An iron furnace in Millville!?

[BarryC]

Hey. Look what information I just found.
I have this booklet about Cumberland County that contains all information about the county from Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey (1861) and New Jersey- a Guide to its present and past (1946).
So, in the Millville Township section of the Historical Collections section, (yes, a township) it says this: "Millville is at the head of tide, and principally on the E. bank of Maurice river, 20 miles from its mouth, and 11 E. of Bridgeton. The village and vicinity consists of about 150 dwellings, and 1 Baptist, 1 Methodist, and 1 Presbyterian church." Then it says this regarding an engraving on the same page: "The following view was taken on the western bank of the river, a short distance above the bridge. On the left are seen the extensive glass-works at Shutterville, in the lower part of the village. There is also near the village an iron furnace, belonging to D. C. Wood, Esq. These three establishments unitedly emply about 300 men."
So there was an iron furnace at Millville! (or at least just outside it)
Didn't Al (manumuskin) say one time that he found a site that he thought reminded him of a furnace site, that was in or near Millville?
Al, are you reading this?
Renee, what do you think of this and where it might be?
Of course this glass-works at Shutterville could be another place to look for too.
I love these 2 booklets for all the little tidbits of information in them. (I have one for Atlantic County too.)
I got them off Ebay, but now they sell the booklets off a website too. I think it's http://www.aplusprint.com/
Barry

 

[Ben Ruset]

Gordons also agrees with this. They name D.C. Wood as well. I would imagine that's where the author got their information.

 

[bach2yoga]

Seems I got that somewhat backward.
Benjamin Jones bought from Budd in 1812, then in 1818 sold to Mark Richards and Howell who sold to Isaac Townsend.
In 1820 Richard Wood and George Bacon bought half of Manumuskin Manor (i.e., Budd's furnace) and then a couple more transactions, and eventually it was sold to R.D. Wood. (For whom R.D. Wood School was named).
Renee

 

[bach2yoga]

Gordon's....
contains about 60 dwellings, 2 taverns (boy now adays that's a tavern every other block!), 4 or 5 stores, a furnace belong to Mr. D.C.Wood and extensive glass works belonging to Messrs. Burgin and Pearsall; consisting of 2 factories, 1 containing 8, and the other a 7 pot furnace, employed chiefly in the manufacture of bottles demijohns, carboys, and the various kinds of vials used by druggists and apothecaries, giving employment from 75 to 100 workermen.

Those of you who collect bottles should really take a trip to Wheaton Village to the glass museum--you might be surprised at the value of some of the things you have found! Plus you can even make your own glass paperweight if you want, which is a lot of fun.

Renee

 

[manumuskin]

Barry,
yes their is a place out near the airport that i thought may have been some type of furnace,possibly glass though maybe iron.their is a half dry canal that runs next to it but the only stream is buckshutem creek about a half mile away.I took renee and her family out there I don"t know if she found out anything about it. Theirs also a foundation and old field out there that has clay pipes laying all over so their may have been a clay works in the area too,it"s right next to another big ditch that obviousl had water in ti at one time.I can send you a map of the locations if you like.
Al

 

[bach2yoga]

Barry and Al,
D C Woods owned an iron foundry where the later Millville Cotton mill was built, near Union Lake (which is incidentally the largest lake in NJ, and is also manmade). So we still don't know what Al found.
Here is the cotton mill:
http://www.lobsterlu.com/images/njpc/370528.jpg
I'll see if I can a modern picture this week for you.
Check out the home page of that link to, it's antique postcards for NJ, you might already be familiar with it.
Renee

 

[manumuskin]

Renee,
I thought Lake Hopatcong in north jersey was the biggest.It"s glacial made.I"ll have to look it up.
In my younger days I swam the length of union lake from first cove down where the dam meets the bluffs up to the river mouth which I thought was 3 miles but I just read it"s 4 though on a map it looks like 2.5,anyway it took me exactly 100 minutes.I freestyled till i got tired then i would switch up to an elementary backstroke and breaststroke.I could probably still do it but it"d take me haf a day now.
Al

 

[bach2yoga]

Renee,
I thought Lake Hopatcong in north jersey was the biggest.It"s glacial made.I"ll have to look it up.
In my younger days I swam the length of union lake from first cove down where the dam meets the bluffs up to the river mouth which I thought was 3 miles but I just read it"s 4 though on a map it looks like 2.5,anyway it took me exactly 100 minutes.I freestyled till i got tired then i would switch up to an elementary backstroke and breaststroke.I could probably still do it but it"d take me haf a day now.
Al

Maybe it's just the largest manmade. Let me know, will ya? Thanks.
That's one heck of a swim! And 100 minutes is not so bad! It would take me that long to canoe across it, I think. :lol:
My mom almost drown in that lake, from cramps in her leg.
I know it's been closed a number of times over the years from high arsenic levels and such.

 

[bach2yoga]

You're right, Al, Lake Hopatcong is the largest. Union Lake is, according to the Cumberland county website: Union Lake is the largest man-made lake in the region. Whatever "region" is. When I looked it up on google I found reference to Union lake being one of the largest man-made lakes in the East.

Thanks for drawing that to my attention, I didn't know that!

Renee

 

[manumuskin]

yeah the deal was i swim from south to north while being followed by my cousin in my canoe and then he was supposed to swim back.when i got to the river mouth and stood up he said i ain"t swimmin back I"m tired and hungry and whats more he laid his lazy self down in the canoe and made me paddle him back.We were both on the millville swim team but he was faster and better then me at least on the short haul,he just didn"t have a lotta stamina.he was faster up to 100 yards,by 200 we were about tie ,the five hundred i left him in my spray
Al

 

[rpwoolford]

new to the group

Hello everyone.

I am new to the group. Never knew that this website existed until, while doing genealogy and found a birth in Budd's Furnace, I did a web search and found it. I was born in Bridgeton, but raised in Millville and Port Elizabeth. I now live in Millville and enjoyed reading the posts.

I can't confirm a furnace at Manumuskin, but I know there was some iron work done at Millville Manufacturing, which was along the Maurice River between Main St and Sharp St (as the river flows).

From what I read, I believe that what was referred to as Shutterville would be Kerr Glass on south 2nd St. Originally it was Eagle Glass Co that moved to Millville from Port Elizabeth sometime before Millville incorporated as a city in 1865-1866. Prior to that, Millville was a township. Like already mentioned, yes, a township. A fact most people don't know.

If I am not mistaken D C Wood is the father of Richard 'R D' Wood, who is the original founder of Wawa Farm Market, that eventually became the convenience store that we all know. The farm was outside Media, PA in a small town called Wawa, but the family was from and still has a home in Millville. The original mansion is on Columbia Ave and at one time was a regional office for Wawa, now their mansion is on Union Lake. (can't get to it real easy, it is gated and the gate is far from the main house).

I am an avid genealogist and love local history. This web site is a wonderful addition to my favorites.

Look forward to hearing from others.

post here or email me: rpwoolford2003@hotmail.com

Robb

Remember the past and our ancestors. Keep them alive in our hearts and on paper.

 

[bach2yoga]

The forge at Manumuskin was an 1810 forge owned by Wesley Budd, son of Eli. It is off of what some old maps show as "Forge Road". However, because the bridge across no longer exists, it needs to be accessed from the opposite side of the pond. I've been out looking for it a couple of times both alone and with others and haven't quite found the anomolies I am looking for, but Alan Mounier assures me it is there, he has personally seen it. It seems we were practically on top of it but missing it. It is a heavily briered area.

There was also a Concord Forge that was just north of Hunter's Mill. Haven't been to that site yet....so many places, so many plants, so little time...sighs...

Eagle Glass was I believe one of the very first (maybe the first?) glass making companies in Cumberland County, yes?

Here's an interesting photo from Don Hartman's collection - a WaWa dairy bottle. Apparently WaWa's humble origins begin as a dairy farm.

http://www.njpinebarrens.com/module...ery&file=index&include=view_photo.php


Renee

 

[rpwoolford]

Renee,

I am not sure if Eagle was the very first or not. There were 2 glass companies in Port Elizabeth, the name of the second escapes me right now, but that one did not last to move anywhere.

Yes, Wawa was originally Wawa Dairy Farm, they started a stand near the farm to sell their milk and went from there

Robb

 

[Howell Harris]

Millville Iron Furnace & Foundry

Hi everybody (or anybody) -- a Google search turned up this old thread. In case anybody's still interested,

i. David C. Wood was Richard D. Wood's older half-brother.

ii. Here's a brief account of his furnace from the draft chapter of a book I'm writing on the history of the US stove manufacturing industry:

"David Wood's Millville Furnace, favorably situated twenty miles inland from the Delaware at the tidal limit on the Maurice River, and thus accessible to coastal ships of up to 100 tons, `blew in' in November 1814. It had everything a furnace site needed – a water supply for driving the mill wheel that powered the bellows producing the blast; ample timber nearby for `coaling' (making charcoal); local bog ore just waiting to be harvested; and abundant stocks of oysters in the rivers, whose shells provided much of the furnace's flux (the rest, limestone, had to be shipped in, together with cargoes of shells brought from Philadelphia and New York as back freight – the stinking refuse of the cities' numerous oyster houses). Wood's was not primarily a `merchant furnace,' producing pig iron for sale to iron manufacturers, of whom there were in any case none in the immediate area; its purpose was the making of cast-iron products, particularly stoves, for growing regional markets, a business it pursued with variable success for the next 35 years."

The sources I cite are:

“History and Introduction” to David C. Wood papers, unpaginated typescript, 26 Nov. 1990, Hagley Museum and Library – the papers are Accession 1772, Series 1, referred to hereafter as the Wood papers; John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey (New York: Authors, 1846), pp. 149-50. For the South Jersey and Delaware bog ores, see J.P. Lesley, Iron Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges and Rolling Mills of the United States (New York: John Wiley, 1859), pp. 738-41. Bog ores needed to be used shortly after raising and, because of high sulphur levels, were chiefly good for casting.

Since I wrote the above, I've done more work in the David Wood Papers (a part of the larger Wawa Collection at the Hagley). There's a terrific collection of all of his outgoing business letters from 1822 until his death.

Wood was a difficult, litigious man and an unsuccessful businessman. In the 1840s, by which time he was in his 60s, he fell heavily into debt, and was rescued by his younger half-brother, Richard D., who was a very successful Philadelphia merchant, director of a bank, a canal company, a railroad, etc. Richard D. took over his brother's properties and business, which by that time had focused on making cast-iron pipe rather than stoves. There is a wonderful account of his life, with numerous references to Millville, in Biographical Sketch of Richard D. Wood, published in 1871 by his widow Julianna, in three volumes -- more than a thousand pages for a "brief sketch"! It mostly consists of transcribed diary entries and letters from this busy, interesting man, who poured his money and energies into developing Millville's manufacturing economy in the 1850s and 60s, and laid the foundations for what eventually became Wawa, Inc.

This Sketch is all available online -- see http://www.archive.org/stream/biographicalsket01wood#page/29/mode/1up for Julianna's recollections of her first visit to Millville in the early summer of 1833:

"It is difficult to recognize in the Millville of the present day, with its earnest, active life, its enterprise, and its increasing wealth and population, the spot to which I was then introduced.

The mansion, the only respectable building there, had been built for some time; but surrounded by sand and cinders, without porches or shade, it was most dreary and //p. 30 unattractive in its appearance. An old packing-box served as the only step to the high doorway. One tumble-down furnace, and a store on which decay had also evidently set its fingers, a barn, and some dozen or twenty huts for the workmen, with broken plank or mud floors, unhinged gates, and windows whose want of glass was supplied by old hats, red flannel shirts, etc., completed the dreary village, the roads of which, ankle deep in sand, were almost impassable."

Howell Harris
Professor of US History
Durham University
England

I can't confirm a furnace at Manumuskin, but I know there was some iron work done at Millville Manufacturing, which was along the Maurice River between Main St and Sharp St (as the river flows).

If I am not mistaken D C Wood is the father of Richard 'R D' Wood, who is the original founder of Wawa Farm Market, that eventually became the convenience store that we all know. The farm was outside Media, PA in a small town called Wawa, but the family was from and still has a home in Millville. The original mansion is on Columbia Ave and at one time was a regional office for Wawa, now their mansion is on Union Lake. (can't get to it real easy, it is gated and the gate is far from the main house).

I am an avid genealogist and love local history. This web site is a wonderful addition to my favorites.

Look forward to hearing from others.

post here or email me: rpwoolford2003@hotmail.com

Robb

 

[Teegate]

Robb,

This is a seven year old thread and the person who started it has not been on the site in years. In any event, it was an interesting post.

Guy