The author stands on top of the mound which caps the Hoover pit iron furnace on a bank above Hoover Reservoir near Columbus, Ohio. The (F) marks where the furnace bowl would be found under the mound if the site is excavated.
Looking Down From Furnace Mound
Are These Stones Remains of A Wall?
Slag-Glazed Stones Collected At Hoover Furnace
My discovery in October, 1996 of yet another example of Ohio's enigmatic pit iron furnaces, makes me wonder just how far this archaeological phenomenon may extend. Over the past six years, as more people have learned from David Orr and I about its sure-fire marker artifact, the green-glazed stone, more furnace sites have been found than we ever thought possible.
This furnace was found on a bank of the Hoover Reservoir, some 40 miles north of the original Ross-Pickaway sites. It is northeast of Columbus, Ohio, and may be the largest of its type ever found in North America.
I first learned that a furnace might exist at Hoover Reservoir in June, 1993, when I met Neil Gorsuch at a college graduation party. He lives on the banks of the reservoir, a water-supply lake for Columbus, and spends many of his retirement hours walking its shores in search of Indian artifacts. I told him about my interest in archaeology, the mysterious furnaces, and the glazed stones which reveal their presence. Gorsuch said he found glazed stones in the bed of the reservoir at a time when the lake's water level was ten feet lower than usual. He invited me to come by his place some time when the lake was drawn down for the winter so I could investigate.
The water level and I didn't make an opportunity match until Saturday, October 26, 1996. When I arrived at Gorsuch's home with my 7-year-old grandson, Chase, Gorsuch showed us a green-glazed stone he had found at the site. One look at it, I and was already sure of a furnace. Following his directions, Chase and I located the site of a debris spread on the lake bottom near a boat dock and two boats sitting on the bottom mud. We were standing on what was once a bank of Big Walnut Creek, a tributary of the Scioto River.
We soon found pieces of typical pit iron furnace materials. Chase, who had often visited the Lynn Acres furnace dig, also recognized that we were finding the "right stuff." There were green, gray-green, clear, white and black glazes on mostly stone pieces rather than whole stones. There was bubbled slag, small chunks of limestone and two obviously hand-made bricks (water struck, 2 x 4 x 8 inches). Using driftwood sticks, I marked the extent of the debris spread on a line parallel to the creek bed, and stuck a stick into the mud at a point in the center of the two extremes. Previous experience instructs us to look for furnaces in stream banks, so I sighted directly up from the center stick to the top of the bank.
Eureka! At the top of the little valley's bank, I saw a low mound, rising about two feet above grade level, about 30 feet higher than where I was standing. Chase and I went up there, I swept away dry grass and leaf litter and found cinders and slag. The mound top is roughly rectangular, and is about 15 feet long parallel to the stream valley and 9 feet wide.
This seems to be the top of what must be a completely intact and quite large pit iron smelting furnace. One can only guess how far down the furnace bowl may descend into the bank, but it could easily go down 9 feet or more. Groundhog digs on the top of the mound indicated that the cinders and slag are more than just a surface deposit. The ground around the furnaces seems never to have been disturbed by the plow. The trace of a stagecoach road runs close by and a pioneer log building also seems to have been nearby, judging from a rectangular depression and foundation stones.
Could this furnace be the one which finally sheds some light on this mysterious phenomenon? The furnaces stands on land first claimed by a pioneer farmer; and settlement of the area, including the villages of Galena and Sunbury, goes back to the early 1800s. The abandoned trace of Yankee Street, an old stagecoach road, runs within a few yards of the furnace site. The pioneer farmer could have built and operated the furnace, but its output would have been too much for just a single farm. The nearby road could have been used to transport blooms elsewhere for conversion into bar iron for use by blacksmiths.
Although pit iron smelting furnaces are nowhere mentioned in Ohio history, some American scholars believe such furnaces may have been used in colonial times. The pit furnaces could have been the first smelters at early sites such as Jamestown, Va., and later in areas remote from sources of bar iron produced more efficiently in the much larger stone chimney furnaces of the time.
As far as I've been able to determine, none of these supposed Colonial pit iron furnaces have been found by professional archaeologists. But remains of such furnaces may exist; and the Ohio pit furnaces may furnish the key to finding them. It certainly seems that if the American archaeological community becomes aware of the APGS's work over the past six years, and if they search for the glazed stones and other diagnostic artifacts, pit iron furnaces may be found in the original American colonies. The area around Jamestown, Va., and the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, with their rich deposits of bog iron ore, would be among the first places I'd recommend they investigate.
Author's note 2007: In the years since this page was first posted on the web, I've found conclusive evidence that the pit iron furnaces of Ohio are entirely prehistoric. Also, after visiting the Jamestown-Williamsburg historic area in Virginia, I became even more convinced there is no evidence that furnaces similar to the Ohio pit furnaces were ever used in Virginia. Conclusive evidence is contained in the manuscript of my book which is now being submitted for consideration with book publishers.