Principio Furnace and village is in
Cecil County, Maryland, 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of
Havre de Grace, MD
Havre de Grace (), abbreviated HdG, is a city in Harford County, Maryland. It is situated at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the head of Chesapeake Bay. It is named after the port city of Le Havre, France, which in full was once ''Le Hav ...
.
The Principio Iron Works were started here in 1719 by Joseph Farmer with British capital and an ironmaster, John England, who made it one of the most successful in the colonial ironworks by the 1740s, producing
pig iron for sale in London. Thomas Russell, Jr., England's successor, produced cannonballs for the Continental Army during the Revolution.
The works were part of the (larger) Principio Company, whose other holdings included the
Accokeek or Potomac Ironworks on the land of George Washington's father,
Augustine Washington
Augustine Washington Sr. (November 12, 1694 – April 12, 1743) was the father of the first U.S. president, George Washington. He served as an officer in the British Navy during the War of Jenkin's Ear although he belonged to the Colony of Vir ...
(north of
Ferry Farm
Ferry Farm, also known as the George Washington Boyhood Home Site or the Ferry Farm Site, is the farm and home where George Washington spent much of his childhood. The site is located in Stafford County, Virginia, along the northern bank of the Ra ...
near
Fredericksburg, Virginia). This works was developed by the ironmaster England originally as a source of iron ore. As early as 1726, it may have included a cold blast charcoal
furnace
A furnace is a structure in which heat is produced with the help of combustion.
Furnace may also refer to:
Appliances Buildings
* Furnace (central heating): a furnace , or a heater or boiler , used to generate heat for buildings
* Boiler, used t ...
. Accokeek/Potomac served as the headquarters of the Principio Company until it was closed sometime in the mid-1750s.
The Maryland works were destroyed by the British in 1813.
In 1836, the site and its ruined buildings were purchased by
Joseph Whitaker, his brothers George Price Whitaker and Joseph Whitaker II, and partners
Thomas Garrett
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the ...
(a prominent
abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
) and William Chandler. The site still had water power; more importantly, it was crossed by the freshly laid tracks of the
Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad
The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad that operated independently from 1836 to 1881.
It was formed in 1836 by the merger of four state-chartered railroads in three Middle Atlantic states to create a ...
. (Chandler was a director of the company.
) The investors rebuilt the iron works and resumed production, opening a new blast furnace in 1837 and other improvements over the decades.
Before the Civil War, the Whitakers divided their holdings geographically, with Joseph receiving the Pennsylvania properties and George Price the Maryland and Virginia ones. George Price Whitaker and his descendants continued to be involved in the iron and steel business; their holdings became part of the Wheeling Steel Company in 1921, and eventually of
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel was a steel manufacturer based in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Operations
The company owned the following factories, all of which are between Benwood, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio.
* Ackermann Works at Wheeling, wh ...
.
Historical Society of Cecil County, "Principio", Milt Diggins
The site produced iron until 1925. Part of the stone furnace still remains on the site. In 1972, Principio Furnace was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
.
Gallery
File:Historic_American_Buildings_Survey_E._H._Pickering,_Photographer_October_1936_-_Principio_Furnace,_Port_Road_(State_Route_7),_Perryville,_Cecil_County,_MD_HABS_MD,8-PRINF,1-1.tif, The old bloomery, depicted in 1936
File:Principio Furnace (21415394958).jpg, The old bloomery during the preservation works of 2015
File:Principio_Furnace,_wide_(21415201900).jpg, Another view of the bloomery, during the works of 2015
File:Principio Furnace, outbuilding (21416308829).jpg, An outbuilding on the site of the Principio Furnace
File:Principio Furnace, outbuildings (20980440884).jpg, Two more outbuildings on the site of the Principio Furnace
File:Historic American Buildings Survey E. H. Pickering, Photographer October 1936 OLD LITHOGRAPH - Principio Furnace, Port Road (State Route 7), Perryville, Cecil County, MD HABS MD,8-PRINF,1-3.tif, A lithograph scene of the activity at the furnace
References
*Gordon, Robert B. 1996 ''American Iron 1607-1900''. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.
*May, Earl Chapin 1945 ''Principio to Wheeling: 1715-1945 A Pageant of Iron and Steel''. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London.
*Robbins, Michael 1972 'The Principio Company: Iron-Making in Colonial Maryland, 1720-1781'. Unpublished paper. George Washington University, Washington.
*Robbins, Michael 1986 ''The Principio Company : iron-making in colonial Maryland, 1720-1781''. Garland, New York
*Whitely, William G. 1887 'The Principio Company. A Historical Sketch of the First Iron-Works in Maryland'. ''The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'' XI:63-68, 190-198, 288-295. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
External links
*, including undated photo, at Maryland Historical Trust website
*
{{National Register of Historic Places in Maryland
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland
Buildings and structures in Cecil County, Maryland
Ironworks and steel mills in Maryland
Historic American Buildings Survey in Maryland
1719 establishments in Maryland
National Register of Historic Places in Cecil County, Maryland
Whitaker iron family