Thursday, June 28, 2012

Lyon County, Kentucky Iron Works

Many of us with Lyon County, Kentucky connections had ancestors employed in the manufacture of iron. Two of these businesses are mentioned on page 214 in Iron Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges and Rolling Mills of the United States by J.P. Lesley; John Wiley, Publisher, 1859.

Union Forge, on the right bank of the Cumberland river, three miles from Suwannee Furnace, two miles below Eddyville, in Lyon county Kentucky, owned by Kelly & Company, and managed by John B. Evans, was built about 1840 and rebuilt in 1854, has 8 knobling fires and 1 hammer driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 1,000 tons of blooms out of pig iron.

Tennessee Iron Works, on the right bank of the Cumberland river, ten miles above Eddyville, in Lyon County, owned by Hillman Brothers, and managed by George Hillman, was built in 1846, has 22 knobling or refining fires, 1 puddling furnace and 1 hammer driven by steam, and made in 1856 3,384 tons of blooms out of pig metal with a little scrap.

Copyright on text and photos
by Brenda Joyce Jerome, CG
Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog

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