CURTIN IRON WORKS RECORDS
1810-1941
6 cu. ft.
Records consist primarily of cash books, day books, ledgers, order books, time and pay roll books, and other account books, in total fifty-three volumes, of the Eagle Iron Works, Centre County, which was owned and operated by the Curtin family of Bellefonte. Included also is .5 cubic feet of correspondence and legal papers pertaining in part to the iron works and in part to the Curtin family.
Roland Curtin, Sr., father of Civil War governor Andrew Gregg Curtin, started
the business in 1807, when he and Moses Boggs selected a site and constructed
a forge on Bald Eagle Creek about six miles from Bellefonte. He built the Old
Eagle Furnace in 1817-1818 (abandoned in 1836); a rolling mill in the late 1820s;
and Martha Furnace, located about eleven miles west of Bellefonte on Bald Eagle
Creek, in the early 1830s. Roland Curtin, Sr., operated the business under his
own name until 1828, when the name of the firm was changed to Roland Curtin
and Sons to account for the participation of three of his sons, Austin, James,
and Roland. The second Eagle Furnace was constructed in 1848, two years before
Roland's death. The family continued the operation of the iron works well into
the twentieth century.
- Correspondence, 1810-1941. (1 box) {#155m.1} [Holdings]
- Daybooks and Journals, 1829-1902. (6 volumes) {#155m.2} [Holdings]
- Ledgers, 1827-1938. (13 volumes) {#155m.3} [Holdings]
- Miscellaneous Account Books, 1813-1910. (15 volumes) {#155m.4} [Holdings]
- Time and Payroll Books, 1815-1922. (14 volumes) {#155m.5} [Holdings]
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