe to assume, however, that not all driving was equally demanding and that assignments were made on the basis of skill, experience, reliability, and perhaps age and employee preference. The work of drivers included grooming and caring for the sixty or so horses and mules, hitching them to carts or wagons as needed, and hauling whatever had to be transported from one part of the ironworks to another or to and from neighboring farms, businesses, or communities. Whenever the furnace was in operation, one or two drivers with teams provided the power for hoisting and lifting heavy materials by crane. And of course the drivers hauled ore and charcoal to the furnace, slag to the slag heap, and pig iron to the forge and rolling mill for further processing. Occasionally a few of the older, more reliable drivers would be assigned to hauling bar iron to markets as far away as Pittsburgh. Of the dozen drivers, eight (67 percent) appeared in the census. These eight all lived in Boggs Township. Seven were tenants of the Curtins, six living in the plantation village near the furnace and forge. Half were sons of other employees and ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-three. The others were heads of family between twenty-six and forty-six years old. All were native Pennsylvanians. Of the regular drivers, thirty-six-year-old John Bryan was paid the highest rate, 98 cents a day. Samuel Myers, age unknown, was paid 91 cents. The remaining adult drivers, both regulars and temporaries, earned between 82 and 86 cents a day. Drivers age nineteen and younger, and being sons rather than heads of family, were paid 46 cents a day, except for eighteen-year-old John Barger, who was paid 85 cents. Barger was the employee who put in the most workdays (304.5, all driving) at the ironworks in 1850. Samuel Myers, too, devoted all his time, 292 days, to driving. Although five other drivers labored in excess of 200 days, at least a part of their time was spent at other tasks. Sundry Workers “Sundry workers,” as the tide implies, had no fixed jobs but were shifted from one task to another as needed. Although indispensable to the operation of

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Drivers and sundry workers outside the Pleasant Furnace casting house, ca. 1912. the iron plantation, they were the lowest-ranked and lowest-paid category of worker. Whenever a task called for muscle power, an extra pair of hands, or a mess to be cleaned up, men from this group of twenty-six were assigned to do it. From time to time, fifteen workers from other categories were shifted temporarily to the sundry category. Among other things, sundry workers provided the extra labor at critical moments, such as tapping the furnace. They were on hand to assist skilled and semi-skilled workers by lifting or heaving, fetching or carrying. They had to be flexible, because they were shifted frequently. William Barger, for example, after four months of sundry tasks, shifted to driving for three months, then forging for one month, and finally to blacksmithing for one month. James H. Bathurst worked one month each at sundry labor, carpentry, and coal-flatting, and two months at farm labor. At least for the younger men in this group the category was not permanent or dead-end. It was a sort of apprenticeship in which they learned what they were capable of and liked doing even as the Curtins evaluated their potential for advancement to more permanent, better-paying jobs.

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Page 102 Three-quarters of the group (twenty) were listed in the census, 94 percent (seventeen) of those lived in Boggs Township, fourteen were tenants of the Curtins, and eleven lived in Curtin Village. Their category had the lowest average age, twenty-two, half of whom ranged from twelve to nineteen years old and four of whom were in their twenties; the ages of six were not known, and the oldest, Adam Grassmyer, was sixty-eight years old. Only three were heads of family: Grassmyer, Joseph Smith Sr., and twenty-nine-year-old Jacob Shultz, who was at the start of a long career with the Curtins. The wages of sundry workers corresponded to age and experience. For example, most of the fifteen temporarily assigned to the group were paid close to their regular wages, ranging from 80 cents to $1 a day. With few exceptions they were between the ages of thirty and fifty and headed families. By contrast, the regular sundry workers were paid between 27 and 70 cents a day. Adam Grassmyer, paid at the rate of 71 cents, earned $143.11 for 201 days of work during the year. Only nineteen-year-old Thomas Bathurst earned more than $100 for sundry work during the first half of the year. In September he shifted to running pig iron at the furnace for the remainder of 1850. But what of the homes and family lives of these working people? For that, what has since come to be called historic Curtin Village and its inhabitants must be examined.

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Page 103 9 Curtin Village and Its Families Curtin Village The area known today as Curtin Village was just emerging in 1850 as the center of family life for most of the key employees of the ironworks. Its origins dated from the house, the log gristmill, and the outbuildings erected by Philip Antes on the site before Roland Curtin acquired the property. Then, when Eagle Forge came into being, additional houses were built nearby for forge hands and their families. Finally, with the construction of Pleasant Furnace in 1848, fifteen or so new houses gave the village its final form. The heart of the community was a tract of low ground bordered by Bald Eagle Creek on the west and Antes Run, the millpond, and raceways for the gristmill and blast house to the north. A road surfaced with crushed slag that gave it a turquoise-blue tint crossed over the Run directly opposite the furnace. There it circled, forming a village green before recrossing the bridge. The new houses after 1848, combined with existing housing, were erected on either side of the road and formed a ring. Completing the village were ten to twelve other houses scattered over the area north of the Run near the furnace and the forge.

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Page 104 The Houses The houses, whether older log-and-plaster cabins or newer wood-frame buildings, were usually two stories high. Most had sheet-metal roofs and a chimney near the center. Usually there were four rooms, two on each floor. A coat of whitewash applied to the buildings every spring kept the village fresh in appearance. Each house had its own garden plot and pens for chickens and pigs. A well on either side of the village supplied the residents with water. One woman who grew up there recalled: “It was like a park, with well kept lawns and gardens, the houses in good condition, and everything neat.”1 The earliest homes had fireplaces for heating. For cooking, there were kettles that hung from cranes in the fireplace and Dutch kettles (a kind of fireplace oven) cast at the furnace. By 1850 the newer houses no longer had fireplaces. Instead, a single cast-iron stove served most cooking and heating needs. Fat lamps and occasionally candles, which were more expensive, provided lighting until replaced by kerosene lamps soon after the Civil War. Given the proximity of barns, pigpens, ponds, and swamps, residents in summer were besieged by fleas, flies, bedbugs, and mosquitoes. Sealing the walls with butcher paper against bedbugs, and tacking cheesecloth over windows to screen out flies and mosquitoes, offered only modest relief. The Households and the People in Them Twenty-eight households made up the village in 1850, according to the federal manuscript census. Together they supplied thirty-nine of the men and boys on the payroll that year. Eight were forge hands, four worked at the furnace, three each were blacksmiths and carpenters, seven were drivers, one cut wood, one made charcoal, and a dozen—mostly teenagers—worked at sundry tasks. Twenty-three village dwellers were Bathursts, living in five separate households. Two heads of Bathurst households no longer worked for the Curtins: fifty-nine-year-old Jane, widow of former employee Thomas Bathurst, and Henry, Thomas’s sixty-six-year-old brother. They continued living in Curtin housing because each had a son in the workforce. Henry also provided a home for David Hoovan, who worked in the mines. Furnace-keeper Lawrence (with a wife and four children) and the furnace filler and stocker, James R. (a thirty-nine-year-old widower with three children) also had separate households. Forge worker Archibald, his wife, and their one-year-old child, lived in the household of his brother-in-law, forge master Austin Curtin.

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Page 105 The total population of the village was 199 persons: 69 adults aged 21 or more, 39 between the ages of thirteen and twenty, and 91 infants and youngsters. Males outnumbered females 106 to 93. Reflecting the shorter life expectancy of that era, only three villagers were older than age sixty. Sarah Welch, the seventy-two-year-old mother-in-law of forge hand Samuel Saxton, was oldest. Three infants were born in the village during the census year: Esther Bathurst, William Gingher, and Joseph Smith. The village also boasted four sets of twins among its children. The largest single household was that of John Price, a furnacekeeper. He and his wife Rachael, respectively age fortysix and forty-two, had nine children ranging from nineteen to two years old. The four older sons all worked as sundry laborers. Robert McKain and George Peoples each had eight children, and four other households had seven children. At the other extreme, apparent newlyweds Zebulon and Martha White, age twenty-six and twenty-two, though childless, occupied a house. Women’s Work and the Tools They Worked With No time book or other record kept track of the work done by the women and older girls of the village. Their contributions, which revolved around cooking, sewing, cleaning, tending the gardens, and preserving food, was largely taken for granted. Equipment available to help them in the performance of their duties was scarce and often beyond their means. Kitchens rarely had more than a cookstove, a few pots, pans, and dishes and table service, and a worktable that as often as not did double duty as the family dining table. Keeping foodstuffs cool in summer was all but impossible. There were no refrigerators, iceboxes, cool cellars (the ground was too low for basements), and no springhouses or milksheds. Sometimes families dug holes in the ground, lined them with stones, and covered them with boards for the purpose but generally these worked poorly. Similarly, there was no running water—water had to be carried by pail from the well. If a task called for warm or hot water, it had to be heated in a pan on the stove; for laundry, a large kettle hung from a tripod over an open-air fire was used. Laundering was further complicated by a lack of washing devices other than a washboard and a kettle for boiling water. Soap generally was homemade of fat, lye, and ashes. Ironing was done with “sad irons” heated on the stove. A crude broom was the chief tool for housecleaning. Sewing machines for home use became available after the Civil War, but few Curtin Village residents could afford them before the twentieth century, if then.

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Page 106 Washing and bathing facilities were primitive: a basin for washing, a laundry tub, and kettle of hot water on Saturday nights for bathing. With no washbasins, shower stalls, bathtubs or toilet stools to clean, it was only occasionally necessary to sweep the small outdoor ‘‘privy” or outhouse. When, after a long interval, the waste hole beneath the privy filled, it either had to be emptied or the outhouse relocated over a new hole. But that was men’s work. What the Villagers Ate The diet of Curtin Villagers was simple and repetitive, running heavily to home-baked bread, soups and stews, items made of ground grain, inexpensive meats, and vegetables grown in the family garden. Fish and wild game (chiefly rabbit, squirrel, and venison, but occasionally bear meat, possum, and groundhog) and wild berries gathered in season added variety. Most families also raised chickens for meat and eggs, and a pig to butcher and process in autumn into hams, bacon, sausage, and scrapple. Breakfast often consisted of fried cornmeal mush or buckwheat cakes and sausage spread with molasses, apple butter, or pan drippings. The noon meal, “dinner,” was light: sometimes mush simmered and served with milk or butter, or soup made of diced stale bread, slivers of onion, hot water, and a little butter. “Pap” (hot milk thickened with flour and sweetened with sugar) was popular because it was quickly and easily made. The chief meal of the day was “supper” in the evening, which commonly included stewing beef or ham bone cooked all day, to which such vegetables as diced potatoes, beans, turnips, or cabbage might be added. Baked beans cooked with slab bacon, dark molasses, and dried mustard was another favorite. Coffee was the preferred beverage at mealtime, especially given the high price of tea. There were seasonal differences. Because it was nearly impossible to keep meat from spoiling in summer, fried potatoes, baked bread, stewed vegetables, and berry dishes were substituted. In winter, when fresh vegetables and fruit were not available, stores of potatoes, onions, turnips, and other root vegetables were used, part of the summer’s cabbage output was made into sauerkraut, and apples were sliced and dried.2 Childhood, Work, and School As cramped as their homes were, most families heated and lived in only one downstairs room in winter. The other was saved for company, holidays, weddings, and funerals. “When your mother couldn’t stand you anymore,”

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Page 107 recalled a former resident, “she threw you out.” Children “had to get used to the outside.”3 Children in the village entered the world of work early. A sprinkling of boys as young as twelve to fifteen years old appeared on the payroll, usually during the summer for short stints. Even younger children, however, helped with chores, housework, and gardening. Fortunately, the villagers also concerned themselves with their youngsters’ education. At first, school was held six days a week, three months a year, with students being charged $2. By the twentieth century, the school year extended from September until April. The teacher’s salary was paid with money collected at the company store. At mid-century, from fifteen to seventeen village residents paid a combined $50 and $60 toward the teacher’s salary. John Curtin also paid $4 in 1849 and $6 one year later for his children. The teachers for those years were members of the Bathurst family, J. S. Bathurst in 1849, Reuben Bathurst in 1850.4 Eighty-five percent of Curtin Village’s 82 children aged five through seventeen attended school, according to the 1850 census, but there is no record of the number of days they attended or what they studied. The attendance percentage, however, was considerably higher than the 65 percent of 164 children of other Curtin employees living outside the village who attended other schools. The reason for the difference is not known. Perhaps it was the convenient location of the village school, or the lingering influence of the area’s original schoolmaster—the patriarch of the Bathurst family—or perhaps the Curtins encouraged education. School provided only part of the education of village children. Much lore about work and life was passed directly from one generation to the next. Frank S. Sharp wrote of Will Allen, who operated the gristmill early in the twentieth century: he taught me many things a boy, and a man, should know…. Grandpa Allen knew where the wild strawberries grew, where to find raspberries, black berries, blue berries. He taught me how to make box traps to catch rabbits…; how to set out lines to catch eels for breakfast, to make whistles with willow bark; to make water squirt guns from elderberry wood; to set steel traps for rats at the grist mill, where to find the best worms and black crickets for fishing.5 Certainly not every parent or grandparent in the village was as effective a teacher as Will Allen, but it is probable that others similarly contributed to the informal instruction of the young.

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Page 108 Village Medicine Working families at the time were rarely immunized against disease, and visits by doctors were too expensive except for the most serious illness or injury. Villagers depended on home remedies. Common colds were treated with a tablespoonful of whiskey in elderberry blossom tea, or by smearing turpentine and lard on the chest. Some substituted kerosene for turpentine or tied strong-smelling, “acifidity bags” of herbs around their throats. Whatever these may have done for the patient, they slowed the spread of the disease. “People wouldn’t even come near you,” one villager recalled.6 Other folk remedies included such common standbys as Epsom salts, castor oil, and mustard plasters. As a tonic, a mixture of sulfur and molasses was administered in the spring. Onion tea (the juice of a sliced onion sprinkled with sugar and heated in the oven) was used to cut phlegm in the throat. Inflammation was treated with “antiphlogistine’’ poultices made of spices mixed with lard that made you “smell like a cookie.” Small burns were smeared with apple butter or a paste of baking soda, more serious ones with linseed oil. The store offered paregoric for upset stomachs and “oil of gladness,” an oily patent medicine administered a few drops at a time, to relieve sore throats.7 The Railroad Station and the Emporium The Bald Eagle Valley Railroad at last brought the ironworks and Curtin Village their first rail connection to the outside world in 1864. Earlier fitful starts by a forerunner, the Lock Haven & Tyrone Railroad in 1853 and 1857, failed for lack of funding. Although the first cars from Tyrone reached Bellefonte on January 2, 1863, not until midJune of the next year was the line completed to Curtin Village. The first excursion train to the village of Howard, the nearest community to the northeast, ran on June 15, and regular passenger service began on August 15. When completed later in the year, the line was promptly leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad.8 The new connection produced a siding for loading and unloading at the ironworks, and a railroad station for passengers to and from the community. It also led the Curtins to construct a new store, the Eagle Emporium, nearby. The stationhouse and store, both equipped with wood-burning stoves, quickly became favorite haunts of village dwellers, particularly the young. They would gather at the station to catch glimpses of people from outside and perhaps dream of travel or even futures away from the village of

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Page 109

“Eagle Emporium” (the company store) at Curtin Village, ca. 1895. their childhood. Oldsters gathered around the potbellied woodstove and swapped stories of former times or of hunting and fishing adventures. Most adults saw the railroad as offering the possibility of a better life. To the Curtins it held promise of new markets for their iron. The new two-story Eagle Emporium was located near the railroad station. The larger of its two rooms, 24 by 64 feet, was open to the public. The smaller room, 12 by 64 feet, was for storage. People gathered at the store, especially in winter to warm up. There one could step in from the cold, sit in one of the commodore chairs that ringed its centrally located stove, and enjoy the company of neighbors. Nearby was a handy box of ashes for tobacco chewers who needed a place to spit. Just inside the front door to the right was the Roland, Pennsylvania, Post Office, where letters were sent and received.9 Farther back, dry goods were on display. To the left were shelves of canned goods and groceries. On the countertop stood a large round of cheese with a knife handy so customers could slice off a piece if they chose; crackers were free for those buying cheese. Syrup, kerosene, and other liquids were dipped, and pickles in brine were fished, from large kegs or barrels into

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Page 110 whatever containers the customers brought with them. Crackers, sugar, and other solids were similarly measured out of barrels, cartons, or large boxes.10 Entertainment and Recreation Entertainment and recreation at the village were affected by a lack of money. Because villagers could afford few pleasures, they had to make them from what was at hand. Among their early toys were whistles and other objects whittled from wood, or dolls made by hand from cornhusks or bits of wood and rags. One woman testified that as a child she and her playmates had pretended sand was sugar and that small stones were beans when they played at cooking. Both at school and on the village green, children devised various running and hiding games. After the Civil War, boys began playing an informal sort of baseball. At school there were spelling bees and other contests; at church there were Bible verses to learn and recite. In the heat of summer there was swimming: at Dowdy’s Hole downstream from the forge or at a deep spot in Antes Run near the trestle where the railroad passed over. For adults, recreation was related to the work they did: quilting bees, cornhusking parties, butchering, and applebutter making. Social events included church picnics and festivals, box socials, cake walks, community picnics, Fourth of July celebrations, and, on occasion, attending a circus. After the Civil War there were veterans reunions for men who had been in uniform. In 1881 some of the workers formed a cornet band that provided music at many community affairs. Its twice-weekly practice sessions gave members nights out and provided entertainment for villagers. The Curtins built a bandstand, and the group acquired a bandwagon that transported them to performances as far away as Bellefonte.11 Memories As the number of children born in Curtin Village over the years shows, there was a steady outflow of young people. After 1850 the Eagle Ironworks was no longer expanding; charcoal iron was giving way to iron made elsewhere with mineral fuels, or to steel. Sons and daughters of Curtin Village found their ways to other communities. Many remained in iron production, moving to other firms in the area, as long as they existed, or to McKeesport, McKees Rocks, Pittsburgh, and other iron and steel communities in southwestern Pennsylvania. A few found work with the railroad, and after 1900

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Page 111 with the highway department. Others moved to Williamsport, a lumber center. Still others packed up and headed to farms or other livelihoods “in the West.” Mary Frances Ward’s booklet on Curtin Village recounts four “especially vivid memories” that people who grew up in the village carried with them. These were the blue road, the glow of the night sky when the furnace was tapped, the gentle lapping of water over the gristmill race, and (after 1864) the whistle and lights of the 8:10 evening train signaling time for children to return home for bed. There probably were other strong memories as well, less shaped by the rosy glow of nostalgia: the roar of the furnace as it went into blast, the day-long thudding of forge hammers, the steady creak of waterwheels at the nearby gristmill, blast house, and forge, the long hours of hard work. Strong smells were also recalled: the earthy scent of manure from the nearby barn that stabled sixty or so horses and mules, and the acrid smells of the smelting furnace and the charcoal burns. And for women who struggled to keep their homes, furnishings, and families clean, there were the bugs and the ever-present charcoal dust that left grit and a smutty film on every surface and accumulated in every crevice and crack.12 For most, the memories were probably both bitter and sweet. Representative Families In the course of 100 years, several thousand individuals worked at the Eagle Ironworks, some briefly, some for decades. Similarly, over that span several hundred worker families resided in Curtin Village. Just to compile a simple list of those employees, or even a shorter list of the families who lived in the village, would require many hours of searching through the voluminous records of the ironworks. Further searches would be needed for clues to the jobs they performed and when. A century of census records and tax assessment books would have to be consulted to reconstruct the families who lived in the village. Instead, a few families from the village who devoted years of service to the Eagle Ironworks have been selected to represent the whole. The Bargers The Bargers were a German family who, before coming to Centre County, lived between Harrisburg and Carlisle in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

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Page 112 George, born in 1792, worked as a forge man preceding the War of 1812. He fell in love with Nancy Tate, whose parents for some reason did not approve of him, so after the war the couple eloped. When her family continued to reject George, the newlyweds moved to Bellefonte in Centre County. There the Valentine brothers had taken over the Logan Ironworks and were hiring experienced workers. The move overland by wagon took the Bargers, who by then had a babe in arms, three weeks. In 1820 Roland Curtin induced Barger to shift from the Valentine works to Eagle Forge. A few years later the Bargers moved to Mill Hall, but they returned to Curtin permanently in 1832. After twenty years, George, who worked chiefly as a forge hand, died, leaving his widow and a family of seven grown children. In time, all five of the sons (Samuel, William, John, and the twins, Constance and James) worked for the Curtins, but not as furnace or forge hands. For the most part they were drivers, did sundry tasks, or cut wood. All served in the Civil War, except Samuel, who signed up for the draft but was not called. Their mother, Nancy, made her home with son Samuel until her death at the age of 107.13 Samuel, a bachelor all his life, never smoked or played cards. Asked if he drank, he claimed never to have tasted rum but added, “I ain’t got no objection to whiskey and beer.” He was struck by a train and killed as he walked the tracks near his home in 1900.14 Of the five Barger sons, only the twins, Constance and James, married and produced a third generation of workers for the Eagle Ironworks. Three of them, James W, John H., and William, were on the final company payrolls between 1920 and 1922. The Bathursts The Bathursts were another of the earlier and more persistent working families at the Eagle Ironworks.15 They were of English origin and tided ancestry. Lawrence, a forty-year-old veteran of the Revolutionary War from the Philadelphia area, was the first of the family to settle in the Bald Eagle Valley. He came from the Philadelphia area with his wife Rebecca and four children in 1786–87, a full decade ahead of Roland Curtin. Pushing their possessions by flatboat up the Susquehanna and the Bald Eagle, they joined forces with a company of settlers that included Philip Antes. In what later became Boggs and Howard Townships in Centre County, the group selected sites, acquired land, bought or built homes, and began pursuing their fortunes. Like the Antes, the Bathursts were very active Methodists.

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Page 113 Within a year of his arrival, Lawrence apparently won the release of his father, also named Lawrence, from debtors’ prison in Philadelphia. The father was the eldest son of the fifth baronet of Lechlade. Kidnapped in England and brought to Philadelphia, he was sold into indentured servitude. Upon completion of his term of service, he became a tutor. In the Bald Eagle Valley, he taught briefly at the Antes Mill School before returning to England, where he died.16 By 1803 Lawrence and Rebecca had added eight more children to their family and within the next two to three decades their sons fathered numerous other Bathursts. Like the Curtins, they named most of their children after their brothers and sisters, creating name tangles that were perplexing both then and later for anyone trying to sort them all out. In 1820–21 two Bathursts, Thomas and Lawrence, appeared in the time books of Eagle Forge. Thomas was a son of the first settler, and Lawrence was a grandson. Thereafter, every decade through 1920 Bathursts were listed both as tenants and as employees of the Curtins (Table 6). Although through the decades Bathursts worked at all types of jobs at the Eagle Ironworks, the majority of them labored at the furnace or the forge. Apparently they passed skills from one family member to another across several generations, making them valuable to the Curtins, ensuring that they would have housing in the village if they wanted it, and bringing them larger incomes than many of the other working families enjoyed. Their most important tie to the Curtins came in 1846, when Rebecca, a granddaughter of the first Lawrence Bathurst in the area, married Roland Curtin’s eldest son, Austin. Other descendants—Jesse, Malcolm, Laird, and Ross Bathurst—were on the employee lists of 1921 and 1922. The Bryans Although shown in the census as natives of Pennsylvania, exactly where the Bryans came from and when they settled in Boggs Township is not known.17By 1850, however, they appeared both in the Eagle Ironworks time books and in the federal census schedules for Boggs Township. The first Bryans in the village were John (1815–90), his wife Jane, and their six sons and five daughters. A devoutly religious man, John every morning prayed on his knees after readying his six-mule team for the day’s work. His usual job was hauling wagonloads of charcoal down from the mountain pits where it was produced to the furnace. He “never used line’’ on his mules, but directed them entirely by the spoken word.

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Page 114 Table 6. Bathursts as tenants and employees,836–1920 Date

Tenant Households

Employees

1836 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1889 1900 1910 1920

NA NA 4 3 5 6 6 3 5 2

4 2 8 1 6 10 NA 4 5 4

SOURCES: Township Assessment Books and Time Books. In the years that followed, his eldest son, Samuel, started driving for the Curtins at the age of fourteen. By the time he enlisted in the Civil War his experience at the ironworks won him duty as an army teamster during his full enlistment.18 Before and after the war, he and his brothers—John Jr., Roland C., and James—all worked at the ironworks, for the most part hauling ore through the Curtin Narrows. In their turn, four of John’s grandsons—Elber, Samuel, Irvin and Orl— appeared in subsequent time books working at first beside their fathers, then alone, through 1920. Meanwhile, the second and third generations had intermarried with other Eagle Ironworks families, such as the Leathers, the Bargers, and the Saylors. The Ginghers The Genger family (“Genger” was the original spelling of the family name) came from Germany.19 Sometime early in the nineteenth century, John (1785–1858) migrated to Pennsylvania with his parents and two sisters. There he married Susan Garret. Daniel, the first of their eleven children, was born in 1808. During the War of 1812, while residing in Bern Township, Berks County, John enlisted in the Pennsylvania militia, serving from September to December 1814. After the war the family moved to Union County, where the children came of age. Tragedy induced the Ginghers to settle in the Bald Eagle Valley, where they became Curtin employees. Apparently in the late 1840s, they had decided to move west. Stopping temporarily in Centre County, the youngest daughter, Polly, fell in love with a Bellefonte boy. When they

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Page 115

The Gingher sisters of Curtin Village, ca. 1918. Standing (left to right):Haley (married Eagle Ironworks laborer Jim Barger); Minerva (married the last of the village millers, Will Alien); Emily (married the last boss of Pleasant Furnace, Ebs Shultz); and Sue (married a local lumber dealer). Seated: Aunt Melly Gingher. resumed their westward move, the young man followed, pleading that Polly be allowed to remain with him. Permission was granted, and Polly lived in the home of an uncle in Bellefonte while plans were made for the couple’s wedding. One day, while the lovers were making apple butter at an open fire, Polly’s clothing caught fire, severely burning her. She died the next day. When word reached her family, all but the two older sons returned to the area. Beginning in the 1850s, three of the older sons of John Genger appeared on the payrolls of the Eagle Ironworks. Isaac worked as a driver, and John and Adam had stints as furnace hands, woodcutters, and coalers. Each had several children who soon intermarried with other Curtin employees, the Shopes, Shultz, Barger, Sharp, and Breon families, among others. Minerva Gingher’s second husband was Will Alien, the longtime miller at Curtin. By 1880 two third-generation Ginghers joined John and Adam at the ironworks. Ginghers were among the few workers recalled when the Eagle Ironworks reopened in 1900 after a decade-long suspension. Ginghers were working for the Curtins at least into the World War I years.

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Page 116 The Lucas Family By dint of sheer numbers living in the Bald Eagle Valley, the descendants of Benedict Lucas, patriarch of the clan, were bound to became entangled with the Curtins.20 A private in the Revolution, Benedict Lucas settled in Cumberland County sometime before 1779. Seven years later he, his wife Mary, and numerous children moved to what was to become Howard Township in Centre County. There he soon became the third largest landowner, owning 400 acres, a horse, and two cows by 1790. According to Lucas family tradition, some members of the family lived in the mountains, where they ran illicit stills, producing whiskey that competed with spirits sold by Roland Curtin while he was still a merchant. It was from two of Benedict’s sons (married to daughters of Thomas Askey) that Curtin bought up part of the Askey estate in 1809. The next year he bought a 212-acre farm from Benedict Lucas and his wife for more than $1,000, as well as his first tract of mountain timberland from their grandson Benjamin. Various members of the Lucas family were on time books of the Eagle Ironworks at least as early as 1836, when Charley Lucas appeared. In 1840 Nick and Joseph were listed, and a decade later Bennet, Daniel, Henry, Jesse, and Joseph were cutting wood and coaling for the Eagle Ironworks. A total of thirty-nine members of the Lucas family served in the Union cause during the Civil War, six giving their lives and eight others being seriously wounded. Lucas family members continued working at the Eagle Ironworks well after the Civil War. Some four decades after the works closed, Mervin Lucas was active in founding and serving as a leader of the Roland Curtin Foundation for the Preservation of Eagle Furnace. The Shultz Family Jacob Shultz was thirty-six years old in December 1847, when first he worked for the Curtins.21 He, his wife, and five children at the time resided in Howard Township. Although natives of Pennsylvania, when they first moved into Centre County and from where is not known. His first stint lasted until April 1848, followed by another stint from October to mid-April 1849, at which time his name disappears from the records until August 1850, when he earned $2.81 for three-and-a-quarter days of mowing hay. Two months later he received $17.60 for twenty-three days of flatting coal, and in December he earned another $12.16 for sixteen days of sundry

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Page 117 labor. Apparently he impressed the Curtins, for by the end of December 1850 the company store had allowed him to charge $126 worth of provisions against only $33 in wage credits. On April 1,1856, “Jacob Shultz commenced blowing furnace,” read the time book. About then he also moved his family to a house in Curtin Village to work fulltime. The Civil War apparently stirred Jacob’s sense of patriotism. According to the time book for September 22,1861, when Captain John Curtin left with recruits, “Shultz went to Harrisburg with Company.” A week later, because he was married, he was sent home. The following September, although by then forty-two years old and the father of eight children, he enlisted, as his twenty-three-year-old son William had done a month earlier, in the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Jacob served in Company B for eleven months before being discharged on a surgeon’s certificate, returning to the furnace to work from November 1863 on. William remained in Company H until the end of the war. Jacob soon became head furnace man, a position he held for the next thirty years. At least four of his children married into families of other Curtin employees: the Knisely, Dukeman, Lyons, and Gingher families. Three of Jacobs sons—William H., Henry S. (‘‘Hen”), and Daniel E. (“Ebs”)— joined their father as employees at the ironworks. Ebs succeeded his father as head furnace man, his brother Hen became chief forge man, and both continued on the payroll until the firm closed down in 1922. Among their sons, Charles, Frank, James, and Harry all worked for the Curtins, and Frank, working with Gilbert Aikey, “took the last blast out of the furnace at Curtin.”22 Daniel’s children, following the example of their father’s generation, married into the Bowmaster, Lucas, Shay, and Stanley families, all of whom were Eagle Ironworks employees. In the next generation, Joseph Shultz served as a volunteer worker and vice-president of the Roland Curtin Foundation.

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Page 119 10 The Second and Third Generations Upon the death of Roland Curtin Sr. the long apprenticeships of his sons ended; they were at last in full charge of the ironworks. Eventually leadership would settle on the youngest son, Constans, who proved to be an able ironmaster. With the distraction of Martha Furnace removed and the new Pleasant Furnace ready to go, the second generation of Curtins revived the enterprise. Civil War inflation and an advance in earnings enabled them to lift the mortgage of 1835 and pay off the mountain of inherited debt. The ironworks’prospects brightened at least temporarily when the railroad passed by the property, giving easier access to wider markets. By 1873 the second generation began to pass an intact, debt-free, and profitable (albeit stagnant) business on to their successors. With the era of charcoal iron fast drawing to its close, the third generation fared less well. Even as they were taking charge, one of the worst depressions in the nation’s history broke over them. Markets for iron and the prices it brought plummeted. Earning too little both to support their families and to pay off their fathers, Uncle Constans and other heirs, debts again mounted. One of John Curtin’s sons, Henry Roland, better known as “Harry,” became ironmaster. The condition of the firm did not much improve even when the general depression ended. With the onset of another downturn in the economy in the mid-1880s, the ironworks would be forced to suspend operations.

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Page 120 The New Furnace Roland Curtin’s six sons took over management of the enterprise upon signing the Articles of Agreement with their father in July 1848 and proceeded with construction of the new furnace that had begun a month earlier. Pleasant Furnace was sited conveniently close to Eagle Forge, the “forge house” (Curtin Mansion), the village, and the gristmill. The rolling mill stood a mile and a half to the South. Masons worked on the new stack from April to June, finishing on the fifteenth. In August it was “filled and fired” and went into blast for the first time at 10 o’clock on August 30.1 The last furnace built by the Curtins, it would smelt iron ore until its wooden superstructure burned in 1921. The new furnace was a modest affair, representing no technological gain whatsoever. It stood 30 feet high, with an 8foot bosh and an annual capacity of 1,100 tons. Of the county’s seven operating iron furnaces in 1849, only “Rock” (built a generation earlier) was smaller. Even Martha Furnace, erected by the Curtins fifteen years before, had a 32foot stack and a capacity of 1,180 tons. The new furnace had two tuyeres, but as far as can be determined only one was ever used. Elsewhere, steam engines were becoming common at ironworks, and new furnaces were equipped with machinery for producing strong, hot air blasts for increased efficiency. The Curtins, however, once again installed an overshot wooden waterwheel that produced a low-pressure cold blast.2 "By 1850,” wrote Paul Paskoff, a historian of the early iron industry in Pennsylvania, ‘‘virtually no one with capital and a desire to make money by producing pig iron was so foolish as to try it by building a charcoal furnace.”3 The Curtins beat that deadline by only a year or two. How they came so near to making “fools” of themselves grew out of their circumstances. Almost all the family’s capital was tied up in the existing iron plantation, which lacked only a furnace. They already owned an operating forge and rolling mill, had plenty of forestland for making charcoal (although at ever greater distances from their new furnace), and all the ore banks, farmland, workers, housing, and livestock they needed. Ironmaking was the only field in which they had training or experience. And so they built an old-style, cold-blast charcoal furnace, no doubt hoping conditions in the industry would somehow change in their favor. Their lack of cash largely dictated the kind of furnace they built and limited any experimenting with costly new features. Apparently so far as

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Page 121

Sketch of Pleasant Furnace (1848–1921) by Nancy Strailey. possible they used stone from the ruins of Eagle Furnace for the new stack. Installing a strong hot blast generated by steam might have been of some advantage, but that would have involved more equipment than they thought they could afford. Only after the furnace was finished did they change their minds and attempt to convert to hot blast by adding air-heating equipment to an otherwise unchanged cold-blast furnace. Notes in the time books indicate that that halfhearted experiment continued across a decade (1849-59) before being abandoned.4 Even a successful hot-blast charcoal furnace, however, would not have saved them. About that same time, a modest improvement was made to increase the efficiency of the furnace’s blast machinery. Cylindrical blowing tubs were obtained in Williamsport and installed atop the overshot waterwheel, to replace the Swedish-type leather bellows that had been in use.5 For the Curtins to have followed the major trend of the industry by shifting from charcoal to anthracite fuel was out of the question. In spite of hard coal being half as expensive as charcoal and less frangible, the nearest source was more than 120 miles to the southeast. The cost of hauling hard coal to Centre County was too high. And again, even had the shift been possible, it

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Page 122 would have given only brief respite. Within fifteen years coked bituminous coal, in its turn less expensive and more efficient than hard coal, began putting anthracite furnaces out of business. The possibility of using coke interested the Curtins because soft coal was abundantly available at nearby Snow Shoe. By then, however, they could not afford to erect yet another, even larger modern furnace to take advantage of it.6 Charcoal Iron in the Age of Steel The heart of the problem facing the Curtins and their peers was far deeper and more sweeping. It was the “destructive creativity” of the free enterprise system. Periodically, important developments occur that in effect revolutionize an industry or an entire sector of the economy. Their arrival wipes out or “destroys” much of the existing technology, capital, jobs, and ways of doing things. In their wake is “created” a new, more efficient, more productive, and more profitable system. Although much is injured in the process, in the end, at least in theory, the economy as a whole benefits substantially. The many changes that in the second half of the nineteenth century gave rise to the modern iron and steel industry constituted one of those destructive-creative periods. Revitalized, the industry would enter a new era of unprecedented growth and prosperity—but only by leaving behind the age of charcoal iron. Destroyed was the old industry, with its relatively small-scale production at furnaces and forges on rural iron plantations. In its place stood the iron and steel industry, a new creation involving large-scale, highly mechanized mass-production of iron, and especially steel, in giant factories located in or near urban centers. The individuals and partnerships that had capitalized and managed the older furnaces and forges were soon to be replaced by corporations, holding companies, and banking conglomerates. More notable were the changes in scale of production.7 At their peak the Curtins turned out 1,500 tons of iron a year. The 1850 federal census of manufactures reported that Pennsylvania’s 178 blast furnaces, with 9,294 workers, produced 285,702 tons of pig iron. That was an average output of 1,605 tons per furnace, or 30.7 tons per worker. Two decades later, 199 blast furnaces with 10,861 workers produced 1,033,272 tons of pig, an average of 5,192 tons per furnace or 95.1 tons per worker.8 Andrew Carnegie, foremost of the new iron and steel producers, in 1872 made 13,361 tons of pig at just one of his new furnaces.9

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Page 123 The overall impact on iron and steel prices was even more dramatic. Roland Curtin had complained when the price he received for iron fell from a high of $220 a ton after the War of 1812 to $80 in 1832. By 1900 Andrew Carnegie would boast that his techniques had driven the selling price of a ton of steel rails to $20. It was against this evolving background that succeeding generations of Curtins would play out the final chapters of the Eagle Ironworks. Constans Curtin Becomes Ironmaster Although Roland Sr.’s six sons jointly owned the property, Constans and John, operating as “C. & J. Curtin,’’ officially ran the business from 1842 to 1864. Roland Jr. remained an active manager, supervising the rolling mill and selling the iron. His role was not officially recognized, however, until 1864, when the debt problems of the 1840s were finally resolved. The firm name then changed to “R., C. & J. Curtin.” Andrew Gregg Curtin the politician, though not participating in managerial matters, provided legal services and kept his share of ownership.10 Austin and James simply withdrew from high management positions. During the 1850s the youngest son emerged as primary leader of the group. Constans, born in 1817, had attended Bellefonte Academy, where he excelled in mathematics. Upon completion of his schooling, his father sent the “clever and promising youth, with a business turn and quiet retiring ways,” to Philadelphia to work as an accountant in a large commission house. Not yet of age, he was called home in 1835 to keep the books of the family enterprise. From that position he moved gradually upward. From the mid-1840s until the mid-1850s, profits in the iron industry improved somewhat. However, as so often happened before, another business panic in 1857 plunged ironmasters into despair. The Curtins apparently considered selling out. To facilitate the process the five older brothers named Constans their “attorney in fact,” empowering him to sell, exchange, or otherwise dispose of all or any part of their joint holdings as he deemed “expedient and beneficial” for the group.11 But where during a depression would one find customers for what was now part of a declining industry? Unable to sell, the Curtins remained in the iron business. They were, however, about to benefit from a favorable swing of the economy that with some ups and downs ran from 1859 through the Civil War and on until 1873. The improved conditions were reflected in the responses

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Page 124 FOUR GENERATIONS OF CURTINS

ROLAND (1764–1850), founding ironmaster of Eagle Ironworks.

Son, ANDREW GREGG (1815-94), Governor of Pennsylvania (1861–67). (No likeness was found of his brother, Constans [1817–95], second principal ironmaster.)

Grandson, HENRY ROLAND (1850–1909), son of John, third principal ironmaster.

Great-grandson, HUGH LAIRD (1882–1938), son of Henry Roland, fourth and last principal ironmaster.

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Page 125 PRINCIPAL IRONMASTERS OF THE EAGLE IRONWORKS

Male descendants of Roland Curtin, showing relationships of principal ironmasters of Eagle Ironworks.

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Page 126 of the Curtins to federal census takers in 1860. Austin gave his occupation as “clerk” (presumably at the ironworks) and listed no real estate and only $300 worth of personal property. James, calling himself a “gentleman” (usually meaning a man of means with no occupation), claimed to have $10,000 worth of real estate but no personal property. Roland, John, and Constans each reported his occupation as ‘‘ironmaster” and each listed $30,000 in real estate and $10,000 worth of personal property.12 The Civil War Interlude The Civil War affected the Eagle Ironworks directly at several levels. The Curtin family’s personal interest in the election of 1860 and the approaching war was revealed in time book notations, where reports of “Republican mass meetings” in Bellefonte and Pleasant Gap, the formation and subsequent meetings of the Eagle Club (apparently a group to arouse voters), and on October 9, 1860, the climax, “A. G. Curtin elected Governor,” appeared. Meanwhile, local volunteer militia companies—the Bellefonte Fencibles, the Eagle Guard, and the Curtin Mounted Rangers—were taking shape. Governor Curtin, before his election, had served as captain of the Fencibles. Lincoln’s election was recorded in the time book on November 6, and on April 13, 1861, the “Bombardment of Ft. Sumter commenced.” The comment “War excitement very high” on April 16 was verified the next day when the Bellefonte Fencibles recruited 120 men and set out to defend the nation’s capital. The Eagle Guards left a day or two later. At the governor’s call for volunteers following the outbreak of hostilities, the Fencibles and the Eagle Guard both volunteered for ninety days. Bellefonte citizens vigorously cheered them as they marched off and pledged $6,900 in support of the men’s families. Seven Curtin Village residents were members of the Eagle Guard. Evan R. Goodfellow held the rank of 2d sergeant; the others, Constans, James and John Barger, George and Joseph Funk, and William Shultz, were privates. Not long after, the fever began to subside. Married men in both groups, including Evan Goodfellow and others who had rashly marched off, returned from Harrisburg on April 22. The remainder of the Eagle Guard returned home upon expiration of their enlistment at the end of July.13 Meanwhile, four of Roland Curtin Sr.’s grandsons enlisted. Three were sons of Roland Curtin Jr.: Austin, who held the rank of captain; John Irvin, who rose from

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Page 127 captain to brigadier general; and Orlando, who was a clerk in the Quartermaster Corps. One of John Curtin’s sons, James B., was elected first lieutenant of a volunteer cavalry company.14 When it became evident that the war was not going to end quickly, recruiting for longer-term enlistments began. Numerous employees and former employees of the ironworks answered the call, most of them in August and September 1861 and in September 1862. For what follows, only residents of Curtin Village, not all employees, have been considered. Of thirty-four males of military age (ages twelve through forty) in the 1860 federal census, at least twenty subsequently served in the military.15 Ten went with the first wave of long-term enlistees into the 45th Pennsylvania Volunteers in August and September 1861. Eight were in Company A under the command of Captain John I. Curtin: Thomas Bathurst, George, John, and Joseph Funk, Andrew Goodfellow, Daniel Hannan, William McMullen, and William Taylor. Two, John Barger and Evan Goodfellow, went into Company D, commanded by Captain Austin Curtin. Four had been members of the Eagle Guard. Several were to earn promotions: Joseph Funk became a 1st lieutenant; Evan Goodfellow a 2d lieutenant; Thomas Bathurst, John Funk, and Andrew Goodfellow became sergeants and Daniel Hannan became a corporal. The 45th Pennsylvania Volunteers in 1861 guarded the all-important Northern Central Railroad, the District of Columbia’s lifeline to Harrisburg and points north and west. They took casualties at South Mountain and Antietam in September 1862 and at Blue Springs, Kentucky, in October 1863, and fought from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor to Petersburg in 1864–65 before being mustered out in September 1865. Of this unit, Evan Goodfellow was killed in the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864; his brother Andrew was wounded at Cold Harbor. The second wave of villagers, including three former Eagle Guards, enlisted in September 1862. Signing up for the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers were twin brothers Constans and James Barger, Samuel Bryan, Frederick Doughman (the forty-two-year-old village blacksmith), Benjamin Saylor, and Jacob Shultz (who was forty-one). All were in Company B. William Shultz (Jacob’s son) joined Company H. In May 1864 William Barger enlisted in Company E. Of this group only Constans Barger was promoted to the rank of sergeant. The 148th fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg in 1863, at the Wilderness in 1864, and at Petersburg in 1864 and 1865, and were present at Lee’s surrender at Appomatox. The unit was mustered out in June 1865.

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Page 128 The time book tersely recorded the death of the first plantation villager: “Benj. Saylor brought home dead.— Less than two months after joining up, Saylor had died of illness or injury without seeing action. Constans Barger was wounded in the Battle of Five Forks, and William Shultz was wounded at Gettysburg. William Barger was the only villager taken prisoner. Two other villagers enlisted individually. John Gingher enrolled in the 56th Pennsylvania Volunteers in December 1861 and served until July 1865. His unit engaged in major battles at Second Bull Run (1862) and at Gettysburg (1863). Miles Doughman (son of the blacksmith and only fifteen years old when the war began) enlisted in the 194th Pennsylvania Volunteers in July 1864. Four villagers were called up in the draft: Adam Gingher in August 1863, and Samuel Bathurst, John Bryan Jr., and Charles Shearer in June 1864. Whether they were taken or rejected for service, or possibly hired substitutes, is not known. Overall, the departures of so many men to fight caused no real labor shortage at the ironworks. Brothers, cousins, and neighbors always seemed to appear to take the places of those in service. Wartime Prodution and Profits The incomplete records of the ironworks for the war years preclude any detailed or precise measure of either output or earnings during the war. A calculation based on the data that has been preserved, however, permits a rough estimate of output and gross annual sales. Similarly, average annual selling prices of rolled bar iron can be used as an indication of improved earnings in the war era (Table 7). These calculated production figures make it evident that the Eagle Rolling Mill set no output record during the war. In fact, no war-year total reached 1859’s output of 805 tons. The sharp drop in 1861 reflected the general uncertainty of the business community during the interval between Lincoln’s election and the realization that the war would not end quickly. For the Eagle Works, the second year of the war saw its greatest output, in spite of losing workers to the military. Then, in 1863, production fell slightly, and probably again in 1864 when, after October, the accounts fell silent. Meanwhile, average iron prices nationally advanced sharply during the war. Although they dropped a little after the conflict, they did not return to prewar levels until near the end of the Panic of 1873. As a result, estimated

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Page 129 gross sales income at the Eagle Rolling Mill, except for 1861, considerably exceeded the $40,000 earned in 1860. Thereafter, the approximate figures were $19,000 for 1861, nearly $53,000 for 1862, $67,500 for 1863, and a little more than $61,000 for the first ten months of 1864.16 Two factors offset these substantial gains. One was wartime price inflation that meant that each dollar had less value than before the war. The other was that production costs also rose in this period. Paying Debts and Buying Out Inactive Partners Nonetheless, repayment of the Curtins’prewar debts became considerably easier. The $20,000 mortgage of 1835 remained $20,000 (plus accumulated interest at a fixed rate) despite price inflation and the declining value of money. By August 15,1863, the Curtins were able to retire the entire mortgage. They later claimed to have paid off total debts of $90,000 inherited from their father during their tenure.17 Active members of the firm next began buying out James and Austin, who each year contributed less. James agreed to surrender his share by October 1, 1866, in return for a total of $25,000 to be paid him in equal annual installments between 1864 and 1867. Austin agreed to sell his interests on or before July 1,1874, for $16,000, with installments running from 1871 through 1874. He also received title to Rowan Farm, part of the Curtin holdings, as his residence.18 Austin died in 1871, James in 1873. Their brothers Roland and John, then in their sixties, decided to retire and sell their shares of the business to their respective sons. Both agreements were signed on March 13, 1874, and provided that the fathers would each receive $33,333.33 from their own sons. Each year from 1874 through 1878 the sons were to pay their fathers the interest on $30,000, and from 1879 through 1883 they were each year to pay a fifth of the principal plus accumulated interest. The chief difference in the two agreements was that Roland sold his share to two of his seven sons (Austin and Andrew G. Jr.); John sold his share to all three of his sons (James B., Harry, and John G.). Ironmaster Constans stayed with his nephews in the firm, now called “C. Curtin & Company,” until he sold them his share in 1877 and retired. Under the terms of that final sale, the Eagle Ironworks and all the properties related to it, except the Old Furnace Property (the original Eagle Furnace lands) and 3,000 acres of timberland known as the Marsh

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Page 130 Table 7. Eagle Rolling Mill output and iron prices, 1857-1864 Year

Tons Rolled

Price per Ton

1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866

566 630 805 738 485 784 675 519 NA NA

$ 71.04 62.29 60.00 58.75 60.83 70.42 91.04 146.46 106.38 98.13

SOURCES: Tonnage: Arthur R. Jarvis Jr., “Eagle Mills: Effect of Civil War,” tables. Prices: James M. Swank, History of the Manufacture of Iron, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1892), table 1,p. 514. NOTE: Jarvis compiled tonnage figures for the Eagle Rolling Mill from difficult and incomplete records in the CIP for an unpublished history seminar paper at the Pennsylvania State University, “Eagle Mills: The Effect of the civil War on a Centre Country Furnace,” copy in CMA. The prices are for ‘‘best refined rolled bar iron. (Swank, History of the Manufacture of Iron, p.514). Creek Property, were to be truned over to the third-generation owners. They in turn were to pay Constans the interest on $24,000 for each of five years from 1877 through 1882, and then, beginning in 1883, an eighth ($3,000) of the principal each year through 1889.19 Collapse Under the Third Generation The second generation had inherited the property heavily encumbered to outsiders. In spite of being in a shrinking sector of ironmaking, they had enjoyed a period of relative prosperity and paid off the debts. By contrast, the third generation, although acquiring property free of debt to outsiders, owed considerable sums to their respective fathers and Uncle Constans. Worse for them, the decline of charcoal-iron was accelerating and the nations's economy was already sinking into the lengthy, severe Panic of 1873. The nature of the debt of the five owners of “Curtins & Company,” as the firm was now called, was peculiar. It was held by the previous generation and was payable to them by their heirs. However, the new owners would be able to write off only part of that debt as the creditors passed from the scene. Roland, who died in 1875, left seven sons (two daughters had pre-

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Page 131 ceded him in death). Austin and Andrew Gregg Jr. accordingly could cancel only two-sevenths of their debt, the rest being the inheritances of their brothers. When Constans died in 1895, he left an estate valued at $76,225 but no will. By law, his property had to be shared by a half-brother, two sisters, thirteen nephews and half-nephews, and numerous nieces and half-nieces. The owners of the ironworks in this instance may well have had to pay money into their uncle’s estate to cover a portion of their indebtedness so that the other heirs could collect their inheritances. John, last of the second generation, died in 1898. His will, written just after the Eagle Works closed at the end of 1889, noted that it was “probable …owing to the financial difficulties of my sons” that his interest in the ironworks would revert to his estate. Clearly his sons had not paid off their obligations to him. Although sons James B. and John G. were to die before their father, there remained two daughters to share the estate with the remaining son, Harry.20 In the third generation, Harry R. Curtin became chief ironmaster. Born in Curtin Mansion in 1850, he attended the public schools before enrolling at the Farmers’High School in 1865. That fledgling institution, which would evolve into Penn State University, was then in its sixth year. After two and a half years of study there, he returned to the ironworks for two years, then undertook eighteen months of additional study at Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport. Back at the Eagle Works in 1869, he began in the general store, later served as the firm’s bookkeeper, and from 1877 on ran the firm with his cousins and brothers. In addition to managing the forge and furnace, he took charge of the cord wood and charcoal department, and eventually of mining operations as well. He and his wife and children lived in the mansion. Uncle Constans joined them when he retired and remained until his death eighteen years later.21 The Eagle Ironworks did little more than hold its own after 1873. Average prices for the best refined roll-bar iron, which had been above $70 a ton from 1862 through 1873, did not reach that figure again. By 1877 it was under $50 and was to remain between $40 and $50 every year until 1890, except for a small gain between 1879 and 1883.22Improved transportation of iron by rail alone could not make charcoal iron production profitable. Nor was shifting to larger coke-fueled furnaces a solution. As already noted, two Centre County firms at great expense undertook that course during the 1880s and failed. Instead, the Curtins added only modest improvements by the 1880s. Five Huston water turbines replaced the old overshot waterwheels, improving the power machinery of both furnace and forge. Because the turbines required

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Page 132 less water and were less affected by icing in winter, operations continued in periods of drought and cold. The Curtins also increased the number of forge fires from six to eight. Where forge output of blooms had stood at 660 tons in 1856 and at 680 tons in 1870, the capacity in 1880 was reported as 1,500 tons and actual output in 1883 reached 1,400 tons.23 Again the Curtins tried to sell their firm, this time waiting until the worst of the Panic of 1873 had passed. They prepared a lengthy descriptive “Prospectus” sometime between 1884 and 1888, but attracted no buyers. They apparently had hopes that tariff protection would solve the problem, but it did not. Their competitors were not overseas; they were the domestic producers of Bessemer steel, whose ever-cheaper product had destroyed their markets.24 The time book during 1889 revealed the fast running tide against the Curtins. The furnace blew out between February 17 and March 4, so the forge stood unused for want of metal to work. The furnace blew again both in late March and in May. Thanks to the same heavy rains that produced the Johnstown Flood, the ‘‘highest water ever known” hit the Eagle Ironworks at 4:30 A.M. on June 1. “Tax collector here today & settled” was the notation for September 27. On November 11 the comment “commenced to take an Inventory of …” went unfinished. Ten days later the cellar of the mansion was flooded and a new drain had to be installed. The Red Bank ore operations “ran out of coal” on December 18; that same day “Cleaned the office.” On Christmas Day, “everything shut down.” Two days later the forge coal house caught fire. On January 3, 1890, the notation: “Sheriff closed up the firm of Curtins & Co. this afternoon.”25An account in the Democratic Watchman on January 10 denied stories that the indebtedness of the firm stood at $200,000. Rather, three judgments against the firm totaled “only” $75,648.58, with an additional $1,500 reported as due to employees of the works. Among those holding claims against the ironworks were the First National Bank of Bellefonte, $12,000; John M. Dale, trustee for the estate of John Curtin, $10,000; the Roland Curtin Jr. estate, $8,500; and John M. Dale, trustee for seventy-six other creditors from Centre County, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, $41,590.” The failure of the Curtin Company may be considered an industrial disaster to the neighborhood in which its works were so long operated,” declared the Democratic Watchman. It was “one of the oldest establishments in this region and gave employment to many people through a long course of years…. Whether the works will be started again and by whom is entirely problematical.”26

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Page 133 11 From Resumption to Final Closing After a decade-long struggle to make ends meet, Harry Curtin assembled enough backing to finance a reorganization and reopening of the Eagle Ironworks in 1899. Instead of seeking to keep up with or overtake competitors, the resurrected firm tried to carve out a small niche for itself and simply hold on. That was not easy, and the money that was made was never great, but because steelmakers sometimes blended charcoal iron with coke iron to yield certain qualities, they created a market (albeit an unsteady one) for the iron made by the Curtins. And so charcoal-iron production continued, through the balance of Harry Curtin’s life and on into the life of his son, Hugh Laird, the last of the Curtin ironmasters. Things were never the same after the suspension in 1890. Overall operations were scaled down, and the roles and attitudes of all concerned were changed. The ironmaster’s authority was diluted, customer demands increasingly controlled operations, worker deference and discipline eroded, and gone was everyone’s faith in the future of the ironmaking community. When fire destroyed the superstructure of the furnace in 1921, the end followed the next year. The century-old heritage of Roland Curtin and his descendants, and of the four to five generations of working families who labored there, passed into history.

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Page 134 Decade in the Wilderness With the closing of the Eagle Ironworks in January 1890, the third-generation Curtin owner-operators were out of business. Austin promptly retired; James B.and John G., both less than fifty years old, died within the year; and Andrew moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where he found work with an iron brokerage firm. Harry continued living at the mansion where he was born and had spent his entire life. Shutting down the only livelihood or work he had ever known left Harry in a quandary. How was he to maintain his family, keep up the property, and meet obligations to creditors and onetime employees who now were tenants? Harry pursued several avenues, among others seeking new uses for the property, selling off timberland where once charcoal had been made, searching for outside employment, and alternately seeking buyers for the ironworks or securing financial support for reopening the facility. The scraps of remaining correspondence reveal something of his desperation. Harry also repeatedly tried, without success, to interest oil companies in exploring the site for petroleum, and for a while he looked into the possibility of making bricks from clay deposits on the property. Cousin Andrew from Philadelphia urged him to make a small investment and set up a company that could make a fortune using the forge’s water system to generate and sell electricity. None of these ideas bore fruit, however, and Harry had to settle for selling timber to lumber companies and hay in quantity to livery stables. In 1892 he started up a “shingle mill” and sold shingles by the carload in 1893 and 1894. He also installed new flouring machinery in the gristmill, apparently with a view to improving it as a source of income. He had to give a note for more than $600 to cover the cost and found honoring it difficult when the note fell due.1 With prompting from Andrew, Harry tried to sell off two large tracts of Curtin timberland. Andrew suggested that if the prospective buyer declined to take the Marsh Creek tract but offered $5,000 for the rolling-mill tract, Harry should “try him hard for $6,000.” The customer was both blunt and cagey: “The Rolling Mill tract is not worth $4,000,’’ he wrote. Moreover, land that Harry had led the buyer to believe was included in the tract in fact belonged to a third party. Worse, the buyer found the timber to be “the roughest we have ever saw [sic].”The two lots together were not worth more than $8,000, but he would give $9,000 “if you will give us the use of the Saw and Shingle Mill to saw what we could float down the race.” He would prefer to buy only the Marsh Creek property and forget about the rolling-mill tract. “If you can sell to anyone else to advantage,” he concluded, “do so.”2

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Page 135 Throughout the 1890s, Harry sought outside employment. Among the positions he sought or considered were sales representative for an ironworks machinery firm, vendor of fire bricks, selling lumber for a firm in Ridgway, and becoming an insurance agent. In the end he turned to politics, running for and winning election to the Pennsylvania Assembly as a Republican in 1894. He enjoyed the respect paid him and the perquisites of office, including free railroad passes. Looking forward to a second term, he ran for re-election in 1896. Although William McKinley carried the county in the presidential election and Republicans won most other offices, Harry, to his chagrin, lost. When he asked the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to renew his pass, he learned that it had expired with his term of office. Making use of his Harrisburg connections, he did secure appointment as a special agent of the State Agriculture Department for enforcing the laws against the manufacture and use of “imitation dairy products [oleomargarine], adulterated food, vinegar, etc.”3 Over the next year or so he traveled throughout northern and Central Pennsylvania seeking evidence of the illegal use of margarine and bringing the malefactors to justice. When a storm blew down the old rolling mill early in the winter of 1896, Andrew wrote that the news was “rather agreeable,” as the building had become an “eye sore.” He supposed the scrap from it should be sold to pay taxes on the property and expressed concern that “the tax question will at an early day become a serious matter.’’4 Harry contacted James M. Swank, editor of the Bulletin of the American Iron & Steel Association, asking him to run a notice that the rolling mill was being dismantled. He also told Swank that the forge and furnace, which were “in good condition,” were for sale. Swank agreed to run the notice and refer any potential customers to Curtin. This was only one of several attempts Harry made to sell the works. Two years earlier he had told one potential customer, “You can see the margin very plainly on a small investment.” Cousin Andrew, writing to Harry on a different occasion, was more candid: “As far as the works are concerned … it is a perfectly worthless property in its present shape.”5 Unless someone with money to invest in improvements showed up, the works could not be sold. Reorganization and Reopening, 1899 Even as he considered selling, Harry by 1899 was searching for a means to resume iron production. For example, he inquired into the cost of setting up a new rolling mill at the forge using some used and some new parts. A producer

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Page 136 of such equipment, J. Swanger, replied that there was a good market for charcoal iron and that it would cost only about $12,400 to build such a mill. Harry asked in reply whether Swanger knew anyone who might be interested in financing the project.6 Meanwhile, Harry received mixed information about the market for charcoal iron. “You must remember that the selling price of pig iron today is very close to cost,” one correspondent noted. Curtin’s furnace was “rather too primitive for profit with modern furnace practice.” That required the use of laborsaving machinery and larger stacks for increased tonnage to reduce costs.7 When Harry suggested to a southeastern Pennsylvania firm that the Curtin works would be “an advantageous place for the manufacture of blooms” for them, he was rebuffed. “All charcoal iron business is done on an extremely close margin … and the increased cost of freight on raw material’’ from the Eagle Works to the firm in question would be “a very serious draw back.””In fact,” the reply continued,”we do not know today of a single independent bloomery that is manufacturing scrap blooms. They seem to us to be only able to be made as a branch of the finished product.” On the other hand, Swanger continued to encourage Harry, but always with projects that involved buying new equipment. Why not let him add a mill to the forge for making charcoal boiler tube skelp iron? There was growing demand for such tubing, and it was selling at a good price. “Your forge is admirably located” to take advantage of markets in Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.8 During the spring of 1899, Harry Curtin worked closely with the trustee of his father’s estate, Bellefonte attorney John M. Dale. The two pieced together a small group of investors to reopen the ironworks. In June they obtained a corporate charter for the new Eagle Iron Company. Curtin and Dale each held ten shares of the stock (at $100 par), probably putting up the property rather than cash. A handful of outsiders bought stock, including John M. Warner of Rogers, Brown & Company, manufacturers of pig iron and coke; Walter Kennedy, an engineer from Pittsburgh; and Leonard Peckitt of the Crane Iron Works of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Each put up $1,000 for their shares. Two other investors, J. M. Payne and F. A. Van Valkenberg, invested $500 each. On August 20 the firm was officially organized, and Peckitt was chosen as president, Dale as treasurer, and Harry Curtin as general manager.9 Preparations for reopening the furnace ran through the summer. Two employees went “after hearth [stone]” in late June, and by August 2 a new tymp stone had been installed and repairs on the bridge to the furnace were

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Page 137 finished. The first load of ore arrived on August 8, and on the first charcoal on August 9.10 Securing both ore and charcoal proved to be something of a problem. Apparently local miners, woodcutters, and colliers were no longer readily available and it was quicker and less expensive to use commercial sources. Lake Superior ore was brought in, for example, while the American Charcoal Company of Bradford became the chief supplier of charcoal at five cents per twenty-pound bushel. This, in turn, involved railroad freight costs that apparently were negotiable. When Harry asked about costs, the Pennsylvania Railroad replied, “What rate can you afford and how many tons per car will you require?”11 The furnace was “tried” on August 19 at 6:30 P.M., with Harry’s twelve-year-old daughter Katherine applying the match. It went into ‘‘blast” on the morning of August 26. Twelve hours later it had to be “shoveled out” and was not again in operation until nearly mid-September.12 There were additional problems and delays, but as autumn set in iron production began in earnest. In most respects the reopened ironworks was but a shadow of what it had been. The once extensive operations of coaling and mining were substantially reduced, as both charcoal and ores thereafter would as frequendy be brought in as produced on site. Few coalers or miners after 1900 could get by without regular work and wages, and Eagle Ironworks could give no assurances of steady employment. Gone too were the rolling mill and its operations. Even furnace and later forge workers would function more haphazardly than before. The Ups and Downs of Shared Responsibility Harry Curtin found the role of ironmaster far different from that of his Grandfather Roland Curtin or his Uncle Constans in earlier times. Because others were now putting up much of the capital, both duties and decision-making were shared rather than absolute. Shared, for example, were responsibilities for marketing and securing short-term credit that fell largely to shareholders who had extensive experience and contacts in the iron trade. This was fortunate, because it was no longer possible just to make iron and offer it for sale on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, as in the past. Customers had to be searched out and cultivated, their whims and needs catered to. Harry Curtin had relatively limited business experience and few contacts outside

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Page 138 Central Pennsylvania. Walter Kennedy offered advice for dealing with one difficult customer: induce him to visit the site and invite suggestions “we can follow out without any great expense or inconvenience.” Getting to know him well would “cover a multitude of sins, particularly if he can get a drink of Mrs. Curtin’s buttermilk, or possibly some other liquid refreshment.”13 Nor was the ironmaster any longer fully in charge. His decisions were often subjected to “suggestions” from shareholders that they expected would be followed. Unfortunately, they held differing views and often gave conflicting advice. For example, it was not clear exactly what market the firm was trying to serve. ‘‘If you are going to make iron for the chilled roll trade at Pittsburgh, no lake ore should be used,” Warner wrote Dale in October 1899. “If you wish to enter the general market and simply make charcoal iron it is all right to use lake ore but in that event you might as well make hot blast iron.” President Peckitt on a visit to the site found it “certainly very necessary to obtain a better ore supply promptly.” He authorized Curtin “to start up our Taylor Mine at once.”14 In January 1901, Warner wrote to Curtin upset at learning of an experiment that used “refuse material including cinder” in the furnace. He had promised customers in Pittsburgh that “no material in the way of fuel would ever be placed in Curtin furnace except charcoal, that not a single degree of heat would ever be added to the blast, nothing but native ore [would be] used (except possibly some lake ore for phosphorous or manganese) and under no consideration would any cinder or scale be used.” Too many furnaces had been wrecked that way. Because he relied on Curtin to maintain quality, he demanded his “personal assurance” it would not happen again.15 When Kennedy learned of Warner’s letter, he extended sympathy. He knew of iron being sold in competition with theirs that had mill cinder in it because it was impossible to get the necessary quality in any other way. Clearly Warner was against any “attempt to be progressive” and would hurl “maledictions” against anyone “so irreverent as to transgress the laws of ancient usage.” If the works was to be run “on the old method of the Chinese that nothing is so good as that which has been used for an extremely long time,” he would consider withdrawing from the firm. However “poetic” and “interesting” antiquated methods of running a blast furnace were, their practicality for the purpose of making money was open to question.16 The market for cold-blast charcoal iron remained highly volatile in the period immediately following the reopening of the works. Warner’s comments to Dale indicate the extremes: from “it is very slow work selling cold-blast charcoal iron but … I hope to secure one or two orders” to “the iron

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Page 139 now going forward ought to put you, financially, on Easy Street.”17 Under those circumstances it is not surprising that some shareholders sold out and others bought in. As early as January 1900, Peckitt reported that Payne tried to sell his stock to him but that he already “had all the Curtin stock I wanted.” At the end of April, Payne reported that he had sold his stock to N. H. Wagner of Philadelphia. Warner told Dale in May that Payne had sold his stock to one of Warner’s personal friends, William B. Campbell. Warner added that he and Campbell were next going to attempt to secure VanValkenburg’s shares. In August, Leonard Peckitt sold his stock and resigned the presidency. Meanwhile, T. W. Weir of Philadelphia became a stockholder and frequent giver of advice.18 Unfavorable downturns in the iron market led to shareholder cries to cut expenses; favorable upturns produced demands for plant expansion. “By all means, blow out, and do it without any delay,” wrote Weir in September 1900. “It is one of the virtues of the Curtin proposition that there are no fixed charges of any importance, and stopping work stops expenses.” He favored blowing out at once, but with ore and other materials on hand ready to start up as soon as the market improved.19 Thirteen months later, Warner was helpful in arranging credit when once more money-flow problems arose. He secured a loan of $2,000 to meet current payroll expenses from his firm’s Cincinnati office. With this welcome news, however, came his suggestion to “stop spending money and save up some.’’ He observed: “Pay rolls are as large as when you were accumulating ore for the winter’s run. Let’s economize and pay a dividend.”20 He did not explain how the employees and their families were to live in the meantime—that was a traditional concern of ironmasters that he had somehow missed in his study of the ancient ways of ironmaking. As soon as conditions improved, someone would call for expansion. By March 1901, Kennedy was telling his Pittsburgh friends that if the Eagle Iron Company could get enough contracts they “would probably build another furnace.” Alternatively, they might consider buying up an existing furnace in the neighborhood. Kennedy’s friends asked that if Curtin furnace was for sale, or if the company was about to increase its capital, could they “get in” and “on what terms”?21 Within days Weir learned of the talk about a second furnace. He and Warner had “worked hard,” he complained, “trying to sell Curtin iron— harder to sell 6 tons than 600 tons a day.” The nation’s iron and steel industry, he warned, was undergoing a general overhaul at this very time [the newly formed U.S. Steel Corporation was bringing under its control nearly

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Page 140 two-thirds of the nation’s total capacity].“New mills are building and new machinery is being put in.” At present he did not know where he could place more Curtin iron if he had it. With the new works and machinery, “there will be more difficulty than now in taking care of Curtin output.” He vigorously opposed spending more on the Eagle Works only to see everything wiped out. He preferred getting “our investment back’’ and being “in shape to blow the furnace out when there is no sale for the iron. That time will surely come”22 No second furnace was built or acquired, but the Eagle Iron Company did reopen the long-used Red Bank ore fields the next spring. A new boiler, engine, and pump were installed, and workers were putting in a complete ore washer. The firm expected the mine to be operating at “utmost capacity” within a few weeks.23 By the closing months of 1901 business was still good, and even Warner talked of limited expansion. “The little furnace at Curtin, Pa. has been in continuous blast now for over two years,” he wrote to a friend on December 9. With orders booked for two years ahead, it probably would continue to operate for “some years to come.” He had “always been interested in old-fashioned things, like Curtin furnace, also the forge at that point.” There being talk of starting up the forge, he added, “we would like help from you” in constructing a railroad siding from the forge to the furnace.24 A siding eventually was put in when the forge reopened. A few days later Pleasant Furnace had to be blown for want of charcoal. Weir was disturbed. To his mind the principal reason for operating the furnace was the supposedly unlimited supply of charcoal on the premises that “rendered it independent of outside charcoal makers.” If this was not true, he saw no special reason to operate it more than such portion of time as charcoal could be obtained. He assumed that the only obstacle to making charcoal was a lack of labor. It would be better, he thought, to import labor than to blow out the furnace and risk losing to other furnaces the business of Pittsburgh plants that needed charcoal iron for their mixes.25 Dealing with the Curtin Heirs As ironmaster, Harry Curtin had to placate the interests of yet another demanding group, the members of his extensive family who were co-heirs of the sons of Roland Curtin Sr. By April 1902 he had reopened the forge. In December of that same year, someone drafted an agreement between the

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Page 141 Curtin family interests and the new Curtin Forge Company. The proposal was that the company would lease the forge, all its machinery, and land enough for twelve charcoal pits from the family for a period of five years beginning December 1, 1902. The family was to receive 50 cents per ton of blooms manufactured the first year and 75 cents a ton for the remaining four years unless the selling price of blooms fell below $42 a ton of 2,464 pounds. The company was further to agree to manufacture and ship at least 1,500 tons a year, or pay as if they had shipped that quantity. They were also to pay all taxes on the premises. The family was not to repay the company for any repairs it made on the forge, but was to give the company the option of renewing the lease for another five years. If the family ever wanted to sell the forge property, they were obliged to give the company a year’s notice. Because the copy of this proposed agreement in the family papers was unsigned, however, it is not known whether this agreement or any variation of it was ever adopted.26 The forge did continue to operate until mid-1922. Further illustrating Harry’s difficulties with the heirs is a letter he wrote to cousins Andrew and W. W. Curtin, who held an eight-eighteenths interest in the estate. Apparently he was replying to a complaint that he was overcharging for his services in running and maintaining the property and was paying too little rent on the mansion. He proposed: “We employ a capable, responsible man to act as Trustee. His duty will be to look after the entire Estate, look after the lands, and take care of the growing timber, do what surveying there is to do, be at all expense in fighting forest fires, collect all rents and receive all revenues coming to the Estate, pay out of same all expenses, and have a general oversight of the property. Must keep his own horse to enable him to get over the property at stated periods. He must collect and receive all rents and not only for my house but every house on the premises.” If such a man could be found to do this for less than he was charging, Harry added, he was perfectly willing to credit that amount to the estate. He went on to remind them that it had been twenty-seven years since any major repairs had been undertaken. It was already past time for renewing “every roof and fence on the place.” There had been no income to do this since 1890. He not only had spent his own earnings, but also put up his life insurance policies to do what had been done. “I do not recall a time that any one interested offered the least assistance or even inquired how it was done or what we had to do it with.” It was his own exertions that had reopened the furnace, and he had undertaken repairs to the forge at his own expense. As for rent on the mansion, he reminded them how remote it was from the city, where perhaps more fabulous prices could be gotten. He at

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Page 142 least had kept the place looking as if some one lived in it, at no cost to the estate. “The idea got full sway that money was laying around in the road, and I was gathering it up in hands full, when the facts were my note was maturing in the Banks for cash I distributed among them.’’27 Unfortunately, the correspondence in the family papers fell silent after this, and what little is known of the remaining years is limited for the most part to comments in time books and in other ironworks records. An article in Iron Trade Review in 1907 did reveal some details of the ironworks operation for the period. For example, only about two-thirds of the charcoal used (180,000 of 280,000 bushels) was coaled on the plantation; the remainder was purchased on the open market. Also, the furnace reportedly produced from 5 to 7 tons of pig iron a day. If so, this was between 20 and 35 percent more than in 1856, when 1,078 tons were poured in 245 days for a yield of 4.4 tons a day. Further, the furnace was tapped every eight hours (throughout most of its history it had been tapped only twice a day). The reopened forge had twelve rather than eight fires and produced 5,000 tons of converted sheet iron scrap into blooms each year. Most of the product went to the Reading Iron Company to be made into boiler tubing.28 Changing Worker Attitudes No result of the decade-long shutdown of the ironworks was greater than its impact on worker attitudes. An important aspect of the paternalistic labor philosophy that prevailed at the ironworks had been the security it offered workers and their families. Wages were not high, and working and living conditions were less than ideal, but jobs, housing, and credit at the company store had always been dependable. As long as one worked for the Curtins, one need not fear for lack of food or shelter, however humble. That security abruptly ended with the suspension in 1890. At best the Curtins could employ only a fraction of the available labor pool at work other than iron production. Just as Harry Curtin had to find outside work to support himself and his family, so residents of the village somehow had to find new sources of income. Housing that had been free was now rented to them. The men found new jobs on the railroad, as farm laborers or woodcutters, or on public road maintenance crews. Wives and daughters supplemented family incomes by doing part-time housework, laundering, or caring for the children of better-off families in Milesburg or Bellefonte. Those who could

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Page 143 not find adequate employment found it necessary to pull up stakes and move to other communities, some nearby, some at greater distances within the state, some across the country. The loss of what had been taken for granted for so long left many workers angry or bitter. Some blamed the Curtins, others blamed themselves, still others cited the unfairness of life in general.29 When the ironworks at last reopened, the number of people who got jobs there was somewhat smaller than before, and the certainty of steady work never returned. Jobs, homes, and livelihoods clearly could be snatched away at any time. Worker attitudes slackened and became more tentative. The change occurred at the time that efficiency in the new urban-centered iron and steel factories was reaching new heights. At those centers, managers constantly sought increased output at ever-lower costs, and they achieved that by acquiring the latest cutting-edge technology; giving management absolute control of production processes; and ruthlessly driving workers to achieve higher production records. They also broke down long-established work habits, craft traditions, and union work rules and subdivided and mechanized skills until unskilled workers could perform them. Any power that the labor unions once had among ironworkers was smashed.30 None of these conditions prevailed at the reopened Eagle Ironworks. Starved for capital, the Curtins made no systematic search for new ways to do things and the technology they employed remained little changed from the 1830s. Often their attention was diverted from management of the works to other moneymaking ventures. Worker discipline and productivity deteriorated, but not because the workers had unionized or in any way challenged the Curtins’ authority to determine wages or working conditions. The problem was systemic. Even as the Curtins were entering a fourth generation of control, so the bulk of their employees were in their third or fourth generation as laborers at the ironworks. As might be expected over so great a span of time, village families were intermarried to the point where every regular employee was the brother, brother-in-law, father, father-in-law, son, son-in-law, uncle, or cousin of most of his fellow workers.31 Not only did they work side by side at the ironworks by day, in the evening they returned home to dwell side by side as neighbors. For decades they drank from common wells, attended the same churches and schools, traded at the same store, and shared the same holidays and social events. Clearly they knew the Curtins well. They were aware of how the Curtins treated each of them, who received favors, who was treated unfairly, who

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Page 144 was “on the outs.” They knew which of the Curtins was lax, or strict, or kindly, or could be taken advantage of. Similarly, they judged one another as workers, knowing who loafed on the job, who was overly eager, who was competent, and who was not. Above all, they supported and protected one another. Without formal organization, they achieved solidarity based on blood, a shared lifestyle, and common toil that was stronger than any union. Accordingly, when dealing with their employees the Curtins had to be careful not to turn the group against them. It was not that the workers would have struck or quit, but they could slow down, malinger, or work sullenly and carelessly. The Curtins could not discharge them all, for there was no supply of competent workers available to replace them. Experienced ironworkers were leaving for—not coming from—industrial centers. Wages and working conditions offered at the Eagle Works were too marginal and unreliable even if life in the Bald Eagle Valley might appear to some to be better than in Pittsburgh. The Fourth Generation Takes Over Harry Curtin’s tenure as ironmaster ended abruptly when soon after his fifty-ninth birthday in January 1909 he unexpectedly died. He left no will. Ownership of the extensive Curtin family holdings was still scattered among numerous heirs and descendants of Roland Curtin, the founder. Harry’s widow and four children promptly assumed charge of the situation. The youngest son, twenty-seven-year-old Hugh Laird, undertook to operate both the Eagle Iron and Curtin Forge Companies and to manage the family’s extensive real-estate holdings. Meanwhile, his mother, two brothers, and sister authorized him to act on their behalf in buying out the holdings of all other heirs. Inasmuch as Laird was to maintain a home for both his mother and his grandmother, he was to become owner in fact of one-third of the entire holdings, while his three siblings were to own two-ninths each. All this apparently was accomplished, and Laird became ironmaster of the Eagle Works.32 Born in the mansion in 1882, Laird had attended the school at Curtin Village before entering the Bellefonte Academy and later Trinity College. Upon graduation he enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard, and by the time his father died he had risen to the post of battalion adjutant. With little warning or preparation, he suddenly found himself responsible for

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Page 145 managing the family’s resources, chief of which was the ironworks, that dying relic of the charcoal-iron era. The combination of small-scale operations, high costs, and disappointing prices clearly worked against success, so Laird devoted more of his efforts to farming a larger portion of lands inherited from his father and advancing himself in the National Guard. By 1915 he had risen to the rank of captain and was commanding his own company. His unit went to El Paso, Texas, in 1916 to help quell border difficulties. When in July 1917, following America’s entry into World War I, the unit was reorganized as a cavalry troop, Curtin was involved with its training, until health problems led to his release from duty. Meanwhile, in 1911, he had married and over the next dozen years fathered seven children.33 Hugh Laird Curtin Ironmaster, 1909–l922 During Laird’s tenure as ironmaster, the time books were kept by one of his brothers, a man more interested in family than business affairs. His comments reported on births, deaths, and health and indispositions of family members and friends, and on the travels of the mansion residents more than on iron production. The new ironmaster seems always to have been coming or going on business, pleasure, or other trips, taking to his bed because of illness, and attending lodge meetings and military musters. In fact, Laird devoted less time to the ironworks than had any of his predecessors. So rarely was he there that his mere presence was sometimes remarked on. Ultimately his tenure proved unsuccessful, even before the fire that destroyed the furnace. This, for the most part, was due to circumstances beyond his control. He had come to the post with minimal experience and training while still quite young, he was not always adept in handling the workers, and his health was less than robust. Because he had to be absent frequently, ironmaking responsibilities were put in the hands of two older workers. Henry Shultz (“Hen”) became overseer of the works, and his brother Daniel (“Ebs”) was boss of the furnace. ’’In order to appear old in experience and to better meet the problems of the workmen with dignity,” the young ironmaster later declared, “I bought a pair of nose glasses and wore them when weighty matters were discussed, looking severely over the top of the rims. My family was amused, but the effect was fine.”34 Apparently the gambit was less effective with the workers than he thought. They increasingly displayed a lack of responsibility and

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Page 146 tended to cut corners. In reminiscences of their working years, former employees revealed this growing laxity. On one occasion a half-load of hay slid off a wagon. The driver, instead of reloading it, simply pulled ahead and set fire to that which fell off. Asked to discuss the work they did or to describe the tools used, former employees frequently replied, “Oh, I don’t remember, I never paid that much attention.” Others told of being credited (no doubt by kinfolk who operated the scales) for full weight of ore or charcoal when in fact their wagons were only partially filled and had not been weighed. They also laughed about “Uncle Hen Shultz,” who discharged a young man for repeatedly leaving work for drinks of water. A few days later, apparently having forgotten the dismissal, Hen asked where the man was. The offender promptly returned to work as if he hadn’t been discharged.35 The furnace crew described later by Malcolm Bathurst, an employee of the ironworks in 1920–21, bore little resemblance to that of a half-century before. “They didn’t have job titles. They just worked there. And I can’t remember how many men—there weren’t very many men. One man each shift…. Might have had three men down at the bottom where it was poured out to help break [the pigs] apart. They’d pile them up and load them on the cart.”36 Even the deference once accorded the first Roland Curtin and his sons had disappeared. Hugh Laird Curtin’s previously told story about his efforts to reduce expenses by cutting unneeded workers illustrates the point. One intended victim, addressing him as “Lairdy,’’ protested that Curtin could not discharge him: “I raised you boys.” The man was right: he wasn’t fired. He stayed on until removed by “the action of a considerate mare” some years later. Even turning managerial responsibilities over to the Shultz brothers did not always work well. Although Hen was supposedly in charge overall, he and Ebs “use [sic] to get into hot arguments. Uncle Ebs didn’t want [Hen] to do any bossing around the furnace.”37 More fundamental was that everyone, however reluctantly, realized that the Eagle Ironworks (and with it the charcoaliron industry) was in its final throes. Throughout 1910, 1911, and 1912, only ten to twelve names appeared on the monthly furnace and forge time books. Money became ever scarcer for the ironmaster and his family. On October 27, 1913, Curtin “sold his farm … for $16,000.” In March 1915 he had a “big sale”: “Sold 171 hogs and 70 cattle.” Difficult to explain was his purchase in June 1915 of the Scotia ore mines property northwest of State College, which reportedly was

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Page 147 nearly played out. Much of 1916, 1917, and 1918 Curtin was on duty with his National Guard unit. Apparently the wartime demand for iron resulted in a brief increase of business at the Eagle Ironworks. By November 1918 there were thirty-seven workers on the payroll and the company was building a small rolling mill near the forge. It went into operation on December 3, 1918, three weeks after the Armistice. The end of the war, however, brought an end to the boomlet, and during 1919 the payroll again fell to fourteen or so men. Throughout that year the forge was closed down, whether for repairs or lack of work is not known. The Fire The year 1921 began badly. Disaster struck in May. Ebs Shultz had installed a new hearthstone, and the furnace, charged with ore from Albany, was lighted on January 10. Four days later the blast was put on. By March 8 the furnace was “working very badly. Cold.” On April 22 a fire burned part of the “mule stable barn.” On the 28th the furnace stopped when the tymp-stone “gave way at 3:00.” The fire was drawn, and for the next two weeks the furnace stood idle. Then the terse time book comment for May 12: “Bridge house and part of casting house burned today 3:00 AM.’’38 Somehow fire had broken out. The dry timbers “burned like tinder,” and flames quickly spread through the casting house and bridge.39 From the mansion the mistress of the household and frightened children watched. “I can remember crying and being very, very scared,” daughter Eliza said decades later. Her brother, Hugh Laird Jr. (known as “Bud”), though only four at the time, all his life could recall “the glow in the sky and all the confusion.” As the children remembered it, their father rushed to the scene and directed efforts to quell the fire. When the trestle collapsed, he recognized defeat and ordered the men to tap the furnace. Its contents— molten iron and slag mixed with unmolten ore and bits of charcoal and limestone—poured out onto the floor, forming a large chunk. “That piece of iron, the ‘last cast,’ is still at the furnace, a reminder of the fire that destroyed a way of life.”40 Apparently the children’s memories were not entirely correct. As the newspaper accounts stated, and the time book entries agreed, the furnace

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Page 148 was not in blast that day and had not been for two weeks. With “no fire anyways near [the bridgehouse] … it [was] generally believed the buildings were either set on fire maliciously or that tramps were making a night of it at the furnace and carelessly started the fire.” The damage was so great that the buildings would have to be rebuilt before the furnace could again be put in blast. One newspaper reported that there was no insurance.41 Under the circumstances it seemed pointless to rebuild when so little market remained for the product. The forge continued with reduced operations for fourteen months.42 Then, with the last thump of its hammers in July 1922, the enterprise begun by Roland Curtin on the Bald Eagle eleven decades earlier closed down. An important stage in the iron-production history of both Pennsylvania and America had finally sputtered to its end.

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Page 149 Epilogue After 1922 the ironworks lay in ruins, never to operate again. However, the extensive landholdings, the mansion, and the “little house” next to it, the village, the gristmill, and the company store all remained Curtin properties and functioned for varying lengths of time. Independent of the Curtins, the nearby Methodist church, the school, and many of the village families also continued on. For the balance of the 1920s the rural economy remained in a slump. Conditions grew worse during the Great Depression that followed. Because the Curtins no longer had means for keeping up their properties, deterioration set in, pointing to the probable crumbling away of everything. Hugh Laird Curtin, the last of the ironmasters, found himself in the same condition as his father in the 1890s. He had to secure other sources of income to meet taxes and support his family. Using what remained at hand, he engaged in timbering, rented farmland on shares, sold parts of the Curtin holdings, and economized where possible. He also sold insurance.1 His wife, the former Thomazine Potter, adapted similarly. The large staff of household servants (a cook, a laundress, a gardener, a coachman, several maids, a nursemaid, and a housekeeper) shrank to but two or three. Assisted by a handyman, she kept a garden. She also did part of the family cooking. Because it required 70 tons of coal to heat the mansion in winter, the third floor went unheated. During the more severe months, the family moved to the home of her parents in Bellefonte. The Potters, in turn, made room for their nine ‘‘guests” by temporarily moving to a hotel for that period each year. The children’s lives too became more austere. The daughters learned to do household chores; the boys helped with outdoor tasks. Because new toys

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Page 150 could not be afforded, all seven shared one set of skis and a bicycle. On one occasion their father’s failure to pay the bill for their schooling in Bellefonte led to dismissal to Grandmother Potter’s house across the street until the obligation was settled. Between 1932 and 1942 the daughters, Mary, Nancy, Eliza, and Thomazine, one by one married and left for homes of their own. Meanwhile, in 1938, Hugh Laird died at age fifty-six.2 The eldest son, Hugh Laird Jr. (better known as Bud), took over management of the estate but also labored at the Cerro Brass Works in Bellefonte. Son George went into the army, rising to the rank of brigadier general before retiring. The youngest son, James, died in an automobile accident in 1951. Bud, his wife, and his mother continued living in the mansion. Following the war, they were joined by his unmarried brothers and his youngest sister and her family. In 1946 Bud and his wife moved to the “little house” next door, where they began their family. His mother, Thomazine, continued in the mansion until 1951, when she closed it down and moved to Bellefonte. She died there in 1958. For several years different members of the family spent summers in the mansion. Meanwhile, Bud Curtin continued to rent houses in the village to former employees. The rentals were low, five to ten dollars a month, but now the tenants had to maintain the houses, making any repairs or improvements themselves.3 Gradually most villagers left, some for better housing for growing families, some because new jobs took them too far from the village to commute, some who hoped to improve their lot by moving to other parts of the state or country. New tenants moved in. As the years passed, some of the increasingly dilapidated houses were rented in the summertime to families from Altoona and other communities seeking inexpensive vacation spots in a quiet rural setting. They were also rented as camping shacks to fishermen in the spring and to hunters in fall.4 Both the gristmill and the store continued to serve the neighborhood. The store, no longer an appendage of the ironworks, was run by Jeremiah Glenn. Its customers came from both the village and neighboring farms. With permanent residents leaving the village, and improved access to stores in Milesburg and Bellefonte, however, business fell off. When Glenn retired in the 1930s, the store closed. The building was converted into four small apartments to provide housing during the shortage that followed World War II, then razed in 1967.5 A fire in 1923 damaged the gristmill and caused it to close briefly. Harry H. Curtin Sr., a cousin of ironmaster Hugh Laird Curtin, restored the facil-

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Page 151 ity. In 1924 he put in a new hydraulic turbine, rebuilt the dam, and assisted by “Hen” Shultz, resumed operations. The mill’s specialty was buckwheat flour, but it also produced “chop” for livestock. Upon Harry’s death in 1936 the gristmill closed permanently. A heavy snow caved in the mill’s roof in the 1940s, and later the still-standing massive stone walls had to be dynamited for safety’s sake.6 The new two-story, four-room brick Curtin Village school built at the turn of the century lasted until Boggs Township established a new elementary school in nearby Milesburg. The former school was converted into and remains at present a private residence near Curtin Methodist Church. The church too remained in operation throughout and still has regular services each Sunday.7 The Eagle Ironworks Historic Site The restoration of the Eagle Ironworks and Curtin Village as a historic site was an indirect result of severe rainstorms in 1960 and 1962. The storms caused considerable flooding in Central Pennsylvania and led to demands for improved flood controls in the upper Susquehanna River valley. As a result in 1962 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided to build a dam on the Bald Eagle Creek at the village of Howard. It soon became evident that the proposed Foster J. Sayers Dam would flood the remnants of the Eagle Ironworks and Curtin Village. At a public hearing on the project, Mervin Lucas (whose ancestors had long dealt with and worked for the Curtins) and Hugh Manchester (a journalist and local historian) pointed out that the 1950 federal Flood Control Act required a historic-site survey before such a dam could be constructed. The Corps of Engineers agreed to cooperate, and the survey was made. Meanwhile, Sylvester K. Stevens, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, agitated for preservation of the site. Aided by local newspapers, Penn State history professors and graduate students, metallurgists and other academics, business people, members of the Curtin family, and individuals interested in historic preservation, the effort got under way. In response, the Corps of Engineers agreed to lease the ironworks and the village lands to any agency that could guarantee responsible preservation of the historic site. Lucas, Manchester, Penn State history professor Philip S. Klein, Bud Curtin, and other enthusiasts for the project organized the nonprofit

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Curtin Mansion from the southwest in 1984, restored to the period of the 1850s. Roland Curtin Foundation for the Preservation of Eagle Furnace on July 11, 1966. Its first president was William W. Sieg, president of the Titan Metal Company. The Curtin family deeded the mansion and one additional acre to the Curtin Foundation for $1.00. The foundation in 1968 transferred the property to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), which in turn purchased 11 additional acres of the historic site from the Curtin family and leased another 150 acres of abutting property from the Corps of Engineers.8 That same year, the PHMC commissioned William G. King of the Centre County Planning Commission to prepare a master plan for converting the site into a living history museum. King’s very thorough plan called for restoration of the furnace stack and the attached charging, casting, and tuyere sheds and reconstruction of the forge and rolling mill. For convenience the latter two would be located near the furnace. King also proposed restoring and reconstructing the workers’ homes in the village; rebuilding perhaps two and a half stories of the gristmill; restoring the mansion, and rebuilding the store, the railway station, and the barn. A visitor center and parking facil-

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Worker’s cabin in Curtin Village ca. 1991, restored to the period 1810–30. ities for 150 cars would be provided northwest of the bridge over the Bald Eagle Creek from the furnace and mansion.9 This plan, had it been carried out, would have made the Eagle Ironworks at Curtin one of the state’s major historic sites. Curtin Mansion was restored and opened to the public in 1972. Hurricane Agnes that same summer led to a subsequent draining away of moneys to relief and reconstruction of other state properties. Although the furnace complex, including the blast house and flume, was rebuilt in 1977 and opened to the public in 1978, further restoration of the site came to a halt. By the onset of the 1980s, new PHMC administrators with new agendas, and increasing budgetary restraints at the state level, led to a decision to withdraw state employees from the site. To keep the site open and operating, in 1982 the Roland Curtin Foundation entered into the first of the PHMC’s new Placed Properties Agreements. Under that arrangement the foundation agreed to assume responsibility for staffing, managing, and operating the site for the PHMC. The commission, in turn, was to be responsible for all capital improvements and for providing an annual subvention to the foundation to help with maintenance and utilities costs.10

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Page 154 For fifteen years the site operated under this agreement. The foundation organized and trained volunteer guides and interpreters. Richard Pencek, at the time a member of Penn State’s American Studies faculty, undertook with his classes in historical preservation the complete restoration of one of the log cabin worker homes in the village. Other volunteers performed a variety of chores essential to the upkeep and maintenance of the site. The foundation also hosted or organized educational and fund-raising events such as craft shows, antique tool demonstrations, Civil War encampments, square dances, antique car shows, living history presentations, antique shows and auctions, and candlelight Christmas tours. The most successful fundraiser was the foundation’s annual Apple Butter Day, when apple butter was made in huge copper kettles and stirred over outdoor open fires for between ten and twelve hours. As many as 10,000 visitors came to the site for several of these autumn events. Twice during the 1990s the foundation, with increased funding support from the PHMC, was able to employ a fulltime site director, and in this decade development of the site made a number of advances. More time and effort were devoted to the educational function of the site. Grants were applied for and won. A generous donation from the Gingher family financed the beginning of a project to restore one house in the village to serve as a center commemorating life in the village. There, at the entrance to the village, the foundation planned to display pictures, tools, and other artifacts reflecting the lives of Curtin Village worker families. As this study is being written, however, the Eagle Ironworks at Curtin is in a new and uncertain phase again. Funding from the PHMC, though more generous than earlier, has not kept up with costs of a full-time staff director and further development of the site. As a result, the foundation, unable to sustain itself by attracting enough active new members to run the operation or to raise the large sums needed to pay to have the work done, found it necessary to return management of the site to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Whether the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission will resume full management and operation of the site, or find some other state agency, municipal governmental agency, or private organization to keep the site open to the public, remains to be seen. The foundation, meanwhile, continues to promote the site, and its volunteers assist a part-time PHMC employee in giving tours and putting on programs. This now historic treasure into which the Curtins and their employees poured their lives and sweat, to which the Commonwealth contributed substantial amounts of tax dollars for restoration and maintenance, and where

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Page 155 members of the Curtin Foundation and innumerable volunteers have spent much time, money, and effort, should not be allowed to close. It needs to be preserved as a part of our living history, touching as it does on so many facets of the past. It represents an important part of Pennsylvania’s entrepreneurial, technological, and transportation development, its economic, social, labor, and political evolution. To realize its educational and historical potential, the site should be preserved, more fully restored, and kept available for posterity.

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Page 157 Appendix: Selected Accounts of Comparable American Ironworks From the early colonial era until after the Civil War, ironworks similar to the Eagle Furnace and Forge were scattered across most of the nation. In Pennsylvania alone at least 167 had been set up between 1716 and 1800, and in 1849 the state boasted 230 charcoal-fueled blast furnaces, 121 charcoal forges, and 79 rolling mills. Because charcoal-fueled ironworks employed much the same technology throughout the period, how the various firms made iron differed in detail rather than in essentials. The principal differences among them lay in the areas of financing, labor supply, transportation, and marketing. The ubiquity of small local ironworks was due to the growing dependence of the American economy on iron and iron products. At the same time, however, the general lack of transportation facilities resulted in high costs for hauling iron and the raw materials used in its manufacture. Accordingly, ironmasters erected ironworks almost anywhere deposits of ore were found in conjunction with hardwood forests and limestone. Most of these charcoal ironworks were short-lived, for reasons ranging from depletion of iron deposits and forests, to depressed iron prices, to lack of business acumen. Of the many hundreds of charcoal ironworks that once existed in America, detailed accounts based on furnace and forge records and other primary data are available for only a few. Two such accounts are of firms that functioned in the colonial era. Earliest was the Saugus Ironworks, built near Boston, which operated briefly during the late seventeenth century (see E. N. Hartley, Ironworks on the Saugus [Norman, Okla., 1957]). Early in the eighteenth century, the Principio Ironworks was established in Maryland and continued until Independence (see

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Page 158 Michael W. Robbins, The Principio Company: Iron-Making in Colonial Maryland, 1720–1781 [New York, 1986]). Both were founded, financed, owned, and controlled by English merchants and ironmasters who sent out hired agents from England to manage their properties. They also sent from England workers with prior experience in iron production as needed. A good portion of the remaining workforce consisted of servile labor—that is slaves, indentured servants, and prisoners sentenced to America. Both the Saugus and Principio companies established integrated works consisting of smelting furnaces and finery and chafing forges for transforming pig into wrought iron. The Saugus works also had a slitting mill for making stock for nails. The two firms operated within limits imposed by mercantilism: England encouraged its colonies to develop the production of pig and wrought iron to be sold in England but prohibited the colonies by law from making finished iron products that would compete with English-made ironware. The Saugus Ironworks functioned under the further restraints of a Puritan society governed more by religious dogma than by economic principles. The boon of Massachusetts Bay government subsidies and other inducements was offset by controls over such business matters as prices and enforcement of Puritan standards of behavior for workers, most of whom did not subscribe to that faith. In the absence of iron ore deposits, the Saugus works used bog iron dredged from ponds and small lakes. Lacking limestone as well, it substituted gabbro, a granular igneous rock found in the area, as the fluxing agent in the smelting process. Neither the Saugus nor the Principio Works was located on a remote, isolated “plantation,’’ as would be common later. Their holdings, which were not extensive, were scattered rather than compact and nearer to more thickly settled areas. Consequently, free workers were not entirely dependent on their employers for foodstuffs and other essentials. Finally, local transportation was not a major problem for either. The settled areas where they were located had improved roads and waterways and were near ports where their iron could be loaded with relative ease for shipment to English markets. Their principal transportation problems grew out of the dangers, costs, and time required for transatlantic voyages. Southeastern Pennsylvania’s Hopewell Furnace was founded in 1771 near the close of the colonial era and operated until 1883. (See Joseph E. Walker, Hopewell Village: The Dynamics of a Nineteenth-Century Iron-Making Community [Philadelphia, 1966].) Although begun in a frontier setting between

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Page 159 Pottstown and Reading in Berks County, the nearby area quickly filled with settlers. A series of partners, rather than a single proprietor or a family, owned and operated Hopewell. Financial difficulties plagued the business during much of its history, but the 1830s and 1840s were decades of considerable prosperity for the firm. In the end, Hopewell fell victim to the competition of the giant mineral-fueled iron and steel works that emerged after the Civil War. Located in the immediate hinterland of Philadelphia, Hopewell’s operators had access to capital, labor, know-how, improved transportation, and markets. Its farmlands and forestlands were not one huge compact plantation tract, but scattered. Apparently all this led to better incomes and higher standards of living both for ironmasters and for ironworkers than was true for those operating in more typical, isolated places. Improved roads in the area and nearness to the Union Canal and Schuylkill River freed Hopewell of severe transportation problems and high shipping costs. Hopewell was not an integrated works, having neither a refining forge nor a rolling mill with puddling furnaces. Its products were chiefly castings (stove plates were long its leading product), and the pig iron it produced went to nearby forges (some owned by the proprietors of Hopewell) to be converted into wrought iron. Today Hopewell is on the National Registry of Historic Places, has undergone substantial restoration, and is a property administered by the National Park Service. Buffalo Forge (and Etna and other furnaces that supplied it with the pig iron it refined) operated in the Great Valley of Virginia between 1814 and 1868. (See Charles B. Dew, Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge [New York, 1994].) During that half-century or so, these properties were owned and managed by two transplanted Pennsylvanians: first William Weaver and then by his niece’s husband, Daniel C. E. Brady. The preservation of exceptionally detailed firm records, family correspondence, and chancery court records, added to the research and writing skills of the author, have resulted in an engaging and informative reconstruction of iron-making in a slave society. The workforce at Buffalo Forge consisted of slave families owned by the ironmaster, slaves hired from other slaveholders, and a few white freemen. Working free whites at the same tasks as slaves proved most unsatisfactory, for the whites did less work while insisting on preferential treatment. They also frequently quit. However, the absolute dependence for success on the

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Page 160 talents and skill of the experienced slave forge workers, and to a lesser degree on the labor of unskilled slave hirelings, altered the stereotypical master-slave relationship. Both groups had leverage over the “master.” Because skilled forge workers were rare, the ironmaster had to treat them with special care, and humor at least some of their demands. Beatings would have resulted in minimal output, careless work, and possibly sabotage; selling them would create vacancies that would be difficult to fill. Instead, Weaver used inducements: “overwork” (work above a daily quota) received cash bonuses, store credits, or time off. The most valued and skilled slaves also learned that they could occasionally decline overwork, feign sickness, or simply loaf, so long as their slacking-off was not excessive. The scarcity of hired slaves also resulted in moderation of their treatment at Buffalo Forge. Contracts were by the year, and owners were reluctant to hire out their property to employers accused by the slaves of previously mistreating them. In other words, whether an ironmaster was able to hire an adequate workforce depended on his reputation among the slaves. In the end, the work done, the conditions endured, and the rewards received by slaves in ironworks in the South, differed little than those for free ironworkers in the north. What was different was the ultimate and arbitrary power of the ironmaster over his slaves.He controlled whom they married, where they lived, the jobs they would do, and how they might be punished. Finally, at any time for any whim or reason, he could sell them, separating husbands and wives, or parents and children. James D. Norris in Frontier Iron: The Maramec Iron Works, 1826–1876 (Madison, Wis., 1964) recounts the history of the first major ironworks in Missouri. Its founder, Thomas James, was a wealthy Ohio merchant-capitalist and one of that state’s foremost iron producers. In the 1820s he decided to shift his operations to a most promising site for iron production in the newly established state of Missouri. The potential there for ironmaking, however, was offset by its remoteness from settlement. Located in “one of the most formidable wildernesses in the Ozark highlands,” the problems of securing an adequate supply of labor and moving the iron to market would persist throughout its halfcentury of operation. Fortunately James had adequate capital to get started. This involved financing the purchase of 10,000 acres of forestland, moving heavy equipment, workers, and supplies to the site, erecting what was then a state-of-the-art ironworks, amassing the needed raw materials, and maintaining the project until the first iron was poured.

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Page 161 On the remote frontier there were no skilled ironworkers to be hired, few available unskilled laborers, and no supplementary businesses to support the endeavor. To secure skilled ironworkers, James paid higher wages and the cost of travel to the worksite. He also promised steady employment and provided housing, firewood, and garden tracts. For unskilled work he found slaves more dependable than free laborers, and accordingly both bought and hired slaves for mining and woodchopping. However, a number of hired slaves ran away, and their owners refused to return them. As the area became more settled, farmers and farmboys became available for woodcutting, and James contracted out mining operations, leaving the labor problems to the contractors. Transportation by water was the cheapest way to get iron to market. Unfortunately, however, the nearby Meramac [sic], Gasconade, and Osage Rivers for long seasons were too shallow for navigating power-driven boats, and smaller keelboats were costly because they carried so little iron. Ox- and mule-powered wagons, though costly to operate, were used where or when water transport was unavailable. James worked to promote improved transportation, especially railroads, but he failed to recognize that even as the railroads eased his transportation problems they were opening his once near-monopoly to competition from the East. James’s son William took over ownership and management of the works by the 1850s. During a prosperous period from the onset of the Civil War until the Panic of 1873, he undertook to rebuild, expand, and modernize the Maramec Ironworks. Unfortunately, the Panic brought a dramatic decline in iron prices caught him already saddled with debt. In 1877 the business was sold at a sheriff’s sale.

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Page 163 Notes Chapter 1: The Setting 1. The Juniata district embraced all or parts of five counties: Blair, Centre, Clinton, Huntingdon, and Mifflin. In 1850 it had 48 furnaces, 42 forges, and 8 rolling mills, most of which were in Huntingdon and Centre Counties. 2. Most ‘‘mountains” in this area of Pennsylvania are not single mounts or peaks but long, high ridges that run for miles with only occasional gaps caused by penetrating streams. Bald Eagle Mountain, for example, extends the entire length of Centre County and beyond, from near Altoona to Williamsport, a distance of about 90 miles. 3. E. V. d’Villiers, The Geology of Centre County: Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report of Progress, T4 (Harrisburg, 1884) (hereafter Geology of Centre County), 6–14, 24–27. 4. Ibid., 24, 30, 257. For the forests, see Atlas of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1989), 52. 5. Based on Paul A.W.Wallace, Indians in Pennsylvania, 2nd ed. (Harrisburg, 1981), 10–17, 88–166; Barry C. Kent, Susquehanna’s Indians (Harrisburg, 1984), 1–108; Peter C. Mancall, “The Revolutionary War and the Indians of the Upper Susquehanna Valley,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 12, no. 1 (1988): 39–57. 6. Both treaties were between agents of Pennsylvania and the Six Nations (the confederation of the five Nations of Iroquois and the Tuscaroras). 7. The exact year of Potter’s exploration of the Bald Eagle is disputed, but John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1883) (hereafter History of Centre County),7, concludes that 1759 is correct. By that year numerous white explorers and settlers had plied the West Branch of the Susquehanna and were aware of both the Bald Eagle Creek and the Indian trail beside it, which ran from Great Island via Bald Eagle’s Nest (at present-day Milesburg) to Frankstown. 8. Linn, History of Centre County, 2–3, 7–8. For a biographical sketch of Potter, see ibid., 402–3. 9. Ibid., 8–15. 10. Philip Vickers Fithian,Journal, 1775–1776, ed. Robert Greenhalgh Albion and Leonidas Dodson (Princeton, N.J., 1934), 82–83. 11. Ibid., 85–87. 12. Linn, History of Centre County, 17–20. 13. Ibid., 26–27, 230, 367; published Federal Census, 1800. 14. For the early development of ironmaking in Pennsylvania, see Gerald G. Eggert, The Iron Industry in Pennsylvania (Camp Hill, Pa., 1994), 15–35. For the period before 1800, see Arthur Cecil Bining,

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Page 164 Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century (Harrisburg, 1938), and for a more detailed general account, Robert B. Gordon, American Iron, 1607–1900 (Baltimore, 1996). 15. Sylvester K. Stevens (revised by Philip S. Klein), The Centre Furnace Story: A Return to Our Roots (State College, Pa., 1985), 1–14. For Benner’s operations, see Linn, History of Centre County, 178–79, 256–57. 16. Bining, Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture, 190–91. Chapter 2: Curtin Comes to the Bald Eagle Valley 1. The best traditional family account is by Roland Curtin’s nephew, Dr. Roland G. Curtin of Philadelphia (son of Dr. Constans Curtin, 1783–1842), in “Genealogy of Curtin Family,” Centre County Historical Library, Bellefonte, Pa. (hereafter CCHL). A much later descendant of Roland, George Potter Curtin, details the research he did on the family history in Ireland in a letter to “Aunt Kas,” March 17, 1984, copy in Curtin Mansion Archives (hereafter CMA), Curtin Mansion, near Milesburg, Pa. 2. The United Irishmen insurrectionary movement, aided by the French, produced much trouble for British authorities throughout Ireland during the 1790s. 3. All information on “MacCurtin” and the Irish College in Paris is from Richard Hayes, Ireland and Irishmen in the French Revolution (London, 1932), chap. 4. For the names of Irish students after August 1792, see ibid., 58; for the incident involving the detaining of MacCurtin and twelve other Irish students, see ibid., 64. 4. Dr. Roland G. Curtin letter, CCHL. 5. 1936 newsclipping found in photo album of Curtin Mansion, Eagle Ironworks Site File, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), Harrisburg. 6. Certificate of Naturalization for Roland Curtin, September 13,1802, Court of Common Pleas, Centre County Courthouse, Bellefonte, Pa. (hereafter CCCH). 7. Mahlon R. Hagerty Jr., “A History of Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, 1797–1860” (master’s thesis, The Pennsylvania State University, 1942), 3–10. See also S. B. Row, ‘‘History of Philipsburg,” in Illustrated Souvenir History of Philipsburg, Pennsylvania (Williamsport, Pa., 1909). 8. The map, prepared in 1813 by George Schultz, son of one of Philipsburg’s earlier settlers, hangs at the Philipsburg Historical Association. 9. Ledgers of the Philips Company, 1797–1801, Philipsburg Historical Association; Receipt Book, box 1, Trcziyulny Collection, MG–128, State Archives, PHMC. 10. Linn, History of Centre County, 231–32, 235. 11. Certificate of Naturalization, CCCH; Criminal Dockets, bills no. 2, 5, and 6, November session, 1802, and January session, 1804, CCHL. These documents were called to my attention by one of my students, M. Elizabeth Barker. 12. For offices held by Curtin, see Linn, History of Centre County, 54, 165, 187, 325. 13. See [Dr. Roland G. Curtin], “A Brief History of Constans Curtin …,” Curtin family folder, CCHL. For Mary Curtin Brew (Mrs. Thaddeus), see Linn, History of Centre County, 181. 14. Unrecorded poll deed, folder C1, and unrecorded deeds, folder C2, CMA; Deed Books B165, D39, K335, K336, K337, K338, K342, K343, Office of Register of Deeds, CCCH, Bellefonte, Pa. (hereafter Deed Book[s]). 15. Articles of Agreement with James Green, folder B1, CMA; Roland Curtin to Judge James Potter, March 7, 1803, quoted in Linn, History of Centre County, n. 1, 261–62. 16. Deed Book D172–73; Orphan’s Court Docketbook A, 59, 63, 90, 103, CCCH. 17. See J. Marvin Lee Notebooks, 4:103; typescript, First Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, “Church History and Records,” CCHL.

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Page 165 Chapter 3: Founding the Eagle Ironworks 1. This Andrew Boggs should not be confused with the original settler of Centre County who lived somewhat earlier. 2. Moses Boggs and Elizabeth Antes were married on February 26, 1812. Spangler Family Notebook 92, CCHL. For information on Philip Antes, see Linn, History of Centre County, 48, 176, 261. Antes’s gristmill and sawmill stood where “Antes Run” (subsequently renamed “Nittany Creek”) flowed into the Bald Eagle from the south. The name “Antes Run” was subsequently given to a nearby stream entering the Bald Eagle from the north. 3. Deed Books C380, C381, E144, CCCH. 4. For a fuller but still brief account of forge operations, see Eggert, Iron Industry in Pennsylvania, 11–14. For the workers, see Time Books, 1820–27, reel 10, Curtin Ironworks Papers, microfilm copy, Pattee Library, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. (hereafter CIP). The originals are at the PHMC. 5. Linn, History of Centre County, 34, 49,63. 6. Curtin to U.S. Treasury Secretary Louis McLane, April 18, 1832, in Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States (reprint, New York, 1969), 3:290 (hereafter McLane Report). 7. In that era of scarce currency, merchants accepted the notes (promises to pay) of customers, which they in turn could exchange for goods from other merchants willing to accept them. However, they could also, for a fee, “discount’’ them for cash at a bank. 8. Linn, History of Centre County, 52–53. 9. Manuscript ledger of the Centre Bank of Pennsylvania, in the possession of Hugh Manchester, Bellefonte, Pa. 10. For Andrew’s relationship to Curtin, see Bellefonte Democratic Watchman, September 13,1901. 11. Tussey Furnace Account Book, reel 8, CIP. How this record came into the possession of Roland Curtin is not known. 12. Bar Iron Accounts, 1815–28, reel 10, CIP. 13. For iron trade on the Susquehanna, see James Weston Livingood, The Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Rivalry, 1780–1860 (New York, 1947); for the Pittsburgh market, see John N. Ingham, Making Iron and Steel: Independent Mills in Pittsburgh, 1820–1920 (Columbus, Ohio, 1991). 14. Rush to Curtin, March 19, 1806, folder A6; two mortgages, Curtin to Rush, dated June 6,1813, each for $1,468, providing respectively for repayment of $734 by June 6, 1812 and 1813, folder Fl, CMA. See also Deed Books D226 and D229. See Warrants Book H27, 427, CCCH. 15. In 1881 ore from this mine assayed at 41.75 percent iron. See d’Villiers, Geology of Centre County, 139–43. 16. “Yellow Bank” was also known both as “Fishing Creek Bank,” because it was located near that stream, and as “Trcziyulny Farm Bank,” because of its previous owner. 17. Deed Books E144, E198, and K345, CCCH. 18. Deed Books D68, El98, K345, and K346, CCCH. See also unrecorded deed for the land purchased at a sheriff’s sale, dated April 30,1818, CMA. 19. Articles of Agreement, November 5, 1821, folder Bl; “Memorandum for lands given by W. Wilson,” May 8, 1823, folder A7; and “Memorandum given by W. Wilson for Lewistown” [county seat for lands that became part of Centre County in 1800], folder A9, CMA. 20. Gregg to Curtin, undated memorandum 1818, folder A6, CMA. The document was a neatly drafted but unsigned and undated judgment bond to back a loan of $6,364, payable by June 1, 1819. Whether Curtin borrowed the money and signed a copy that he gave to Gregg, or only considered that option, is not known. 21. Deed Books E144 and E198 and Warrant H67, 427, CCCH. For the breakup with Boggs, see Linn, History of Centre County, 56. For the buyout of Boggs, see Deed Book K347, CCCH.

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Page 166 22. Hugh Laird Curtin (last master of the ironworks), typescript, titled “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921: A Typical Cold Blast Charcoal Iron Operation” (1935), 2 (copy in CMA and published in slightly revised form in the Bellefonte Keystone, April 22, 1937). The quoted passage was borrowed without attribution and cut in length from an article by Robert Valentine in D. S. Maynard’s Industries and Institutions of Centre County (Bellefonte, Pa., 1877), 64. 23. Reel 10, CIP. 24. The exact location of this house, and whether it came with the land when Curtin bought the property or whether he built it when he erected the furnace in 1818, is not known. As late as August 6, 1819, Curtin’s residence (as shown on deeds and other public records) was given as Bellefonte, and between March 19, 1821, and April 17, 1830, it was given as Howard Township. The obituary of his daughter Nancy [Democratic Watchman, November 14,1900] reported that she “was born [May 4,1828] at the old Furnace home that stood between the rolling mill and the Forge during the early iron making days at Curtin.” The failure to mention its nearness to Eagle Furnace was probably because that structure had been torn down more than fifty years before the obituary was written. 25. Deed Books K348, K349, F618, K350, G348, CCCH. 26. Chronological file, folder A8, August 1, 1827, CMA. 27. “Providential Escape, January 22, 1824, a partial account of the accosting of Eagle Ironworks clerk James Curtin by an unfriendly team driver,’’ reel 10, CIP; obituary of Roland Curtin Jr., Democratic Watchman, August 22, 1875. 28. Although Curtin himself referred to the arrangement and it is repeatedly mentioned in accounts of the family and the works, it was at best an understanding, not a partnership. When Curtin finally did turn the business over to all six of his sons by formal Articles of Agreement in 1848, the 1828 arrangement was not dissolved, bought out, or mentioned, and the three younger sons were treated as equals with the older “associates.” Chapter 4: Operations at the Eagle Ironworks 1. Except where otherwise indicated, the following account of charcoal-making rests heavily on Gordon, American Iron, 33–44; on H. L.Curtin, “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” CMA; and on data scattered through the records of the Eagle Ironworks, CIP. For an excellent illustrated account, see Jackson Kemper III, American Charcoal-Making (1941) republished by the National Park Service in 1987 as a twenty-five-page booklet. 2. For the yield of wood per acre, see Frederick Overman, The Manufacture of Iron, 3d ed. rev. (Philadelphia, 1854), 84. 3. In 1831 Curtin sold 625 tons of bar iron from his forge. Using the fuel/product weight ratio of 1.2 to 1 (see ibid., 280), the forge would have consumed 750 tons of charcoal to refine that amount of iron. Because charcoal on average weighed 16 pounds to the bushel, 93,750 bushels would have been used. Again, each cord of wood produced about 30 bushels of charcoal and each acre of forest yielded about 30 cords of wood, thus requiring 104 acres of forest for forge operations that year. 4. Ibid., 84. 5. These figures are calculated from averages: two-thirds of an acre per day of furnace operation for 300 workdays per year, plus the charcoal consumed by the forge at the ratio of 1.2 tons of fuel per ton of bar iron (see note 3 above). In addition, the Curtins and their employees would have used a considerable amount of wood for heating and cooking. 6. H. L. Curtin, “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” 5. Most sources say colliers were among the highest-paid employees at the ironworks. Four Curtin employees engaged in coaling in 1850 (probably colliers) received daily wages of about $1.50, or 50 percent more than the others who were probably their helpers. See Journal, reel 2, CIP.

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Page 167 7. The account books show that employees were sometimes hired to haul leaves to the pits during coaling. 8. H. L. Curtin, “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” 5. 9. D’Villiers, Geology of Centre County, 139–40, 145–46. 10. Robert Valentine, “The Iron Interests,” in D. S. Maynard, Industries and Institutions of Centre County, 62–74, esp. 65–66. In later years ore was put through “washers” that consisted of two big logs with blades of iron. The two turned in opposite directions, with water flowing over the operations. A boy sat close by, picking out as much flint as possible. For later operations, see transcript of reminiscences of Keith Stewart, March 12, 1979, CMA. 11. H. L. Curtin, ‘‘Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” 6. See also Eggert, Iron Industry in Pennsylvania, 5–11. 12. Time Books, 1840–43, reel 10, CIP. Similar detailed records for the new Pleasant Furnace in 1848 show it blowing out on September 20 (three weeks after its initial blast), October 24, and November 6. In 1849 it blew out on May 1 June 29, August 16, and November 12 and 26. New hearths were also put in on October 24, 1848; January 2, July 18, and November 5, 1849; and January 1, 1850. See Time Books, reel 11, CIP. 13. H.L.Curtin, “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” 6–7. 14. Valentine, “Iron Interests,” 69, pages 69–70 of which give an excellent short account of the functioning of refining forges. For what follows I also depended on E. N. Hartley, Ironworks on the Saugus (Norman, Okla., 1957), 176–79; Gordon, American Iron, 125-33; Overman, Manufacture of Iron, 243–59. For information related directly to Eagle Forge, in addition to CIP, I used Vance Packard and John Tyler, “Report on the Archaeological and Historical Work at the Eagle Iron Works, Curtin, Pennsylvania,” prepared for the PHMC preparatory to restoration work beginning in 1968 (hereafter Packard and Tyler, “Archaeological and Historical Report”). A copy is filed with the CMA. 15. Forge Time Book, reel 10, CIP. 16. For Centre County ironmasters on markets, see McLane Report, 3:271–97. 17. For such petitions and maps, see Centre County Clerk of Court Roads Papers, 1801-50, CCHL. For roads and bridges to Curtin properties, see 1829, Petition 8 (November 25), “For a Road to Curtin’s Furnace”; 1831 (December term), for a road from opposite and near the gristmill and sawmill owned by Roland Curtin to Frederick Antes’s sawmill; 1833 (August term), “For a road between Packer Lucas & Co.’s Coal Bank and the Eagle Forge”; and 1836, Petition 1 (November term), for a bridge across the Bald Eagle Creek from near Eagle Ironworks to the public road running up and down the Bald Eagle Valley. 18. Linn, History of Centre County, 168, 170; Bellefonte Patriot, June 9, 1821; Bellefonte Democratic Whig, August 14, 1841. 19. Forge Time Book entry,January 13, 1823, reel 10; Blotter entry, May 1, 1830, reel 1, CIP; obituary of Roland Curtin Jr., Democratic Watchman, August 22, 1875. 20. Linn, History of Centre County, 167; folder A4, CMA. 21. Bar Iron, Pigs and Ancony Accts, 1819-28, reel 10; and Forge Blotter Books, 1829–40, reel 1, CIP. 22. Linn, History of Centre County, 167. 23. Ibid.; reel 11, CIP. 24. Blotter, reel 1, CIP. Chapter 5: Life on the “Iron Plantation” 1. See Eggert, Iron Industry in Pennsylvania, chaps. 3 and 4. The term “iron plantation” was derived not from their similarity to the large cotton or tobacco farms worked by slaves in the South but from the historical meaning of the term as the establishment or planting of a new enterprise, settlement, or colony in a new and remote area (such as the Pilgrims’”Plymouth Plantation” in Massachusetts).

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Page 168 2. McLane Report, 3:289. 3. For the housing at Eagle Furnace and the rolling mill, see the map accompanying the petition for building “a road to Curtin’s Furnace,” November 25,1829, Petition 8, Roads Papers, 1801–1956, Centre County Records, CCHL. 4. Linn, History of Centre County, 26 1. 5. Ibid., 266; Deed Book M280, CCCH. 6. For items and prices of purchases by the store and sales to its customers, see the Eagle Forge Blotter Books, 1829–40, reels 1 and 2, CIP. 7. 1850 Journal, reel 2, CIP. 8. H. L. Curtin, “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” 4; records of “beeves” killed and pork received, and individual store accounts, CIP; Mary Frances Ward, The Durable People: The Community Life of Curtin Village Workers, 1810–1922 (Howard, Pa., 1987), 31–36. Because Ward’s paternal grandparents lived in the village, she visited there frequently. For her book she used the CIP extensively. 9. Repeated instances of each type are in the Blotter for the 1820s–1840s and in the Journal for the 1850s. A specific example of subscriptions for the church is in the Blotter for April 2, 1830, and theJournal for January 20, 1849, and August 27, 1850. For schooling, see Journal, July 10 and 12, 1850; for aid to the ill, see reels 1 and 2, CIP, about $20 raised on July 27, 1850, to pay Dr. Green for medicine forJ. R. Bathurst. 10. Journal, reel 2, CIP. 11. Election payments were made on November 26, 1849, and October 21, 1850, among other times (ibid.). 12. In 1850 two white girls (Ellen McCiviston, age nineteen, and Margaret Glenn, age thirteen) lived in the household of Roland Curtin Jr. Brother John Curtin and family had a sixteen-year-old, Sarah Hubler. Living next door was brother James Curtin, a bachelor, who shared his home with William Alexander (one of the company’s clerks), and a black house servant named Thomas Turner. In 1870 John Curtin’s household included a twenty-five-year-old black “hostler” named James Carter. 13. H.L. Curtin, ‘‘Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921,” 4. 14. Ibid., 6. Apparently the man was accidentally killed by a horse. Chapter 6: Years of Expansion 1. Linn, History of Centre County, 68, 72–75, 86. 2. McLane Report, 3:289–90. 3. Based on the responses of Centre County ironmasters, ibid., 271–97, and Curtin’s response to the tariff issue, ibid., 291–92. 4. Livingood, Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Rivalry. 5. Linn, History of Centre County, 170. 6. Folder A11,CMA. 7. Folder A13.CMA. 8. For example, see Forge Time Books for 1843–47, reel 11, CIP. 9. The new technology is discussed in greater detail in Eggert, Iron Industry in Pennsylvania, chap. 4. See also Overman, Manufacture of Iron, and Gordon, American Iron. 10. Memorandum of Agreement with Malone, February 2, 1829, and receipt signed by Malone dated November 13, 1830, Correspondence file, reel 1, CIP; deed dated August 15, 1832, Deed Book 1513, CCCH. 11. Articles of Agreement with Lewis, March 24,1829, folder B2, CMA. Lewis came, but how long he remained is not known. 12. Table of Rolling Mills in Eastern Pennsylvania, prepared for Convention of Iron Masters, Philadelphia, December 20, 1849, in “Documents Relating to the Manufacture of Iron in Pennsylvania,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 51 (1851), following p. 72 (hereafter Ironmasters’ Report 1849); copy in

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Page 169 CMA. Compare with Manufacturing Schedule, U.S. Manuscript Census for 1850, available on microfilm at various libraries, CMA. For the later equipment, see “Prospectus of the Eagle Iron Works Property,” ca. 1888, CMA, 7. 13. For example, see Rolling Mill Table, Ironmasters’ Report 1849; and “Prospectus,” 7. 14. From obituary of Constans Curtin, Democratic Watchman, October 9, 1895. 15. The figure of 1,700 additional acres comes from a detailed listing in a sheriff’s sale advertisement for the property in the Bellefonte Centre Democrat, July 5, 1848. 16. George Billington to Curtin,January 29, 1819, chronological file, folder Ml, CMA. The Billington Estate was only one of several tied up in probate by quarreling heirs that Curtin tried to acquire by the same divide-and-conquer approach. Most ended badly for him in extensive controversy and litigation. 17. Deed Books K353, H334, K354, Y247; Survey Books D15, 245 and 255; Misc. Book B416; unrecorded deeds in correspondence file, reel 1, CIP dated February 18, 1832, and December 19, 1835; unrecorded deeds in CMA dated September 10, 1833, and April 14, 1835. 18. See “Prospectus.” The manuscript Federal Manufacturing Census for 1880 indicates an increase to four run of stone, a capitalization of $8,000, and a capacity of 160 bushels a day. 19. March 2, 1829–September 27, 1833, Blotter Book, reels 1 and 2, CIP. 20. For Nancy’s birthplace, see her obituary in Democratic Watchman, December 14, 1900. For Roland Curtin’s places of residence, I have used a technique suggested by my student Elizabeth Barker, who determined places of residence from deeds, articles of agreement, and other legal documents. 21. For description and pictures, see Ward, Durable People, 29–31. Ward’s grandparents were the Allens, who lived in the house early in the twentieth century. See also “Prospectus.’’ 22. Both the Martha Furnace House and the furnace ruins can be seen from highway U.S. 220 immediately northeast of Port Matilda, Pa. 23. W. Ross Yates, “Discovery of the Process for Making Anthracite Iron,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 98 (1974): 206–23; >Gordon, American Iron, 155–58. Chapter 7: Roland Curtin, the Final Years 1. McLane Report, 3:289. 2. See Deed Books N2, 439; N95, 270; K2,602; K97; X2,334; X2, 336; and Y, 247, CCCH. 3. “Prospectus,” 3–4, CMA. Although written in the 1880s, the description is helpful when land sales and other changes occurring between 1835 and 1880 are taken into account. 4. Ibid., 9. 5. The fossil ore bank is discussed only in the “Prospectus.” The lease for Harris Farm Bank was dated August 19, 1822; Deed Book E1, CMA. In 1828 Curtin bought part of the tract from the Harris estate. When he acquired the rest is not known. See Deed Book K351, CCCH. 6. D’Villiers, Geology of Centre County, 158. Pipe ore is so named because the ore appears to contain small columns or pipes of iron. 7. “Prospectus,” 10. 8. D’Villiers, Geology of Centre County, 198. 9. Linn, History of Centre County, 336. 10. The 1,800-acre total is from a detailed listing in an advertisement for a sheriff’s sale of the property, Bellefonte Centre Democrat, July 5, 1848. For the traceable purchases, see Deed Books N2, 439; N95, 270; K2,602; K97; X2, 334; X2, 336, CCCH. 11. Ironmasters’Report, 1849. 12. From the description in 1862, when the tract was again sold at a sheriff’s sale. See Sheriff’s Deed Book B, 110–13, CCHL. 13. Linn, History of Centre County, 336; obituaries of Roland Jr. and John, Democratic Watchman, August 22, 1875, and January 21, 1898. 14. Annual Huston Township Tax Assessment Books, 1840–45, CCHL, do not list Roland Jr. at all, and they list James for 1840–42, and John for 1840–45. See also Linn, History of Centre County, 336.

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Page 170 15. Simon Gratz to Roland Curtin, October 3,1833, folder A9, CMA. 16. George M. Strone to Curtin, June 25, 1835, folder A10, CMA. 17. Thomas Burnside to Thomas Astley, July 15, 1835, copy, with statements from court prothonotaries saying that no actions were pending against Curtin, CMA. 18. Mortgage Book 8,403–6, Register of Deeds Office, CCCH. 19. Calculated from Ironmasters’ Report 1849; advertisement, Bellefonte Democratic Whig, June-August 1843. 20. Both Linn, History of Centre County, 265, and “Prospectus” for Eagle Ironworks (written by one of Roland Curtin’s grandsons) say that he retired in favor of his sons in 1842. Son Andrew Gregg Curtin, who early on decided on a career in law, was at no time involved in the management of any of his father’s iron properties. 21. Dated March 3, 1843, Folder A12, CMA. 22. Bellefonte Democratic Whig, August 19, 1843. It is possible that Roland Sr. initially turned the property over to a partnership consisting of the named sons and later decided on a firm that excluded those who were involved with the debts. 23. Forge Time Book, November 18–23, 1844, reel 11, CIP. 24. Sheriff’s Execution Book 4, November 1837–November 1845, CCHL, entries for 1843. 25. Articles of Agreement, James Irvin and James Potter with John and Constans Curtin, alphabetical letter file (under James Irvin), reel 1, CIP. Irvin during the 1850s bought up some ten charcoal furnaces in Pennsylvania before coming to financial ruin during the Panic of 1857. See Stevens, Centre Furnace Story, 16–17. 26. February–May 1848, reel 10, CIP. 27. Miscellaneous Book A, 395ff., Register of Deeds, CCCH. The instrument was not registered at the courthouse until December 28, 1853 (three full years after Roland Curtin’s death), technically making it unenforceable before then. 28. Sheriff’s Deed Book A, 105, 130, CCHL; Linn, History of Centre County, 336; Martha Furnace folder Kl, CMA; Abstract of Tide, Martha Furnace premises, June 6, 1936, copy in CMA. 29. Table 1 includes as many individual Roland Curtin land transactions as could be traced in the county deed books for the years 1796–1850. They usually gave the date, the names of buyer and seller, the acreage, the selling price, and a boundary description. Sometimes the title was traced and the names of neighboring landowners were given. The boundary descriptions of this period—such as “starting at a walnut stump on the left bank of the Bald Eagle” to a certain pile of stones (or other such marker)— were based on landmarks that have long since disappeared and are therefore generally useless. A total of seventy purchases and forty-one sales of real estate by Curtin were found. 30. Forge Time Book, April 11–August 30, 1848, reel 11, CIP. 31. Folder C4 (deed and recital); Thomas and Rebecca Howard to Roland Curtin, October 1, 1828, folder A8, CMA. 32. Blotter Book,July 9, 1834, reel 2, CIP. 33. Deed Book K350. Where a stream served as the boundary between properties, it was customary for the dividing line to be at the center. I found no other deed where this was specifically spelled out as if it might be questioned. Chapter 8: The Curtins and Their Workforce in 1850 1. The census age of the oldest child born in the United States to an immigrant family was used to determine the approximate date of a family’s migration. Inasmuch as the Great Famine began in Ireland in 1846, families with one or more American-born children above the age of five in 1850 would have migrated before the famine. 2. Time Books, reel 11, CIP. For the general practice in Pennsylvania of banking furnaces for the Sabbath, see Gordon, American Iron, 79.

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Page 171 3. Unless otherwise indicated, this chapter is based on data from the Journal of the Curtin Ironworks for 1850 and Time Books for the same year, reels 4 and 11 respectively, C1P. 4. Based on Journal entries for all of 1850. The Curtins reported to the Ironmasters’ Convention in Philadelphia in 1849 that they had 80 furnace workers, 21 forge workers, and 10 rolling-mill workers, but in 1850 they reported 77 ironworks employees to the federal census-taker. They might have included miners and/or coalers among the ironworks employees for the earlier report. 5. Thirteen rolling-mill employees for whom there are no data have not been included. Of the 168 employees, 43 had no debits at the store. Several of these were miners and woodcutters who lived some distance from the store, some were sons whose wage credits were consolidated with those of their fathers, and several were short-term transient workers. Some of these may well have taken their wages in cash and paid cash at the store if they made purchases there. 6. Forty-five workers in 1850 ended the year owing the store. Several of them had sons living at home who had lines of credit that probably were used to offset part or all of the negative balances. Forty-four others (41 of whom were sons or probable transients) had no debits against their earnings. Only ten had wage credits exceeding $100 for the year. 7. Calculating an average consumption of timberland at the rate of 200 acres a year for forty years, Eagle Ironworks would have used up 8,000 acres (or 12.5 square miles) of timberland by 1850. But of course the rate of use was not uniform over that period. The forge began as a small operation and operated alone from 1810 until 1817. Eagle Furnace operated with the forge (now larger) from 1818 through 1837, Pleasant Furnace operated after 1848. From 1837 until 1848 only Martha Furnace was making pig iron, but its charcoal was produced on its own timberlands some 15 miles southwest of the Eagle Works. However, considerable timberland was used each year on the plantation for cooking, heating, and building materials. 8. In 1850 an additional 13 regular ironworks employees supplemented their incomes by cutting wood, coaling, and coal-flatting. 9. For information on the mountain families, I am indebted to the late Mervin Lucas, a descendant of one of those families, who was a founding member and Chairman of the Board of the Roland Curtin Foundation for the Preservation of Eagle Furnace. 10. Cutting wood at the rate of three cords a day would mean that Eakley spent an unlikely 200 days (nearly seven months) cutting wood. Four hundred cords would have required 133 days, or nearly five months. 11. Data for 1869–71 inclusive show that the Curtins got an average of 30 bushels of charcoal per cord of wood and that they made approximately twice as much charcoal each of those years as in 1850. They also show that the cost of wood-cutting rose from 40 cents a cord in 1850 to 51 cents by 1871, an increase of 27.5 percent. Inasmuch as the Curtins were running one furnace, one forge, and one rolling mill in all those years, and presumably would have used approximately similar amounts of charcoal each year, they may have obtained as much as half the charcoal they used in 1850 from independent colliers. 12. Three regular ironworks employees did a small amount of mining in 1850. 13. These figures are skewed by rolling-mill employees whose names were obtained from the census and tenant rolls rather than the Time Books. The Time Books would probably have included some short-term and transient employees not listed in the census. Chapter 9: Curtin Village and Its Families 1. The description of Curtin Village homes and furnishings here and below are based on Ward, Durable People, 19–25. The quotation, by an unidentified woman, appeared in the Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.), May 3,1963. 2. Adapted from Ward, Durable People, 34–35. For greater detail, see the original. 3. Transcript, oral history tape of Mahlon Bathurst, February 21, 1979, CMA.

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Page 172 4. Blotter entries, July 10, 1849, and July 10, 1850, reel 2, CIP See also Ward, Durable People, 53–54. 5. Frank S. Sharp to author, December 15,1998. 6. Transcripts, oral history tapes of Mahlon Bathurst; Florence Peters, February 1, 1979, CMA. 7. Transcripts, oral history tapes of Florence Petersjohn and Trade Barnhart, February 12,1979, CMA. 8. Linn, History of Centre County, 171-72; Time Books for 1863 and 1864, reel 11, CIP. 9. Roland Post Office was established April 22,1867. It operated under a new name, “Curtin,” from May 16,1907, until it closed on May 31,1935.John Kay and Chester Smith, Postal History of Pennsylvania (University Park, Pa., 1976). 10. Transcript, oral history tape of Mary Shultz, June 8, 1979, CMA. 11. Ward, Durable People, 24; oral history tapes, CMA, passim. 12. Ward, Durable People, 25. See Gordon, American Iron, 39, 42, 43, for the environmental impact of charcoalmaking. 13. “The Bargers of Pennsylvania,’’ in The Barger Journal 1 (June 1924): 80–87, copy in CCHL. Extensive article and interview with Nancy Barger, Democratic Watchman, June 7, 1895. The mother’s claim that her son John was killed during the Civil War is contradicted by Linn, History of Centre County, 106–7,115.John also appears in Nancy’s household in the federal census schedule for 1870 and in a local directory for the year 1890. The ages of Nancy and her sons Samuel and John in the censuses of 1850 and 1870 and in the 1890 directory are all inconsistent with one another and with Nancy’s newspaper interview. See notes from Federal Manuscript Census materials, CMA. 14. Bellefonte Inquirer, August 10,1900. 15. Based on information from Charles Land Mabel B. Eater, “Descendants of Lawrence Bathurst of Pennsylvania,” typescript, genealogical file, CMA. 16. Ibid. Lawrence Bathurst’s grandparents were Sir Francis Bathurst (Fifth Baronet of Lechlade) and Lady Frances Peacock Bathurst, founding settlers of Georgia colony in 1734–35, where both died in 1736. The title passed to their oldest son, Lawrence, still in school in England. Not long afterward the younger Lawrence was kidnapped, brought to Philadelphia, and sold into indentured servitude. After his term at labor he became a tutor, married one of his pupils, and fathered several children by her. The youngest was Lawrence, who settled in the Bald Eagle Valley. A selfindulgent streak in the elder Lawrence led him to go on what he termed “frolicks,” where he engaged in excessive drinking and womanizing. Afterward he would repent and temporarily resume his life as a sober, hardworking teacher. The date of his death in England is not agreed on; some sources say 1780, others 1792. If the former, he clearly could not have been teacher at Antes Mill after 1787, in which case it probably was Lawrence the son who kept school for Philip Antes. 17. Bryan genealogical file, CMA. 18. See “The Teamster’s Story,” in The Story of Our Regiment: A History of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers, ed.J. F. Muffly (Williamsport, Pa., 1912), 482-92. 19. See Gingher Genealogical Notes, CMA, for the early years; see Ward, Durable People, 39–42, for the story of Polly; and see Time Books, CIP, for the later years. 20. Mervin Lucas et al., Our Family:The Irvin M. Lucas and Mary Ellen Schenk Lucas Family History (n.p., 1986), copy in CCHL. For the holdings of Benedict Lucas, see Linn, History of Centre County, 23–24, 27. 21. Journal and Time Books of the ironworks; Boggs and Howard Township Tax Assessment Books, CCHL; manuscript Census schedules for 1850, 1870, and 1890; obituary of Jacob Shultz, Democratic Watchman, August 18,1897. 22. Transcript, oral history tape of Mr. and Mrs. Clark Aikey, March 1,1979, CMA. Chapter 10: The Second and Third Generations 1. Forge Time Book, April 11–August 30,1848, reel 11, CIP. 2. In 1849 there were eighty-four hot-blast charcoal furnaces in operation in Pennsylvania, and about a quarter of both hot and cold charcoal furnaces used steam power. See tables in Ironmasters’ Report 1849.

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Page 173 3. Paul F. Paskoff, Industrial Evolution, Organization, Structure, and Growth of the Pennsylvania Iron Industry, 1750–1860 (Baltimore, 1983), 106. 4. The data on the furnace is from Ironmasters’ Report 1849. J. P. Lesley, Iron Manufacturer’s Guide (New York, 1859), listed the Curtins’ “Eagle Furnace,” built in 1848, as a hot-blast charcoal furnace. References to hot-blast equipment and firings are in the Journal between 1849 and 1852 and in the Time Books for 1854, 1858, and 1859, reels 2 and 11, CIP. See also Packard and Tyler, “Archaeological and Historical Report,” 8–9. 5. Time Book entries for September 16 and October 17, 1857, and February 15, 1858, cited in Packard and Tyler, “Archaeological and Historical Report,” 21. 6. Eggert, Iron Industry in Pennsylvania, 52–63. In the early 1880s two Centre County firms, Collins Brothers and Valentine & Company, erected large-scale modern/* 100-ton furnaces fueled with coke, but both proved unprofitable. See ‘‘Industries of Centre County” (address delivered by H. C. Valentine, February 10, 1914, copy in CMA). 7. Eggert, Iron Industry in Pennsylvania, 64–92. 8. Calculated from the 1870 Census, vol. 3: Wealth and Industry (Washington, D.C., 1871), 601-8. 9. Harold C. Livesay, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (Boston, 1975), 88. 10. Deciding early on a career in law and politics, young Andrew Gregg Curtin attended academies at Bellefonte, Harrisburg, and Milton before enrolling in the Law Department of Dickinson College at Carlisle. Admitted to the bar in 1837, he became active in politics by 1840 and held a number of appointive and elective offices before being elected the Commonwealths first Republican governor in 1860. His two terms, ending in 1866, ran through the Civil War. Obituary, Democratic Watchman, October 10,1894. 11. Letter of Attorney, September 3, 1857, Miscellaneous Book 13,183–84, CCCH. 12. 1860 Federal Manuscript Census for Boggs Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania. In 1870 Austin listed his occupation as “farmer” and reported holdings of $15,000 worth of real estate and $1,500 in personal property. James could not be located in the census. John and Constans both listed themselves as ironmasters but reported no real estate or personal property holdings. Roland Jr., living that year in Bellefonte, called himself an iron manufacturer and reported holding $36,000 worth of real estate and $8,000 worth of personal property. 13. Time Books, 1860–61, reel 11, CIP; Linn, History of Centre County, 99–107. 14. Flora A. Curtin, comp., “Record of Family of Roland Curtin and Descendants,” copies in CMA and Curtin file, CCHL. 15. The service records of Centre County veterans of the Civil War are in Linn, History of Centre County, 106–43. For greater details, see Alien D. Albert, ed., History of the 45th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1861-65 (Williamsport, Pa., 1912), and J. F. Muffly, ed., A History of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Des Moines, Iowa, 1904). 16. Jarvis, “Eagle Mills: Effect of Civil War.” 17. Notation at end of recorded mortgage, Mortgage Book B, 406, CCCH; obituary of Constans Curtin, Democratic Watchman, October 4, 1895. 18. Articles of Agreement between James Curtin and Roland, John, and Constans Curtin, August 26, 1864, reel 1, CIP. For a copy of the original agreement with Austin, see his Estate Papers, no. 683, CCHL. 19. Articles of Agreement between Constans Curtin and Austin Curtin et al., Miscellaneous Book E, 362–63, CCCH. 20. Estate Papers of Constans Curtin, no. 6488, CCHL; Will of John Curtin, reel 1, CIP. 21. Obituaries of Harry Curtin, Democratic Watchman and Keystone Gazette, January 22, 1909. 22. See bar iron price tables in Swank, History of Iron Manufacture, 514. 23. For the turbines, see “Prospectus,” CMA. For the output of the forge in 1856, see Lesley, Iron Manufacturer’s Guide, 175; for 1870, see federal manuscript census, manufacturing schedules; for 1880, see Directory of Iron and Steel Works of U.S., 176; for 1883, see Linn, History of Centre County, 265. 24. The “Prospectus” citation of the 2nd Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, published in 1884, fixes the earliest possible date of writing. See also “The Curtin Failure,” Democratic Watchman, January 10, 1890.

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Page 174 25. Time Book, reel 11, CIP. 26. The Keystone Gazette of the same date reported debts totaling $90,552 and suggested that the results would be “a few days suspension” of operations until the Curtins’ “somewhat embarrassed financial standing” was resolved. Chapter 11: From Resumption to Final Closing 1. Folders A50 to A75, passim; Andrew to Harry, September 15, 1897; Griscom & McFeely to Curtin, October 5, 1898; January 12, 1899; and April 24, 1899, CMA. For the shingle mill, see Time Book entries for December 14,1892; February 26,1893; and 1893–94, reel 11, CIP. 2. Andrew to Harry, December 1,1896; P. B. Crider to H. R. Curtin,January 28,1897, folders A61 and A62, CMA. 3. Folders A43 to A55; Pa. R.R. to H. H. Curtin, February 13, 1897; and certificate issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, January 18, 1897, both in folder A62, CMA. 4. Andrew to Harry, December 11,1896, folder A61, CMA. 5. Swank to H. R. Curtin, March 9, 1897, folder A63; Harry to J. R. Harris, October 1, 1892; Andrew to Harry, October 9, 1895, folder A51, CMA. 6. J. Swanger to H. R. Curtin, March 11, 1897, and April 5,1897, folders A63 and A64, CMA. 7. Wharton McNight to H. R. Curtin, February 20,1899, folder A76, CMA. 8. W. H. Gibbons, Pres., Parkesburg Iron Co., to H. R. Curtin, April 6, 1899; and J. Swanger to H. R. Curtin, April 1,1899, folder A77, CMA. 9. The official charter, dated July 24, 1899, and correspondence among the shareholders, August and September 1899, is in folders A79–A81, CMA. See also letter dated August 26, 1899, giving notice of the organizational meeting, alphabetical file, reel 1, CIP. 10. Notes, Time Book, reel 11, CIP. 11. Edward J. Mawhall to H. R. Curtin, April 8, 1899, folder A77; Robert E. Wright to H. R. Curtin, July 8, 1899, folder A80; and R. J. Gaffrey to H. R. Curtin, September 18, 1901, folder A89, CMA. By the end of 1903, three carloads of lake ore per week were being used; see folder A100, CMA. 12. Notes, Time Book, reel 11, CIP. 13. Kennedy to John M. Dale, December 13, 1900, folder A85, CMA. Emphasis in the original. 14. Warner to Dale, October 10; Peckitt to Dale, October 18, 1899, folder A81, CMA. 15. Warner to Curtin,january 23, 1901, folder A86, CMA. 16. Kennedy to Curtin, March 20, 1901, CMA. 17. Letters of October 20, 1899, folder A81, and August 6,1901, folder A89, CMA. 18. Letters of Warner, Payne, and Peckitt to John M. Dale, January 18–August 24, 1900, folders A83 and A84, CMA. 19. T. W Weir to Dale, September 16, 1900, folder A85, CMA. 20. Roger,Brown & Warner to Curtin, October 11, 1901, folder A90, CMA. 21. Kennedy to Dale, March 6,1901, folder A87, CMA. 22. Emphasis in the original. Weir sent two essentially similar letters on March 31, 1902, to John Dale and to “My Dear Brother in Affliction,” folder A92, CMA. 23. ‘‘An Old Plant Being Remodeled,” Democratic Watchman, May 9, 1902. 24. Warner to J. B. Thayer Jr., December 9, 1901, folder A90, CMA. 25. Weir to Dale, December 26,1902, folder A98, CMA. 26. The agreement, dated December 1, 1902, and filed under Curtin, is in alphabetical correspondence file, reel l.CIP. 27. H. R. Curtin to Andrew (copy to W. W. Curtin), June 20, 1904, folder A102, CMA. 28. Iron Trade Review 41 (September 12, 1907): 423–25. Both the source and the reliability of the information is uncertain. One of the principal stockholders may have supplied the information as a pro-

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Page 175 motional effort. There were several errors, such as the statement that “the original Curtin Furnace [i.e., Eagle Furnace]” was built in 1790, three years before Roland Curtin left Ireland for school in Paris, and the dating of the erection of Pleasant Furnace as 1828 rather than 1848. 29. Ward, Durable People, 22-25. 30. This is the central theme of David Brody’s Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era (Boston, 1960). 31. The number of employees belonging to the interrelated Barger, Bathurst, Bryan, Gingher, and Shultz families illustrates the trend. Between 20 and 25 percent of names appearing in the time book for 1850, 1860, and 1870 shared these names. The percentage rose to 42 percent in 1880, 45 percent in December 1889 (the last month before suspension), 59 percent in 1900 (the year the works reopened), 34 percent in 1910, and 48 percent in 1921 (the last few months of operations). These families also intermarried with most of the other employee families. 32. Notice dated October 1943 setting forth an account of the status of the estate following the death of Hugh Laird Curtin in 1938. Alphabetical letter file, reel 1, CIP. 33. Based on the obituary of Hugh Laird Curtin, Democratic Watchman, December 2,1938. The material on his marriage and children is from data in Flora Curtin, “Record of Family of Roland Curtin.” 34. Hugh Laird Curtin, “Gives History of Eagle Furnace at Curtin,” Keystone Gazette, April 23,1937. 35. Transcripts of oral history tapes of former employees, especially Stewart Keith, who worked at both the furnace and the forge after 1913, CMA. 36. Transcript of oral history tape, February 21,1979, CMA. 37. Transcript of oral history tape of Mr. and Mrs. Clark Aikey, March 1, 1979, CMA. 38. Time Book, reel 12, CIP. 39. Keystone Gazette, May 13,1921; Democratic Watchman, May 20,1921. 40. Margaret B. Duda, ‘‘Ironmaster’s Plantation,” Town & Gown (State College, Pa.) 21 (October 1986): 62–63, used with permission. Duda interviewed a number of members of the Curtin family for her article. The large chunk of metal at the furnace site was actually removed from the crucible when it was torn down and rebuilt during the restoration of the furnace in the late 1960s. 41. Democratic Watchman, May 20,1921. 42. Although it has been claimed that Pleasant Furnace was the last cold-blast, charcoal-fueled iron furnace operating in the United States, more accurately it was the last one in Pennsylvania. Gordon, American Iron, 114, reports at least three that ran until 1923: one in Richmond, Massachusetts; one at the Barnum-Richardson Company in Connecticut; and one at the Shelby Works in Alabama. Epilogue 1. For the account of the Curtins after 1922, I relied heavily on Margaret Duda, “Ironmaster’s Plantation.” Her work, in turn, was based on interviews with three of Hugh Laird Curtin’s children: Bud Curtin, Eliza Yeager, and Thomazine Weinstein. 2. In this he followed the pattern of his father and two Curtin uncles from the previous generation, all of whom died before reaching the age of sixty. 3. Transcript, oral history tape of Mr. and Mrs. Clark Aikey, March 1, 1979, CMA. 4. Ron Keller of Altoona in 1995 sent to the site a collection of photographs and descriptions of his family’s summer vacations at Curtin Village between 1951 and 1957. Curtin Village File, CMA. 5. Ward, Durable People, 51; interview with the late Parker Glenn (son of the last storekeeper), Mount Eagle, Pennsylvania, 1995. 6. Ward, Durable People, 49; notes by Philip S. Klein on original text, correspondence with Ward, CMA; Harry H. Curtin Jr. to author, March 24,1999. 7. Ward, Durable People, 54–56. 8. Duda, “Ironmaster’s Plantation,” 74–76.

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Page 176 9. A copy of King’s master’s thesis, “Development of a Master Plan Approach for Historic Restorations Utilizing Curtin Village as a Case Study” (The Pennsylvania State University, 1969), is in the files of the Roland Curtin Foundation, CMA. See also in the same files the revised master plan for the site prepared and adopted in 1994. 10. Copies of the agreement are in the files of the Roland Curtin Foundation, CMA.

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Page 177 Selected Bibliography MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS Centre County Courthouse, Bellefonte, Pa. (CCCH) Office of Clerk of Court: Certificates of Naturalization Orphans’ Court Records Office of Register of Deeds: Deed Books Miscellaneous Books Mortgage Books Survey Books Warrants Books Centre County Historical Library, Bellefonte, Pa. (CCHL) County Records: Criminal Court Dockets Probated Estate Papers Road Petitions Sheriff’s Deed Books Sheriff’s Execution Books Township Tax Assessment Books First Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte (Pa.). Typescript:“Church History and Records” Genealogy of Curtin Family File Curtin, Flora, comp., “Record of Family of Roland Curtin and Descendants” Lee, J. Marvin, Genealogical Notebooks Spangler Family Notebooks and Scrapbooks

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Page 178 Curtin Mansion Archives near Milesburg, Pa. (CMA) Curtin Family Manuscripts (3 boxes): Letters and Papers, 1773–1950 (chronological) Documents, 1773–1950 (by type) Curtin Family, Eagle Ironworks, Employees (1 box): Chronology, careers of Roland Curtin and sons Curtin Family Articles of Agreement, copies Curtin Family Holdings, compilation and descriptions Packard, Vance, and John Tyler, “Report on the Archaeological and Historical Work at the Eagle Iron Works at Curtin, Pa.,’’ prepared for the PHMC, 1968 Lists of employees, 1817–1922 Analysis of work, pay of employees, 1850 Federal Manuscript Census materials Materials on Ironmaking Maps Scholarly/Professional Research Reports (1 box): Curtin family Eagle Ironworks Curtin Village Curtin Village (1 box): Genealogical notes, Curtin Village families Interview transcripts of former villagers Research by Mary Francis Ward Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg (PHMC) Eagle Ironworks Site File State Archives: Trcziyulny Collection, MG–128 The Pennsylvania State University, Pattee Library, Special Collections, University Park, Pa. Curtin Ironworks Papers (CIP), 12 microfilmed reels (originals in State Archives, PHMC) Philipsburg Historical Association, Philipsburg, Pa. Ledgers, Philips Company, 1797–1801 Schultz, George. Map of Philipsburg, 1813 Private Collections Centre Bank of Pennsylvania, Ledger, in possession of Hugh Manchester, Bellefonte, Pa. PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES Convention of Iron Masters, Philadelphia, December 20, 1849, “Documents Relating to the Manufacture of Iron in Pennsylvania.” Journal of the Franklin Institute 51 (1851).

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Page 179 Curtin, H[ugh] L[aird],“Gives History of Eagle Furnace at Curtin,” Bellefonte Keystone, April 22, 1937. Slightly revised from manuscript notes of a 1935 address titled “Eagle Furnace, 1817–1921, A Typical Cold Blast Charcoal Iron Operation.” 1870 Census, vol. 3:Wealth and Industry. Washington, D.C., 1871. Fithian, Philip Vickers. Journal, 1775–1776. Edited by Robert Greenhalgh Albion and Leonidas Dodson. Princeton, N.J., 1934. Lesley, J. P. Iron Manufacturer’s Guide. New York, 1859. [McLane Report] Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States. Reprint. NewYork, 1969. Valentine, Robert. “The Iron Interests,” in D. S. Maynard, Industries and Institutions of CentreCounty, 62–74. Bellefonte, Pa., 1877. Newspapers (on file at CCHL): Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa. Centre Democrat, Bellefonte, Pa. Democratic Watchman, Bellefonte, Pa. Democratic Whig, Bellefonte, Pa. Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, Pa. Patriot, Bellefonte, Pa. SECONDARY SOURCES Atlas of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1989 Bining, Arthur Cecil. Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century. Harrisburg, 1938. “Cold Blast Charcoal Furnace in Bald Eagle Valley, Pa.” Iron Trade Review 41 (September 12, 1907), 423–25. Duda, Margaret. “Ironmaster’s Plantation.’’. Town & Gown (State College, Pa.) 21 (October 1986): 62–78. d’Villiers, E. V. The Geology of Centre County: Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report of Progress, T4. Harrisburg, 1884. Eggert, Gerald G. The Iron Industry in Pennsylvania. Camp Hill, Pa., 1994. Gordon, Robert B. American Iron, 1607–1900. Baltimore, 1996. Hagerty, Mahlon R.,Jr. “A History of Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, 1797–1860.” Master’s thesis in history, The Pennsylvania State University, 1942. Hartley, E. N. Ironworks on the Saugus. Norman, Okla, 1957. Hayes, Richard. Ireland and Irishmen in the French Revolution. London, 1932. Ingham, John N. Making Iron and Steel: Independent Mitts in Pittsburgh, 1820–1920. Columbus, Ohio, 1991. Kemper, Jackson, III. American Charcoal-Making. 1941. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service,1987. Kent, Barry C. Susquehanna’s Indians. Harrisburg, 1984. Linn, John Blair. History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1883. Livesay, Harold C. Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business. Boston, 1975. Livingood, James Weston. The Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Rivalry, 1780–1860. New York, 1947. Mancall, Peter C. “The Revolutionary War and the Indians of the Upper Susquehanna Valley.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 12, no. 1 (1988).

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Page 180 Maynard, D. S. Industries and Institutions of Centre County. Bellefonte, Pa., 1877. Overman, Frederick. The Manufacture of Iron. Third edition, revised. Philadelphia, 1854. Paskoff, Paul F. Industrial Evolution, Organization, Structure, and Growth of the Pennsylvania Iron Industry, 1750–1860. Baltimore & London, 1983. Stevens, Sylvester K. The Centre Furnace Story: A Return to Our Roots, revised by Philip S. Klein. State College, Pa., 1985. Swank, James M. History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, 1892. Wallace, Paul A. W. Indians in Pennsylvania. 2nd ed. Harrisburg, 1981. Ward, Mary Frances. The Durable People: The Community Life of Curtin Village Workers, 1810–1922. Howard, Pa., 1987. Yates, W. Ross. “Discovery of the Process for Making Anthracite Iron.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 98 (1974): 206–23.

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Page 181 Index Adams, 46 Adventists, 46 Aikey, Gilbert, 117 Alexander, William R., 87 Allegheny Mountains, 1, 163 n.2 Allen, Will, 68, 107, 115 American Iron & Steel Association, 135 American Revolution, 4–5 Antes, Elizabeth, 165 n.2 Antes, Philip, 5, 16, 21–22, 24, 44, 46, 66–67, 69, 83, 103, 112 Antes Mill School, 46–47, 113 Antes properties, 5, 16, 21–22, 46–47, 66, 165 n.2 Antes Run, 2, 24, 34, 165 n.2 anthracite coal, 69–70, 121–22 Askey, Lieutenant Thomas, 5, 13–14, 116 Askey case, 13–14, 83 Bald Eagle & Spring Creek Navigation Company, 61, 65 Bald Eagle Creek, 1–3, 12, 16, 61, 65, 74 Bald Eagle Mountain, 1-3, 21, 75, 163 n.2 Bald Eagle Township, 3 Bald Eagle Valley, 2–3, 5, 66 Bald Eagle Valley Railroad, 109 Baltimore, Md., 41–42, 61 band, 110 banking, 165 n.7. See also Central Bank ofPennsylvania Baptists, 46 Barger, 46, 87–88, 107, 114–15 Barger, Constans, 112, 126–28 Barger, George, 112 Barger, James, 112, 115, 126–27 Barger, James W., 112 Barger, John, 100, 112, 126–27 Barger, John H., 112 Barger, Nancy, 112, 175 n.31 Barger, Samuel, 112 Barger, William, 101, 112, 127–28 Barger family, 111–12, 172 n.13, 175 n.31 bar iron. See wrought iron Barnhart, Henry, 42 Barnhart, Julia. See Curtin, Julia Barnhart Bathurst, 46, 87–88, 104, 114 Bathurst, Alien, 97, 98 Bathurst, Archibald, 87, 98, 104 Bathurst, Esther, 105 Bathurst, Henry, 52, 104 Bathurst, J. S., 107 Bathurst, James H., 98, 101 Bathurst, James R., 98, 104 Bathurst, Jane, 104 Bathurst, Jesse, 113 Bathurst, Laird, 113 Bathurst, Lawrence (first in Bald Eagle Valley), 112–13, 172 n.16 Bathurst, Lawrence (teacher, Antes Mill School), 172 n.16 Bathurst, Lawrence, Sr. (woodcutter), 92, 95–97 Bathurst, Lawrence H., 98 Bathurst, Lawrence J., 98, 104, 113 Bathurst, Malcolm, 113, 146 Bathurst, Rebecca. See Curtin, Rebecca Bathurst Bathurst, Reuben, 107

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Page 182 Bathurst, Samuel, 98, 128 Bathurst, Thomas (the elder), 98, 102, 104, 113 Bathurst, Thomas (the younger), 127 Bathurst, William, 98 Bathurst family, 112–13, 172 n.18, 175 n.31 Behe, 10 Bellefonte, Pa., 2, 11–14, 43–44, 61 Bellefonte Academy, 12, 24, 54 Bellefonte Fencibles, 126 Benner, General Philip, 6.18–19 Biddle, Nicholas, 69 Big John “the Indian,” 11 Billington, Thomas, 65, 83 Billington estate controversy, 65–66, 68 blacks (Negroes), 3, 54, 168 n.12 blacksmiths, 48 blast furnaces. See furnaces and by individual furnace name blast machinery. See steam engines; turbines; waterwheels blowing in and out of furnace, 34–35, 167 n.12 Boggs, Andrew, 3–4, 16 Boggs, J., & Company, 61 Boggs, Moses, 13–16, 22, 37, 165 n.2 Boggs Township, 21, 46, 74 Boileau family, 14 Bowmaster family, 117 Brady, Daniel C.E., 159 Breon, 115 Brew, Mary Curtin (sister of Roland Curtin), 12 Brew, Thaddeus, 12 Britton, 46, 87–88 Bryan, 88 Bryan, Elber, 114 Bryan, George, 92 Bryan, Irvin, 114 Bryan, James, 114 Bryan, Jane, 113 Bryan, John, Jr., 114, 128 Bryan, John, Sr., 89, 100, 113 Bryan, Orl, 114 Bryan, Roland C., 114 Bryan, Samuel, 11, 127 Bryan family, 113–14, 175 n.31 Burns, James, 89, 97 Burnside, Judge Thomas, 77 Calahan, 46 Campbell, William B., 139 canals, 57. See also Pennsylvania State Canal System Carlow, William, 89, 92 Carnegie, Andrew, 122–23 carpenters, 48 Carter, James, 168 n.12 Catholic church and Catholicism. See Roman Catholicism Cedar Creek, 2 Central Bank of Pennsylvania, 18–19, 22 Centre County, 1, 3, 78 Centre Furnace, 6, 19 charcoal, 17, 21, 58, 62, 74, 95, 137, 140, 142. See also colliers charcoal flatting, 30 charcoal substitutes, 58, 62–63, 69–70, 121–22. See also anthracite coal; coke charging the furnace, 35 Cheesman, 88 child labor, 54–55, 91, 107

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Civil War Curtin Village recruits, 112, 114, 116–17, 126–28 impact on Eagle Ironworks, 123–28 politics, 126 Clay, Henry, 87 Clearfield County, 13, 24 Clinton County, 2, 6 clothing for workers, 48–49 coke (coked bitumininous coal), 62–63, 122 colliers, charcoal-making, 28–30, 48, 95–96 Collins Brothers Ironworks, 173 n.6 Columbia, Pa., 20, 60–61 company housing, 44, 47–48, 69. See also CurtinVillage company store, 45–46, 48, 51–52, 89, 93, 109–10, 150. See also Emporium company store records (in 1850), 86 Congress of the United States, 57–58 Cose, 88 Cox, 46 * Curtin, Andrew (nephew of Roland), 19 Curtin, Andrew Gregg (1815–94), governor (son of Jane and Roland), 14, 24, 80, 87, 123–26, 173 n.10 *The Curtins (and many other families at the time) frequently named their children for parents, grandparents, and siblings, resulting in many duplications. “Jr.” might even be added to a child named after a brother, though the name was shared by uncle and nephew rather than by father and son, as is usually the case. For example, Andrew Gregg Curtin Jr., son of Roland Curtin Jr.

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Page 183 Curtin, Andrew Gregg.Jr. (1847–1905) (son of Roland Jr.), 125–27, 129, 131, 134, 135, 141 Curtin, Austin (father of Roland), 8 Curtin, Austin (1801–71) (son of Margery and Roland), 11, 24, 52, 78–79, 87, 98, 104, 113, 123, 125–26, 129, 173 n.12 Curtin, Austin (1835–1911) (son of Roland Jr.), 125, 131 Curtin, Dr. Constans (1783–1842) (brother of Roland), 8, 12, 10 Curtin, Constans (1817–1895) (son of Jane and Roland), 14, 24, 61, 65, 78–79, 87, 119, 173 n.12 second ironmaster of Eagle Ironworks, 123–26, 129–31, 137 Curtin, Constans (1860–?) (son of Austin), 125 Curtin, Ellen. See Curtin, Honora Ellen Curtin, Eliza (daughter of Hugh Laird), 147, 150 Curtin, Eliza Irwin (1814–97) (wife of Roland Jr.), 125 Curtin, Eliza McMeen (1852–1937) (wife of Henry Roland “Harry”), 125 Curtin, George (son of Hugh Laird), 150 Curtin, Harry H., Sr. (cousin of Hugh Laird), 150–51 Curtin, Henry Roland “Harry’’ (1850–1909) (son of John), third ironmaster of Eagle Ironworks, 119, 124, 129, 131, 133–38, 140–42, 144 Curtin, Honora Ellen (daughter of Jane andRoland), 14, 89 Curtin, Hugh Laird (1882–1938) (son of Henry Roland “Harry”), last ironmaster of EagleIronworks, 35, 55, 124, 133, 144–47, 149–50 Curtin, Hugh Laird, Jr. (“Bud”) (son of Hugh Laird), 147, 150–51 Curtin, James (1806–73) (son of Margery and Roland), 11, 24, 61, 76. 78–79, 87, 123, 125–26, 129 Curtin, James (son of Hugh Laird), 150 Curtin, James B. (1840–90) (son of John), 127, 129, 131, 134 Curtin, James C. (1849–1918) (son of Roland Jr.), 125 Curtin, Jane Gregg (1791–1854) (second wife of Roland), 24, 71, 79–80, 87, 125 Curtin, John (1810–98) (son of Margery and Roland), 11, 24, 52, 76, 78–80, 87, 107, 123–25, 129, 131–32, 173 n.12 Curtin, John C. (1879–1956) (son of Henry Roland “Harry”), 125 Curtin, John Gregg (1852–90) (son of John), 125, 129, 131, 134 Curtin, John Irwin (son of Roland Jr.), 117, 125–27 Curtin, Joseph M. (1876–1950) (son Henry Roland “Harry”), 125 Curtin, Julia (daughter of Jane and Roland), 14, 87 Curtin, Julia Barnhart (1811–90) (wife of John), 125 Curtin, Katherine (daughter of Henry Roland “Harry”), 137 Curtin, Katherine Wilson (1821–1903) (wife of Governor Andrew Gregg), 125 Curtin, Lawrence (1852–?) (son of Austin), 125 Curtin, Margery (daughter of Jane and Roland), 14, 87 Curtin, Margery Gregg (1780–1813) (first wife of Roland), 11, 14, 125 Curtin, Martha (daughter of Jane and Roland), 14, 87 Curtin, Martha P. Gregg (wife of Dr. Constans), 12 Curtin, Mary (daughter of Hugh Laird), 150 Curtin, Mary O’Laughlin (mother of Roland), 8 Curtin, Myron S. (1854–57) (son of Governor Andrew Gregg), 125 Curtin, Nancy (daughter of Jane and Roland), 14, 68, 87 Curtin, Nancy (daughter of Hugh Laird), 150 Curtin, Orlando (son of Roland Jr.), 125, 127 Curtin, Patrick (uncle of Roland), 8 Curtin, Rebecca Bathurst (1816–1901) (wife of Austin), 87, 112–13, 125 Curtin, Roland (1764–1850), 5, 27–28, 31, 35, 37, 39–48, 55, 61–63, 87, 103, 112–13, 116, 119–20, 123–25, 133, 137, 140, 144, 146, 148 appraisal of career, 82–83 bastardy charges, 12 business strategy as of 1832, 60 debt problems, 69, 71–72, 79–80 enters iron business, 15–17, 20–23 in France, 8–10 Irish origins, 8 land acquisitions, 13, 16, 20–21, 63–66, 71–72 land sales, 75, 80–81 in Philadelphia, 7, 10 in Philipsburg, Milesburg, Bellefonte, 10–14 places of residence, 169 n.20

marriages, 11, 14

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Page 184 Curtin, Roland (continued) motives for expansion, 24, 57 naturalization, 12 property holdings as of 1832, 72 public offices, 12–14 relations with sons, 24–25, 76, 78–80, 166 n.28 retirement, death, 79, 82 sharp business practices, 13–14, 21–22, 65–66, 83 tariff policy (McLane Report), 59 Curtin, Roland, Jr. (1808–75) (son of Margery and Roland), 11, 24, 41–42, 61, 65, 68, 76, 78–79, 87, 123, 125–26, 129–30, 132, 173 n.12 Curtin, Roland D. (1845–79) (son of Roland Jr.), 125 Curtin, Roland W. (1848–1907) (son of Austin), 125 Curtin, Thomazine (daughter of Hugh Laird), 150 Curtin, Thomazine Potter (1883–1958) (wife of Hugh Laird), 149 Curtin, William I. (1853–87) (son of Roland Jr.), 125 Curtin, William W. (1851–1936) (son of Governor Andrew Gregg), 125, 141 Curtin, Pa. (formerly Roland, Pa.), 172 n.9 Curtin, C., & Company, 129–30 Curtin, C. & J. Company, 78–79, 123 Curtin, James & Company, 78–79 Curtin, R., C. & J. Company, 123 Curtin & Boggs Ironworks, 15–16, 19–22, 37 Curtin, Roland, & Sons, 24–25, 78–79 Curtin Forge Company, 140–41 Curtins & Company, 130 Curtin family lifestyle, 55, 87, 149–51, 168 n.12 officers in Civil War, 126–27 relations with employees, 53–56, 143–44 transfers of Eagle Ironworks, 80–81, 120, 123–24, 140–42 Curtin farmlands, 45, 48–50, 72–74 Curtin Foundation. See Roland Curtin Foundation Curtin gristmill, 48, 66–67, 134, 150–51 Curtin Mansion, 10, 24, 66–68 Curtin Methodist Church (originally Eagle Chapel), 46, 51, 151 Curtin Mounted Rangers, 126 Curtin Narrows, 31, 114 Curtin Village, 44, 69. See also Curtin Village families after 1922 fire, 150 Civil War recruits, 126–28 diet, 106 entertainment, recreation, 110 evolution, setting, 103 households, 104–5 housing, 104, 142 medicine, 108 memories, 110–11 post office, 109, 172 n.9 women and children, 48, 54, 105–8 women’s work, 105–6 Curtin Village families, 87–88, 111–17, 143. Seealso individual family names dispersal, 111, 142–43, 150 Curtin Village School, 46–47, 51, 54, 101, 151, 172 n.16 Dale, John M., 132, 136, 138–39 Daugherty, Patrick, 98 Delany, 46 Delany, Michael, 98 Democratic Party, 58–59, depressions after War of 1812, 59 Panic of 1837, 58, 69, 78

Panic of 1857, 123 Panic of 1873, 130 Devine, 46 Doughman, Frederick, 127 Doughman, Miles. See Dukeman, Miles Dowdy’s Hole, 61, 110 Dowling, Edward, 96 drivers, 29, 48, 100, 114 Dukeman, 88, 117 Dukeman, Miles (formerly Miles Doughman), 49, 128 Dunlop, John, 13, 18 Dysart Farm Bank mine, 74 Dysert, County Clare, Ireland, 7 Eagle Chapel, 46, 83. See also Curtin Methodist Church Eagle Forge, 16–20, 37, 44, 77, 132, 140–41 Eagle Furnace, 20–24, 32, 44, 76–77 Eagle Guard, 126–27 Eagle Iron Company (formerly Eagle Ironworks), 137–47 employee relations, 137, 142–44 final closing, 137, 147–48 with Ironmaster Hugh Laird Curtin, 144–47

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Page 185 problem with Curtin heirs, 140–42 shared responsibility, 137–40 Eagle Iron workers analysis of 1850 workforce: sources of information, 85–86; degrees of employment, 85; general characteristics, 87–88; size, subdivisions, 90–91, 94; wages, annual income, 92–93 attitudes after 1890, 133, 142–44, 146–47 characteristics, 17, 72, 45–46 relations with the Curtins, 53–56, 142–43, 146–47 Eagle Ironworks, 74, 77. See also Eagle Iron Company; Eagle Iron workers; Eagle Iron Company records agricultural calendar, 52–53 attempts to sell ironworks. 123, 132, 134–35 Civil War output, profits, 128–30 1850 work year, 89–90 final closing, 147–48 founding, 15–25 improvements, 1880–1920, 131–32, 142 reorganization and reopening, 135–37 suspension, 1890–99, 132, 133–37 under second-generation Curtins, 80–82, 119–30 under third-generation Curtins, 130–32 under Hugh Laird Curtin, 144–48 Eagle Ironworks, Curtin Village Historic Site, 151-55 Eagle Ironworks Company records, 85–86 Eagle Rolling Mill, 28, 63–65, 77, 135 Eakley, Lot, 95 Eckley, 88 education at Curtin Village, 107 Elder, Robert, 80 employees of Eagle Ironworks. See Eagle Iron workers Emporium, 109–10 Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, 8 Erie Canal, 60 Esinhour, 46 Evans, 88 farming activities, 52–53 farmland, 20–21, 45 federal manuscript census (1850), 86 fillers, 34–35, 37–38 Fithian, Philip V., 3, 4 food preparation, 105–6 foodstuff for employees, 48–50, 109–10 forges, 28, 37–38, 163 n.1 Foulk, Jonathan, 97 founder, 35 Foy, Nicholas, 95 French Revolution, 8–10 frontier living, 3–4, 10–11 Fulton, George, 98 Funk, 88Funk, George, 126, 127 Funk, John, 127 Funk, Joseph, 126, 127 Funk, William, 92, 98 furnaces, 28, 32–36, 163 n.1. See also names of individual furnaces gardens, 45, 48, 89-90, 105–7 Garret, Susan, 114 Genger, name became Gingher, 114 Genger, John, 115 Gingher, 88, 117, 154 Gingher, Adam, 115, 128 Gingher, Daniel, 114 Gingher, Emily, 115 Gingher, Haley 115

Gingher, Isaac, 115 Gingher, John, 114, 115, 128 Gingher, Melly 115 Gingher, Minerva, 115 Gingher, Polly, 114 Gingher, Sue, 115 Gingher, William, 105 Gingher family, 114–15, 175 n.31 Glenn, Jeremiah, 97, 150 Glenn, Margaret, 168 n.12 Goodfellow, 46, 88 Goodfellow, Andrew, 127 Goodfellow,Evan R., 126, 127 Grassmyer, 88 Grassmyer, Adam, 102 Grassmyer, Charles, 51, 98 Gratz, Simon, 77 Great Runaway, 5 Green, James, 13 Gregg, Andrew (U.S. Senator), 11, 12, 14, 18, 19, 22, 59, 89 Gregg, Jane (second wife of Roland Curtin), 14 Gregg, Margery (second wife of Roland Curtin), 11, 12 Gregg, Martha Potter (wife of Andrew), 14 Gregg, Martha Potter (daughter of Andrew). See Curtin, Martha P. Gregg gristmills, 3, 5, 21, 46. See also Curtin gristmill

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Page 186 Hannan, Daniel, 127 Harris, James, 24, 74 Harrisburg, Pa., 20, 41 Harris Farm Bank mine, 74 Harrison, William Henry, 87 Hay, James, 62 Holabaugh, David, 98 Hoovan, David, 104 hot air blast furnaces, 62, 120, 172 n.2 Howard, Rebecca, 82 Howard, Thomas, 82 Howard Township, 13, 21, 74, 95 Hubler, Sarah, 168 n.12 Hunter, 88 Hunter, Thornton, 96 Hunter, William, Jr., 96 Hunter, William, Sr., 96 Hutchinson, E., 61 Indians. See Native Americans Irish College of Paris, 8–10 Irish employees, 88, 96 iron industry during depression of 1837, 77–78 during and after Civil War, 119, 122–23, 135–36 origins and early growth, 5–6 shifting locations, 58, 69–70 technological change, 58, 69–70, 120–21 iron markets, general, 17–18, 135–36 ironmaster, 35, 37. See also by individual names Ironmasters 1849 convention in Philadelphia, 79 iron ore deposits, 2, 21, 31, 74–75, 138, 140 iron plantations, 43–56, 76, 122, 167 n.1 iron prices, 18, 57, 59, 61–62, 123, 128–31 iron technology, 27, 120–21 in England, 57–58, 62–63 iron trade local, 20, 39 Pittsburgh and west, 18, 20 Susquehanna and east, 20, 60–62 ironworkers (furnace, forge, and rolling-millhands), Eagle Works, 1850, 97–99 ironworks, 5–6. See also by individual names of ironworks Iroquois, 2–3 Irvin, James, 61, 79, 81 Jackson, Andrew, 59 Jacobs, 88 James, Thomas, 160, 161 James, William, 161 Johnston, 88 Jones, William, 97 Juniata iron district, 1, 163 n.1 Keith, 46 Kelley 46 Kennedy, Walter, 136, 138, 139 Kennie.H. H., 61 Kensel, 46 Kilgore, 46 King, William G., 152 Klein, Philip S., 151 Knisely, 117 Koonz, David, 42 Kuler, 88 Kuler, James, 96

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Kuler, John, 96 Kuler, Joseph, Jr., 96 Kuler, Joseph, Sr., 96 land grants, 5 Leathers, 88, 114 Lewis, Thomas C., 63, 64 limestone deposits, 2 linestone flux, 35 Little Fishing Creek, 2, 6 Lizer, 88 Lizer, John, 96 Lizer, Peter, 96 Lizer, William, 96 Lock Haven, Pa., 1, 60–61 Lock Haven & Tyrone Railroad, 108 Logan, John, 16 Logan Bank mine, 74 Logan Branch, 2–3, 6 Logan Furnace, Ironworks, 6, 16, 19–20. See also Valentines & Thomas Long, 88, 96 Lucas, 88, 96, 116, 117 Lucas, Benedict, 5, 88, 116 Lucas, Benjamin, 20, 116 Lucas, Bennet, 95, 116 Lucas, Charley, 116 Lucas, Daniel, 116 Lucas, Henry, 116 Lucas, Jesse, 116 Lucas, Joseph, 116 Lucas, Mary, 116 Lucas, Mervin, 116, 151

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Page 187 Lucas, Nick, 116 Lucas family, 116 Lyons, 117 MacCurtin, as early form of Curtin name, 8–10 Malone, Frederick, 5 Malone, Morgan, 41, 63 Malone, Richard, 82, 83 Manchester, Hugh, 151 Martha Furnace, 32, 44, 65, 72, 75–76, 79–81, 120 Martha Furnace Mansion, 68–69, 76 McCiviston, Ellen, 168 n.12 McCulloch, George, 98 McGinley, 46 McGinley, James F, 97 McGuire, 46 McKain, Robert, 98, 105 McKinley, William, 135 McLane, Thomas, 58, 59, 62, 72, 75 McLane Report, on manufactures origin, 58 response of ironmasters, 58-59 response of Roland Curtin, 59, 72 McMeen, Eliza. See Curtin, Eliza McMeen McMullen, William, 127 Meason, Isaac, 63 medicine, 108 Methodists and Methodism, 13, 46, 113. See also Eagle Chapel; Curtin Methodist Church Meyers, 46 Miles, 41 Miles, Joseph, 59, 61 Miles, Richard, 12 Miles, Samuel, 6, 24 Milesburg, Pa., 2, 11–13, 43–44 Miller, 88 Miller, William, 98 millers, 48 miners and mining, 31, 48, 96–97, 137, 140, 167 n.10 Morris, Robert, 10 mortgage of 1835, 76–77, 129 Muncy Dam, 42 Murphy, Toml., 61 Myers, Samuel, 100 Native Americans, 2–5, 11 Negroes. See blacks New York City, 60 Nittany Creek. See Antes Run Nittany Mountain, 31 Nittany Valley, 2, 13, 66 Norris, James D., 160 Nyman, 88 O’Halloran’s School, 8, 12 Old Furnace House, 22, 68, 166 n.24 Packer, 88 panics. See depressions Parsons, J., 22 Parsons, Thomas, 4 Paskoff, Paul, 120 paternalism, 55–56, 142–43 Patton, John, 6 Payne, J. M., 136, 139 Pearson, 46 Pease, 88

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Peckitt, Leonard, 136, 138–39 Pencek, Richard, 154 Pennington, Robert, 49 Penn’s Charter, 2 Penn’s Valley, 3 Pennsylvania Agriculture Department, 135 Pennsylvania Assembly, 47, 57, 135 Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, 151–54 Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 108, 135, 137 Pennsylvania State Canal System, 57 Pennsylvania Volunteers, 45th, 127 Pennsylvania Volunteers, 56th, 128 Pennsylvania Volunteers, 148th, 127 Pennsylvania Volunteers, 194th, 128 Peoples, 88 Peoples, George, 98, 105 Peters, 42 Philadelphia, Pa., 6–7, 8, 20, 60–61, 77 Philips, Henry, 10–11 Philips, James, 10 Philips, John Leigh, 10 Philips, Nathaniel, 10 Philipsburg, Pa., 10–11, 13, 60 PHMC. See Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission Pierce, John, 41 pig iron, 17, 20, 36, 63–64, 76, 142 Pine Grove Mills, Pa., 6 Pittsburgh, Pa., 20, 40–41, 63–64 plantations. See iron plantations Pleasant Furnace, 24, 32, 44, 120–22, 175 n.42 population data 1774, 3

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Page 188 population data (continued) 1790 and 1800, 5 1810 and 1820, 17 Port Deposit, Fa., 42 Port Matilda, Pa., 1 post office, Curtin Village, 109, 172 n.9 Potter, 41 Potter, Irvin, 59 Potter, James (explorer of Bald Eagle Valley), 3–4, 14, 79, 175 n.42 Potter, James, Jr., 59, 79 Potter, Martha. See Gregg, Martha Potter Potter, Thomazine. See Curtin, Thomazine Potter Potter Township, 3 Potter, W.W., 61 Presbyterian church, Bellefonte, Pa., 14 Price, 88 Price, John, Sr., 98, 105 Price, Rachel, 105 railroads, 57–60, 62, 70, 108–9, 131 railroad station at Curtin Village, 108–9 recreation, 55, 110 Red Bank mine, 31, 74, 140 reforesting, 43 ridge-runners, 95 Rock Ironworks, 6, 19, 58, 120 Roland, Pa. (later Curtin, Pa.), 109, 172 n.9 Roland Curtin Foundation, 151–55 Rolling Mill Hill House, 68 rolling mills, 57, 63, 163 n.1. See also Eagle Rolling Mill Roman Catholicism, 8–9, 12, 14, 83 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 12, 20–21, 77, 95 Russell, 46 saw mills 3, 5, 21, 46 Saxton, Samuel, 105 Sayers (Forster J.) Dam, 151 Saylor, 114 Saylor, Benjamin, 127–28 Sears, 46 self-sufficiency, 44–45 Sharp, 115 Sharp, Frank S., 107 Shay, 117 Shearer, Charles, 128 shipping costs, 41–42, 61–62 Shope, 115 Shultz, 88, 115 Shultz, Charles, 117 Shultz, Daniel E. (“Ebs”), 115, 117, 145–47 Shultz, Frank, 117 Shultz, Harry, 117 Shultz, Henry S. (“Hen”), 117, 145–46, 151 Shultz, Jacob, 102, 116, 127 Shultz, James, 117 Shultz, Joseph, 117 Shultz, William, 117, 126–28 Shultz, William H., 117 Shultz family, 116–17, 175 n.31 Sieg, William W., 152 skilled craftsmen, 48, 97 Slab Cabin Creek, 2, 6 slag, 35 Smith, J. Kelley, 95

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Smith, Joseph, 105 Smith, Joseph, Sr., 102 Snow Shoe, Pa., 122 sow and pigs molds, 36 Spring Creek, 2–3, 6, 12 Spring Township, 13, 21, 74, 96 Standford, Abraham and family, 5 Stanley, 117 steam engines, 63, 120–21 steel vs. iron, 122–23, 132 Stevens, Sylvester, 151 Stine, 88 Stockes, William, 11 store goods, 11, 19, 48–51, 109–10 Strailey, Nancy, 121 Strone, George M., 77 sundry workers, 100–102 Susquehanna River, 1, 3, 39, 60–61 Susquehannocks, 2–3 Swanger, J., 136 Swank, James M., 135 tapping the furnace, 36 Tar Hollow Bank mine, 75 tariffs and tariff politics, 57–59, 132 Tate, Nancy, 112 Taylor, 88 Taylor, James, 97 Taylor, William, 127 Taylor, Zachary, 87 Taylor mine, 138 teachers, 107, 172 n.16 teamsters. See drivers Thompson, John I., 69, 81 Thompson, Moses, 81 transporting iron

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Page 189 by arks, 41–42, 62 by canal barges, 61–62 by carts and wagons, 39–40 by horseback or mule, 38, 40 Trcziyulny, Count Charles, 10, 21, 31 treaties, of Albany and Easton, 3, 168 n.12 turbines, 131-32 Turner, Thomas, 87, 168 n.12 turnpikes and roads, 39–40, 42, 61–62 Tussey Furnace, 6, 19 Union Canal, 42 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 151 U.S. Congress. See Congress of the United States University of Dublin, 12 Valentine, Bond, 61 Valentine, Robert, 37 Valentine & Company, 173 n.6 Valentine brothers, 112 Valentines & Thomas (formerly Logan) Ironworks, 20, 63, 78, 112 Van Valkenberg, F. A., 136, 139 wages, 41–42, 61–62, 142, 144 Wagner, N.H., 139 Walker, 88 Walker, Adam, 98 Ward, Mary Frances, 111 Warner, John M., 136, 138, 139, 140 Washington Furnace, 6, 19 waterwheels, 17, 20, 34, 62, 64, 120 Watkins, 88, 96 Weaver, William, 159–60 Weir, T.W., 139–40 Welch, Sarah, 105 Whig Party, 58–59 whiskey, 11, 13, 48, 116 White, 46, 88 White, Martha, 105 White, William, 98 White, Zebulon, 105 Williams, James, 98 Wilson, Katherine I. See Curtin, Katherine Wilson Wilson, Margaret, 13 Wilson, Thomas, 80 Wilson, William, 21, 83 woodcutters and woodcutting, 28, 48, 95, 116 woodlands, 2, 6, 20–21, 77, 134 worker villages. See company housing workhours/workdays/days per year, 28–29, 31, 35, 52–53, 89–90 Wortz, 4612-fjkl;’kl wrought iron, 17, 19–20, 37–38 Yellow Bank mine, 21, 31, 63–64, 74, 165 n.16 Zeigler, 46

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