Historic Mills of Connecticut

Companies Associated w/Complex

• Barnum-Richardson and Co. 1857
• John Beckley and William Pierce 1847

Use (Historic)

• Mining, Primary Metals
• Paper & Wood Products

Largest Documented Workforce

n/a

Historic Narrative

For historical significance see National Register application: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/78002847.pdf John Beckley and William Pierce built the first blast furnace on the bank of the Blackberry River in 1847. Ten years later Barnum-Richardson and Co. bought it along with the nearby Forbes Furnace (not extant). Barnum-Richardson built a third furnace, Canaan #3, on the Blackberry River in 1872 (not extant). Company offices and foundries remained at Lime Rock while these furnaces in East Canaan produced most of the pig iron for Barnum-Richardson's chill-cast railroad car wheels. In the late 19th century the blast furnace complex included rail spurs and trestles, water power system, office, dwelling houses, storage sheds for charcoal, charging house atop the stack and casting house below. Output nearly doubled to between 100 and 150 tons per week. BarnumRichardson persevered until 1920 before selling out to Salisbury Iron Co., a new firm which lasted but three years before closing the last of the Connecticut iron furnaces. Salisbury Iron Co. provided a poignant, if unintentional, epitaph for the Litchfield County iron industry in one of its last catalogs, which advertised 'an iron made, not in large tonnage furnaces, but in small, open-top furnaces, an iron of high strength and quality, made in the old-fashioned way of our forefathers.' (Note: There has been some confusion between the names of the East Canaan furnaces. Forbes and Beckley were renamed Canaan HI and Canaan H2, respectively, when Canaan H3 was built in 1872. Beckley, or Canaan H2, is the lone survivor. C.R. Harte, an otherwise authoritative chronicler of the Connecticut iron industry, implied that Beckley was discontinued, rather than sold, in 1857. Subsequent authors have repeated the error. Beckley has also been confused with Canaan H3, an easy misapprehension because, when both were extant, Beckley may well have appeared to be the newer because of its 1896 remodeling.) (Roth)

Number of Existing Buildings

1

Dates of Construction

1847

Architect

n/a

Builder

n/a

Building Type

• Blast furnace

Architectural Description

For description see National Register nomination: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/78002847.pdf Many of the structures are gone but the central element in the iron-making process, the stack of the blast furnace, survives. Barnum- Richardson modified the furnace in 1896 to its present dimensions: 40' high, 30' square at the base and 20' square at the top, with 9' bosh diameter. Rough-dressed limestone blocks laid in courses form the walls. Iron plates and tie-rods reinforce at the corners. Four arched openings, outlined with finished limestone blocks, break the walls. Except for some deterioration of the fire brick in the hearth area the stack remains in good condition. Between the furnace and the road to the north stands a retaining wall of the same limestone masonry, and across the road is a masonry abutment that supported one end of a trestle. The 15'-high masonry dam survives mostly intact about 100 yards upstream; at its north abutment are a penstock and the wheelhouse foundations. Across the river from the furnace rise huge mounds of slag, at the foot of which lie the remains of an iron structure, perhaps a trestle, and some ore- or slag-handling equipment, including wheeled carts and a conveyor. In rebuilding the stack in 1896 Barnum-Richardson changed the process considerably, raising the blast temperature and doubling its pressure. The firm probably installed a plate-iron, water-cooled hearth, since these refinements were present at Canaan #3. (Roth)

Exterior Material(s)

• Stone

Structural System(s)

• Load Bearing Masonry

Roof Form

n/a

Roof Material

n/a

Power Source

• Charcoal

Condition

n/a

Condition Notes

In recent years, restoration of the main turbine and a Leffel turbine found at the site have been carried out by the Friends of the Beckley Furnace organization. Research showed that there had been a sawmill powered by the Leffel turbine.

Specific Location

Lower Road west of Furnace Hill Road, East Canaan.

Adjacent To

n/a

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Parcel ID / Assessor Record Link

n/a

Acreage

n/a

Use (Present)

• Other: Park

Form Completed By

n/a

Date

n/a

Bibliography

1. Roth, Matthew, et al, Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites (Washington DC: SIA, 1981).
2. Clouette, Bruce. 1977. Beckley Furnace National Register Nomination No. 78002847. National Park Service.
3. Friends of Beckley Furnace web site.
4. Gordon, Robert B. 2001. American Iron, 1607-1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
5. Gordon, Robert B. 2001. A Landscape Transformed: The Ironmaking District of Salisbury, Connecticut. New York: Oxford University Press.