When iron and steel ruled the Tuscarawas Valley

12/18/2009

9 November 2009

 

By Jon Baker, opinions@timesreprter.com

Iron and steel mills were once some of the largest employers in Tuscarawas County, making fortunes for men like Jeremiah Reeves of Dover. The industry began with a primitive iron furnace on the banks of the Tuscarawas River in Fairfield Township in the late 1820s.

The Tuscarawas Steam Furnace, built by Stark County industrialists, was located on the west side of the river, a short distance above its confluence with Conotton Creek, according to a doctoral dissertation by Edgar Nixon in 1928. It utilized iron ore dug from shallow pits in the neighboring hillsides and was fired by wood and later coal.

 

Among the first owners was a man named Matthew Laird, who sold the property to James Hazlett and William Christmas of stark County and William Hogg of Fayette County, Pa., for $15,000 on April 1, 1831.

 

A small settlement grew up around the furnace, which included houses for the workers, a company store and a warehouse on the Ohio and Erie Canal, which ran through the property. On March 27, 1833, a post office, known as Steam Furnace, was established there, with Francis Simpson as the first postmaster.

 

The furnace was conveniently located on the main road from Canton to New Philadelphia.

 

Christmas, Hazlett & Co. disposed of the furnace on July 22, 1835, selling it to Joseph Bimeler, leader of the Zoar society, for $20,000. The bill of sale included the furnace, 1,716 acres of land, 20 horses, six wagons, patterns, and tools belonging to the furnace; and all the beds, furniture and stoves in the homes of the workers.

 

The property was soon after renamed the Fairfield Furnace.

 

The Zoar Society already had entered the iron business, constructing another blast furnace and foundry on its property in 1834.

 

Few residents of Zoar worked at these facilities. Instead, the society hired outside workers. They were paid with a combination of cash and goods from the society’s stores.

 

In 1837, the society employed between 50 and 60 workers nine months out of the year at the Fairfield Furnace, according to the Ohio Gazetteer and Traveler’s Guide.

 

In 1838, Bimeler advertised his business in the pages of the Tuscarawas Advocate, under the headline “Fairfield Furnace”. “The subscriber informs the public that he has in complete operation the steam furnace, know by the above name, on the canton and New Philadelphia road, about seven miles from the later place, and under the direction of D. R. Cook, where orders will be thankfully received and punctually attended to.”

 

At either of the society’s furnaces the public could purchase Franklin and cooking stoves, box and coal stoves, kettles, pots, plows, “and many other articles convenient for Household and Farming purposes.”

 

Nixon wrote that the society shipped its pig iron and castings to places such as Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh and New York City.

 

The Fairfield Furnace operated on a thin profit margin. In 1846, furnace manager Michael Miller estimated daily expenses at $59.23, which included the cost of iron ore, coal, and the salaries of two engineers, two fillers, two keepers, one gutterman, two bankmen and one founderer. He wrote that if the furnace could manufacture three tons of iron ore a day at $22.50 per ton, it would earn a profit of $8.27 a day.

 

Both furnaces closed in the 1850s, and Nixon wrote that they likely operated at a loss for the last four to five years of their existence. The low-grade iron ore mined in the vicinity of Zoar couldn’t compete with the richer ores found in the Lake Superior region at the time.

 

While the Zoar Society’s iron business ultimately proved a bust, it did a service in providing employment for people in the area and creating a market for the society’s food and other products.

 

“It is highly probable that the gain to the community from this source was greater than that derived from the actual sale of iron and castings,” Nixon concluded.