Workers Village

Workers Village. Established 1825 . Enlarged Beginning 1848. , When Roland Curtin acquired the 57-acre Antes mill tract adjoining the west and south sides of his Eagle Forge property in 1825, the tract included an old log "Grist+Saw Mill," a dam and mill pond with raceways, the Antes residence, and a few log houses occupied by millworkers and their families. Needing more residences for his growing corps of forge laborers, Roland began building a workers village in a low-lying area south of the mill pond. He arranged the new batch of one-story log-and-plaster dwellings around a circular "green" (an open area for common use), perhaps recalling village layouts in his native Ireland. He capped this expansion program in 1830 by reconstructing the mill dam and replacing the old Antes mill with a 50-by-60-foot, four-story, all-stone gristmill equipped with two sets of millstones. Through the next century, the mill ground wheat into flour for the Curtins, inhabitants of the workers village, and other area residents., After Roland's retirement in 1844, his sons John and Constans built Pleasant Furnace across Antes Run and Curtin Road from the workers village, positioning the new smelting complex on the south side of Lock 11 of the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation canal. The opening of Pleasant Furnace (later known as Eagle Furnace) in 1848 increased the need for workers housing in the vicinity. The Curtin ironmasters responded by building more than a dozen simple, two-story frame dwellings around the village green, plus a few more between Antes Run and Curtin Road. Unlike their one-story log predecessors, which relied on fireplaces for heating and cooking, the new frame houses sported cast iron stoves., By 1850, the expanded cluster of worker housing on the west side of Curtin Road formed the core of a sizable community known as "Curtin Village." The workers village was home to more than 200 persons, comprising 28 households. Census records reveal that 39 village men and boys were on the Eagle Iron Works payroll: 8 forge hands, 4 furnace workers, 3 blacksmiths, 3 carpenters, 7 "carters" (drivers), a woodcutter, a collier, and a dozen general laborers, most of whom were still in their teens., In her 1987 book The Durable People: The Community Life of Curtin Village Workers, 1810-1922, Mary Frances Ward published a not-to-scale map of Curtin Village in the early twentieth century, as recalled by former residents (right). Nineteen houses were mapped in the workers village west of Curtin Road, between Bald Eagle Creek and the railroad tracks. Ward's book brims with stories, anecdotes, and details of life in the shadows of Eagle Furnace and Forge. As Penn State professor Gerald G. Eggert notes in his extensive history of Eagle Iron Works-Making Iron On the Bald Eagle: Roland Curtin's Ironworks and Workers' Community (1999)-Ward's book "recounts four 'especially vivid memories' that people who grew up in the village carried with them. These were the blue road [the result of surfacing the roadway with crushed slag], the glow of the night sky when the furnace was tapped, the gentle lapping of water over the gristmill race, and (after 1864) the whistle and lights of the 8:10 evening train signaling time for children to return home for bed. There probably were other strong memories as well, less shaped by the rosy glow of nostalgia: the roar of the furnace as it went into blast, the day-long thudding of forge hammers, the steady creak of waterwheels at the nearby gristmill, blast house, and forge, the long hours of hard work. Strong smells were also recalled: the earthy scent of manure from the nearby barn that stabled sixty or so horses and mules, and the acrid smell of the smelting furnace and the charcoal burns. And for women who struggled to keep their homes, furnishings, and families clean, there were the bugs and the ever-present charcoal dust that left grit and a smutty film on every surface and accumulated in every crevice and crack. For most, the memories were probably both bitter and sweet.", [Left side photo captions, top to bottom, read] , . View across Antes Run toward the eastern end of the workers village, with Curtin Mansion on the far right, and Eagle Furnace on the left, ca. 1915, . Curtin Villagers gather beside Eagle Emporium-the company-owned general store next to the railroad tracks-circa 1895. The Roland Post Office was just inside the front door., . In 1911, teachers John F. Eisenhauer and Rosa Knepp (top, left) pose with pupils beside the new brick Curtin schoolhouse standing along Curtin Road 500 yards south of the workers village. The building replaced the one-room frame schoolhouse that had stood closer to the village since at least the 1830s. Of the 44 students pictured, only William Bryan, Roy Durstine, Bernice Dukeman, Esther Glenn, and Stella Grassmeyer have been identified by the photo's owner. Census records indicate that their school-age neighbors in Curtin Village included children of the Aikey, Bathurst, Gummo, and Shultz families., [Center photo captions, clockwise from top, read] , . Southeastward view of Curtin Village, ca. 1870. Most of the workers village is visible to the right of the four-story gristmill on the south bank of Bald Eagle Creek. The Curtin Mansion stands directly behind the mill in this view, while Eagle Furnace is visible on the far left, in front of a massive charcoal barn. All historic images on this panel have been colorized., . Unidentified [girls], ca. 1895, . Stable hand Robert Gingher ca. 1900, . Blacksmith Miles Dukeman ca. 1900, . Unidentified [father and children], ca. 1895, [Right side captions, top to bottom, read] , . [Mary Frances Ward's map of Curtin Village], . Retired blacksmith Miles Dukeman and wife Mary Ann ("Polly" Schultz), ca. 1920, . Mary Ellen Neff and niece Beatrice Sents, ca. 1941