The Forge & Its Waterworks

The Forge and Its Waterworks. . , The Forge , Whitney constructed a stone forge here in 1804. It was the first and largest of the five buildings he constructed on this side of the Mill River. In this building, blacksmiths shaped and welded musket barrels with hammers and anvils, and with air pumped into carefully bedded coals. The building was purposefully dark to allow the artisans to judge the temperature of their welds as the steel turned red, then orange, then yellow, and finally white., A sketch in Whitney's papers proposed 6 hearths for the Forge., The building was adapted by Whitney, his son and subsequent manufacturers for 140 years. Vandals set a fire to the aging structure in 1950. Its remaining stonework was plowed back into the soil from which it had been taken., Its Waterworks , The large dam on your left was built 50 years after Eli Whitney began to develop this site. The elder Whitney's Armory had to rely on modest improvements to the dam that had served grist mills since the 17th century., Whitney built a second dam and millpond to power the Forge. A sketch from Whitney's papers shows the south wall with two channels bringing water through the building. (Only one was built). Benjamin Silliman reported that Whitney refined the canal that fed the forge in 1820., A Yale archaeological survey in the 1970's uncovered the tail race that returned the water to the Mill River. The original Bridge was wider by one abutment and crossed that water channel., Students in Yale Archaeology Methods classes have investigated the foundations and waste pits on this site since the 1970's. , Mark Wesolowski's Eagle Scout Project helped document the foundation.