| Buckeye Furnace | Buckeye Furnace Company Store |
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| Storage Shed | Charging House | Beam Scale & Charging Hopper | Boilers & Charging Plate |
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| Hot Blast Stove | Boilers | RH Tuyere | Retaining Wall |
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Buckeye Furnace has been fully restored by the Ohio Historical Society. The site includes the
complete furnace, including boilers and the engine room. Also on site is a fully restored storage shed
(where furnace charging supplies were kept), the company store, and the weighing scales. While the
furnace itself is not operational, there are many signs posted throughout the site to explain the
history and purpose of each furnace site element.
I have incorporated some basic descriptions about the operation of an iron furnace to this page.
An average HOT BLAST furnace in the Hanging Rock Iron Region (HRIR) would produce about 3000 tons of iron per year. This type of furnace required about 3.79 cords of wood, or 137 bushels of charcoal, per ton of iron produced. Therefore, a typical hot blast furnace required about 11,370 cords of wood to be cut per year. The hot blast furnace would consume 7,890 tons of raw iron ore per year.
In comparison, an average COLD BLAST furnace in the Hanging Rock Iron Region (HRIR) would produce about 2000 tons of iron per year. Cold blast furnaces required more fuel, needing about 5.84 cords of wood, or 215 bushels of charcoal, per ton of iron produced. Therefore, a typical cold blast furnace required about 11,680 cords of wood to be cut per year. The cold blast furnace would consume 5,260 tons of raw iron ore per year.
Virgin timberland yielded about 40 cords of wood per acre, while second growth forests produced 20 cords per acre. Most furnaces owned several thousand acres, and worked 200-600 acres per year. They generally planned on a 20-30 year renewal cycle for each area worked.
The ore was dug or lifted. In the HRIR region, a common practice was to scrape the top of a hill, cut the raw ore, and then "lift" the cut blocks onto a wagon. Fourteen to twenty-one men would work in the iron beds. When the dirt became 7-10 feet deep, it was deemed uneconomical to continue on the particular hill, and the miners would move to a new hill. Miners in the HRIR were generally paid $0.50-$1.00 per ton of ore dug(lifted). Furnaces paid $2.00-$4.00 for each ton of ore delivered to the furnace.
Portions of the information above were obtained from the Robert Ervin text.
First Visit: 4Q-2000
Last Visit: 4Q-2001
The front part of the furnace is under roof. The front of the furnace, known as the casting shed, is under roof. The casting floor is a flat area, consisting of a mixture of sand and clay, where the iron is tapped. (clay was mixed with the sand so as to form consistent pig molds). When the furnace was ready for tapping, the workers would remove a clay plug (turned to ceramic by the heat) from the front furnace entrance. The slag would be poured off and discarded. Afterwards, the iron would be permitted to flow down a channel and then into ground depressions dug into the sand floor. The configuration looked like piglets nursing at a sow - hence the origin of the term "pig iron". While the tapped iron cooled, the furnace would be plugged for another batch. The furance ran continuously - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At periodic intervals the furnace would be "blown out" to permit completion of maintainence activities on the site. Maintenance This typically involved removing slag, dross, and built up metal from the inside of the stack and cupola. This included removing built up metal from inside of the stack and cupola, and to repair the inner liner.
To the right of the furnace is replica of the original company store. In front of the store is a old scale. Ore , charcoal, limestone, and coal were all purchased by the furnace to enable the manufacture of iron. As the wagons arrived, they would be weighed at the scale before proceeding up the hill to the rear of the furnace. On the return trip, the empty wagons would be weighed again, and the difference would determine the amount of material brought.
All of the business operations were also conducted at the company store, including payroll. Many iron workers were paid in script rather than cash. Script was money issued by the company that could only be redeemed at the company store. Workers would purchase supplies from the store in exchange for the scrip.
When the wagons dropped off the material, they were stored near the furnace, awaiting the time to charge the furnace.
The charoal was produced from timber. The wood was placed into a pile 30-50 feet in diameter and 25 feet tall. The pile would be covered with a mound of dirt. Then the timber would be burned for 3-30 days to turn the wood into charcoal. The mounds were watched 24 hours a day as any opening needed to be patched up. When the wood was charred, the dirt was removed and the remains were carefully raked to ensure that if any portion ignited (spontaneous combustion) the entire pile would not be lost.
The operators of the charcoal making process were known as colliers. Typically, about 12 full time colliers were required to keep a furnace in operation.
Iron furnaces utilized vast amounts of timber to support their requirements. A typical iron furnace would utilize 400 bushels of charcoal per ton of iron, or about 10-12 cords of wood. An acre of 20-25 year old trees will produce 20-22 cords of wood = 800-850 bushels of charcoal = 2 tons of iron. At a production rate of 12 tons (iron), Buckeye would consume nearly 6 acres of trees per day, or approximately 1700-1800 acres of trees per year. An average woodcutter could cut two cords of wood per day, while an experienced hand could cut three cords.
Before operating the furnace, a fire was allowed to burn in the furnace to eliminate any moisture. An explosion would result if the moisture came into contact with molten iron or slag.
Materials were transported across a ramp to the top of the furnace in an iron buggy. The materials were weighed in a beam scale and then loaded into the furnace. This process was known as "charging" the furnace.
The first layer was composed of charcoal, then iron, and finally limestone. The process was repeated over many times until fully charged. During the course of a day, the furnace workers would load 57,600 pounds of ore, 1,950 pounds of limestone, and 4800 bushels of charcoal. The amount (weight) of each layer (charge) varied depending on the furnace. Changing the amount of charge weight for the primary components could greatly change the resulting iron.
Buckeye Furnace was known as a "hot blast" furnace, because heated, compressed air was used to raise the temperature of the furnace. The air was piped under pressure from the engine house to the hot blast stove located in the charging house. Here, the air was heated by the furnace gasses to a temperature of 600 degrees (F).
The heated air was then pumped to the base of the furnace and forced into the mass of iron, charcoal, and limestone. The entry for these pipes was the tuyere (pronounced "twere") located on the side of the furnace. Many furnaces had a tuyere on each side of the furnace. Some furnaces had three, one on each side and one in the rear. The furnace gas was also used to heat the boilers where water turned to steam to operate the steam engine. Some furnaces produced "cold blast" iron which had a higher carbon content. The iron was harder in nature and was used in the manufacture of such items as wheels for railroad cars, rails on which the cars ran, and other items where a higher degree of hardness was required.
In order to facilitate operation of the furnace, the stack was typically built against a hill.
This permitted construction of a ramp to the top of the stack for charging, while the molten iron
could be tapped from the furnace a the foot of the hill.
The limestone and the rocks containing the iron oxide (ore) and melted in the stack and
become part of the slag. However, the iron oxide, Fe2O3, is changed back to pure iron, Fe, by a chemical reaction called reduction that takes
place in the stack as the burden descends. Reduction is the opposite of oxidation. Oxidation is the reaction of iron with oxygen that we call
rusting or changing from Fe to Fe2O3. The burning fuel, either charcoal, coke or coal, produces carbon monoxide, CO, which is the reducing agent
causing the reduction reaction. The most common ore contained hematite, Fe2O3. The following chemical reaction takes place in the stack:
3Fe2O3 + CO yields 2Fe3O4 + CO2
Fe3O4 + CO yields 3FeO + CO2
FeO + CO yields Fe + CO2
Some of the reduction also results from the contact of the coke, charcoal
with FeO. FeO + C yields Fe + CO.
The same reaction also takes place in modern blast furnaces.
It took about 12 hours for the charge to become fully melted in the cupola area of the furnace. The workers would draw off the slag first through a small clay plug in the cinder notch of the furnace. Then the main plug would be removed to draw off the iron. An iron bar was struck until the plug shattered, hence the origin of the term "tapping the furnace". As noted earlier, the iron was cooled into "pigs", each pig being about 4 feet long, 4 inches wide, and 6 inches deep. After tapping, the air blast was turned back on, another charge was placed into the furnace, and the process would start again.
The cooled pigs were seperated from the channels with sledge hammers and then dragged to the front of the casting house. Additional workers broke up the slag into small pieces and loaded it onto carts. The slag was transported to nearby sites where it was dumped as waste.
The furnace would operate about 9 months out of the year in continuous operation. The remaining three months were utilized for maintenance purposes. Maintaining the furnace primarily consisted of:
Originally, the operators of the furnace wanted to utilize nearby Raccoon Creek to transport the iron to market. However, due to the inconsistent flow exhibited by the creek, they were forced to ship their iron by wagon. Many furnaces in the Ohio portion of the HRIR had the same problem. This placed these operations at a competitive disadvantage compared to sites shipping via waterway.
A typical HRIR furnace employed many people, but relatively few actually worked at the furnace. Many employees were involved in charcoal production, obtaining the ore, or in agricultural pursuits (to support the community). At the actual furnace, the work force was split into two shifts. The head count was as follows:
Work at the iron furnace typically involved 12 hour shifts in dangerous conditions. The primary risks were heat stroke, asthma, eye disease, and being exposed to the toxic fumes. There was no health insurance, pension plans, government aid, government regulations, or unemployment insurance. Most furnaces operated on the edge of bankruptcy and could not remain financially soluble in times of economic downturn.
One primary complaint of the workers was the use of company scrip in lieu of cash payment for wages. This required the workers to return their paychecks to the company for rent and supplies, creating a closed economic system.
Despite the working environment, there were few attempts to organize labor into unions. There were two primary reasons for this lack of unionization:
Most workers at the furnace were located in isolated areas where a community of nearly 500 people would live to support the furnace. This resulted in strong sense of community, where the manager and the workers knew each other well. During hard times, the management would permit the workers to stay "rent free" and keep the furnace operating to some minimum level rather than institute outright closure or layoffs. In return, the workers would typically accept reduced wages to keep a roof over their heads. The workers also realized that strikes would only increase the likelyhood of company insolvency, eliminating their source of employment.
Another reason for the rarity of labor strikes was the practice of blacklisting. This was an informal agreement among furnace owners to not hire "trouble-makers" - i.e., workers who attempted to organize.
For more information on the operation of iron furnaces, visit:
Start of Operation: 1852 (Lesley reports 1853)
Blowout: 1894
Daily Tonnage: 12 Tons
Built By: Buckeye Furnace was constructed in 1851 by Thomas Price.
Stack: 34 feet w/11 foot bosh
Blast: Hot
Type: Charcoal
It was financed by Newkirk, Daniels, and Company under the name of Buckeye Furnace Company. It was built in 1851 and started operations in 1852. The furnace initially produced 7.5 tons of iron per day and operated on a 42 week operating cycle. The stack height was later increased, which permitted the furnace output to be increased to 12 tons per day.
In 1862 the furnace was sold to H.S. Bundy Company, who operated the site for two years. They then sold the furnace to Terry, Auston, and Company who operated the furnace until 1867. They sold the furnace to the Buckeye Furnace Company, whose principals were Eben Jones, John D. Davis, L.T. Hughes, an Dr. S. Williams. They operated the furnace until 1894, when the site went out of blast.
Some of the above information was obtained from Robert Ervin.
Per J.P. Lesley, the fn produced 1,840 tons of iron in fourty two weeks of 1855. The ore was horizontal limestone ore drawn from area coal measures. The fn was owned by Newkirk, Daniels, & Co. and managed by Warren Murfin.
From RT35 (Jackson, Ohio) take RT32 North/East (Appalacian Highway). Approximately 5 miles, turn Right onto State Route 124. Cross RT327 carefully, then continue on 124. A few miles down the road there is a sign posted directing visitors to the site. You will make a Right onto Buckeye Furnace Road, then drive about 1~2 miles south until the sign directs you to take another Right hand turn. The site will be on your left.
NOTE: In early spring, or after heavy rains, the Buckeye Furnace Road is subject to high water (flooding) conditions along bordering Raccoon Creek.
GPS - N39 03.369 W82 27.359 @779 feet
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