The Furnace Group, Historic Structure Report - Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

Yocum, Barbara; National Park Service - Historic Architecture Program, Northeast Region

This historic structure report on the Furnace Group at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site provides a chronology of its historical and physical evolution, describes its various parts, identifies character- defining features, and evaluates the integrity of the structures for the 1820- 40 period of significance. It synthesizes and summarizes the information contained in numerous NPS reports written between 1935 and 2005. These research documents address the historical, archeological, architectural, landscape, and administrative aspects of the many components that make up the Furnace Group. Contextual information on Hopewell Furnace was obtained from Joseph E. Walker’s book, Hopewell Village, the Dynamics of a Nineteenth Century Iron-Making Community, published in 1966. Photographs and architectural drawings from Walker’s book and in the archives of Hopewell Furnace were studied, and several were chosen as illustrations. The files and drawing archives of the park’s maintenance division were also examined for useful information. None of the original record books of Hopewell Furnace were examined for this project, since they had been extensively researched and referenced in the above-mentioned reports. The final product is an illustrated report that chronicles the history, evolution, and existing appearance of the various structures and elements that make up the Furnace Group. It is hoped that this study will be useful to the park in its ongoing care and stewardship of this significant property. The Furnace Group is a collection of structures and elements that are both physically and operationally connected. These include the furnace; the furnace bank and retaining wall; the bridge house and connecting shed; the charcoal house and cooling shed; the wheel house, water wheel, and blast machinery; the east head race; the west head race; the tail race; and the cast house. It is important to grasp the interrelationship of these parts to understand the furnace operation. The original scope of this project, which was to address the cast house only, was thus expanded at the suggestion of Superintendent Edie Shean- Hammond to include all components of the Furnace Group. The names of the various components of the Furnace Group are rendered in this report in lower- case format, for clarity and consistency, except within direct quotations. (The historical record contains significant variations with regard to capitalization.)

The Furnace Group, Historic Structure Report - Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

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