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Manuscript Group 346
CORNWALL FURNACE AND HOPEWELL FORGE ACCOUNT BOOKS
1752-1766
35 volumes


Account books documenting the operations of Cornwall Furnace and Hopewell Forge are included in this manuscript group. In the mid-1730s, Peter Grubb discovered a large outcropping of iron ore in the hills near what would eventually become known as Cornwall, then situated in Lancaster County. He acquired land and in 1742 put in blast a charcoal powered cold-blast iron furnance he named Cornwall, after his father's birthplace in Cornwall, England. Around the same time he founded a forge he named Hopewell, located a few miles south of his new furnace. By 1803, the operations at both locations had come under the control of Robert Coleman, the scion of a family of iron masters who owned and operated numerous iron-producing concerns in Lebanon and Lancaster counties. Cornwall Furnace remained in operation until 1883 and was owned by the Coleman estate until 1932 when it was donated to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The account books are associated with the Grubb period of ownership. Hopewell Forge is represented by journals and ledgers covering the period 1753-1766 and Cornwall Furnace is represented by journals and ledgers for the years 1752-1766. These account books were in the possession of the Maryland Hall of Records as a result of a court case, Amos Garrett vs. Jacob Giles, filed Dec. 2, 1771 with the Maryland Court of Chancery. A full transcript of this case appears in the Maryland Court of Appeals (Judgement Records) BW10, p. 45-346.






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