Lehigh Crane Iron Company
Source: Wikepedia (August 2010) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_Crane_Iron_Company
The Lehigh
Crane Iron Company (often simply the Crane
Iron Company) was a major ironmaking firm
in the Lehigh Valley from its founding in 1839 until its sale in 1899. It was
founded under the patronage of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, which
hoped to promote the then-novel technique of smelting iron ore with anthracite
coal. The new company was named for George Crane, a British ironmaster whose
superintendent, David Thomas, was hired to come to America and set up an
ironworks using the new technique.
The
company put its first furnace into blast in 1840, and quickly gained a
reputation for efficiency and iron-making prowess among the many furnaces that
now sprang up in the Lehigh Valley. Over the next several decades, Crane Iron
developed an extensive portfolio of assets, buying mines in the Lehigh Valley
and in northern New Jersey, and taking over many of the smaller iron furnaces
in the region. Crane Iron also financed the building of railroads in the area
to haul limestone and iron ore to its furnaces.
As the
merchant pig iron business began to decline, Crane Iron sold off much of its
railroad interests in 1896. In an effort to revive Eastern iron mining in the
face of competition from Minnesota, Crane took part in Thomas Edison's attempts
to develop a magnetic ore beneficiation process. However, Edison's experiments
proved uneconomical. In 1899, Crane Iron was sold to the Empire Steel and Iron
Company, a conglomerate of Eastern and Southern iron furnaces. The Crane Works,
as the company's plant was now known, last made iron in 1930, and the plant was
torn down in 1932.
Origins
In
1837, the Yniscedwyn Works in Wales became the first ironworks in Britain to
produce anthracite iron in commercial quantities, by use of the hot blast
method. The works were owned by George Crane, and superintended by David Thomas.
This discovery promised to provide a large market for anthracite, and the
managers of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company wished to duplicate the
process in the United States. After negotiations with Crane and Thomas, they
were able to hire Thomas to emigrate and manage their proposed ironworks. The
company was named in honor of Crane: it was organized on April 23, 1839 and
incorporated on May 16, 1839, under a general act of the Pennsylvania Legislature.
The LC&N supported the new company by granting them land and rights to
water power (from the LC&N's canal) for their furnace.
Early years
Construction
of the first furnace commenced about August 1, 1839, at Biery's Port, later Catasauqua.
The ovens for the hot blast were coal-fired, and the blowing engine was driven
by a waterwheel tapping the canal at Lock 36. The furnace was blown in on July
3, 1840 and the first four tons of iron produced July 4, 1840. It remained in
blast until flooded by a January freshet in 1841, producing 1,080 tons of iron
during that period.
No. 2
Furnace was erected in 1842, using waste gas from the stack to heat the blast
instead of coal-fired ovens. No. 3 was built in 1846, and Nos. 4 and 5 in 1849,
as the iron business increased.
The limestone
flux for the furnaces was largely shipped from local quarries. A mixture of
about 75 magnetite ore was used to supply the furnace. Most of the limonite was
mined locally: the first batch of ore smelted at the furnace was supplied by
Henry Hoch's mine (also referred to as Rice's mine) in Schoenersville nearby,
and the mine was an important supplier of the ironworks for years, being worked
from 1840 to 1908. Some magnetite came from the Wieand mine (also referred to
as the Mann mine) at Vera Cruz, but it was principally shipped from the
Irondale-area, Byram, and Dickerson Mines in New Jersey. Anthracite came from
the LC&N's mines, shipped by canal boat for many years, and later by rail.
Expansion
In
1855, David Thomas left his post as superintendent of the Crane Iron Company to
oversee the new Thomas Iron Company. His son John Thomas succeeded him, and
served until he, too, took over at Thomas Iron, and was succeeded by his
brother-in-law Joshua Hunt.
The
success of Crane Iron and the many other iron companies that sprang up in the
Lehigh Valley led to a major mining boom in Lehigh County, with no less than
261 mines of varying size being opened. Some were worked by independent operators
and the ore sold on the open market, others leased by iron companies, and some
owned outright by the companies. In 1875, Crane Iron leased eleven limonite
mines in Lehigh County, owned three outright and one jointly with Thomas Iron,
and leased a hematite mine at Zionsville.
This
was in part facilitated by improved transportation in the area. The Crane and
Thomas Iron Companies wanted a railroad to bring local ore to their furnaces,
but faced strong local opposition when attempting to gain a charter. As a
compromise, the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Plank Road corporation was chartered
on July 2, 1853, to build a plank road from the ore pits to the furnaces. A
short section of plank road was constructed, but the exceptional weight of the
ore wagons quickly destroyed it. Renewed efforts to palliate the local farmers
were successful, and the plank road was renamed and rechartered on April 20,
1854 as the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad. The C&F began hauling ore
from the mines near Fogelsville in 1857. In 1864, it was further extended to a
connection with the East Pennsylvania Railroad at Alburtis and in 1865, to the
magnetite mines at Rittenhouse Gap. Improvements to the physical plant also
occurred, building No. 6 stack in 1868. The company survived the Panic of 1873
and the subsequent poor iron market, and No. 5 stack was rebuilt in 1877,
introducing new firebrick heat exchangers (stoves) to heat the blast, rather
than the iron pipes heretofore used. No. 3 stack collapsed in 1879 while out of
blast, and Nos. 1 and 2 were subsequently demolished. A new No. 1 and 3 were
built, and the site of No. 2 used for stoves for the new furnaces, which were
built in 1880 and put in service in 1881. Joshua Hunt resigned the
superintendency on January 1, 1882, six months before the death of his
father-in-law, David Thomas.
By this
time, the iron furnaces also boasted a substantial plant railroad, having
constructed a private wagon and rail bridge (which they opened to the public)
across the Lehigh River in 1847 to facilitate ore shipment, which would connect
with the Lehigh Valley Railroad line in West Catasauqua in 1855, as well as the
C&F when that line opened. (The Central Railroad of New Jersey would build
a line along the Lehigh River in 1867 on the same side as the furnaces, giving
Crane Iron yet another rail inlet and outlet.) The company received a
supplement to its charter on March 15, 1872 (and was renamed simply the Crane
Iron Company), allowing it to construct up
to 2 miles (3.2 km) of rail line to dispose of slag or connect with another
railroad. The plant trackage ultimately totaled 3.31 miles (5.33 km), and was
worked by a number of 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 switchers, including one built on-site at
the ironworks in the 1880s.
End of independence
In
1889, No. 3 stack was raised, and No. 4 went out of service in July 1890. The
Crane and Thomas Iron companies leased the C&F to the Reading Railroad on
December 8, 1893, and Crane Iron sold off its share to the Reading entirely
from June 5, 1896, leaving the line-haul railroad business. During the 1890s,
Crane Iron also participated in the experiments of Thomas Edison, who was
attempting to rejuvenate the then-moribund Eastern magnetite mines by magnetic beneficiation.
Initial attempts were frustrated by the dusty nature of the finely-ground ore
(which made it susceptible to losses both in transit and during the furnace
blast), and the process ultimately proved uneconomical in competition with
cheap Mesabi Range ores, which came to replace locally-mined ore. In 1899, the
company was sold to the Empire Steel and Iron Company and became their Crane
Works. The works was gradually dismantled, last making iron in 1930. It was
scrapped in 1932.
References
Bartholomew,
Craig L.; Metz, Lance E. (1988). Bartholomew, Ann (ed.). ed. The Anthracite
Iron Industry of the Lehigh Valley. Center
for Canal History and Technology. ISBN 0-930973-08-9.
Kulp,
Randolph L., ed. (1962). History of Lehigh and New England Railroad Company. Lehigh Valley Chapter, National Railway Historical
Society, Inc.
Lambert,
James F., and Reinhard, Henry J. (1914). A History of Catasauqua in Lehigh
County Pennsylvania. The Searle and
Dressler Co., Inc.. ISBN none.
"Pennsylvania
Geological Survey, Lehigh County". Retrieved 2008-04-23.
Taber, Thomas T., III (1987). Railroads of Pennsylvania
Encyclopedia and Atlas. Thomas T. Taber
III. ISBN 0-9603398-5-X.
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