The Mount Vernon Furnace

The Mount Vernon Furnace. . , Was one of five furnaces constructed and owned by Ironmaster Isaac Meason. The furnace was built in 1798 and after a terrible explosion, was rebuilt and operating again by 1801. Many men lost their lives in the accident. If you look closely at the front of the furnace on the water wheel side, you will notice that it was rebuilt with smaller stones and not with larger hand cut stones when first built., Mount Vernon Furnace was named in honor of President George Washington. Isaac Meason and George Washington were good friends and hailed from the same area in Virginia., The success of an Iron Furnace depended upon four natural resources: iron ore, limestone, timber and water. Along the base of Chestnut Ridge was an excellent quality of iron ore and limestone, an abundance of timber and numerous water sources that ran off the mountain into Mounts Creek., Where you are standing was once a bustling part of a little village known at Mount Vernon. It had a general store, boarding house, grist mill, saw mill, schoolhouse and many log cabins that housed workers and their families. Today the only evidence of this village is our Iron Furnace. The ore mines were located on the hillside across the road from the furnace., The trees were cut by hand by the woodsmen, drug by workhorses to a central location and then cut into smaller pieces to make charcoal to feed the furnace fires. The process of making charcoal took approximately five days. The furnace consumed 800 bushels of charcoal every 24 hours., The metal made here at our furnace was cast into kettles, coffee and tea pots, skillets, stoves, utensils, cannonballs, many other molded items and "pig" iron bars. These items were sold to the local settlers and also taken to Connellsville for shipment to Pittsburgh and some items going as far as Louisiana. The "Pig Iron" was taken to Meason's "Union Forge" near Connellsville and made into more refined items and returned here to the general store., Mount Vernon Furnace operated very successfully for 32 years. It produced between 1 to 2 tons of metal daily. It was blown out in 1850. This old charcoal furnace was the beginning of the Iron and Steel Industry that later thrived in the Pittsburgh Area for many years., Placed on the , National Register of Historic Places , September 6, 1991.