Power Library - Pennsylvania's Electronic Library Pennsylvania's Electronic Library PA's
Electronic
Library

This handwritten historic collection contains over 2,800 pages of entries documenting the operations necessary to produce iron and iron products. It holds seven Isaac Meason Union more Furnace Ledgers covering the years 1801-1822, with the years 1803-1808, and 1818-1820 missing. In addition, there is a Union Forge Time and Team Ledger for 1809-1811, an original index book, and ledgers for the Union Grist Mill and the Mount Vernon, Centre, Mount Braddock, Dunbar, Warren, and Pallofax Durance operations. These records are unique, unpublished primary documents of the iron furnace industry. Isaac Meason built Union Furnace, the first successful iron furnace west of the Alleghenies in 1791, also operating a foundry and grist mill in connection with the furnace. The associated forge provided iron sugar and salt kettles, Dutch ovens, and other wares that were shipped by local keelboats for Lousiana. These ware were purchased by both western Pennsylvania businesses and families, and by settlers traveling west down the Ohio River. The furnace and forge passed through several hands until the company failed in 1922. Meason also sponsored the first suspension bridge in Pennsylvania, and financed and collaborated with Thomas Lewis on the rolling mill producing bar iron in 1817. At his death, Isaac Meason owned interests in the Mount Vernon Forge, Maria Forge, Union Forge, Union Furnace, Grist Mill, and the Middletown Iron Works. The Meason ledges provide a broad history of the iron industry in Western Pennsylvania. This collection is dedicated to the memory of Joan Peake a long-time genealogist and volunteer at the Uniontown Public Library. Her dedication to this project, along with Linda Jennings and Mary Patterson, helped make it possible. less