Manuscript Group 452, Martha Furnace Employee Journal (typescript copy), 1808-1815
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Manuscript Group 452, Martha Furnace Employee
Journal (typescript copy), 1808-1815, 0.15 linear feet / 1 volume
Call Number: MG 452
A typescript copy of a journal recording daily events at Martha Furnace, an iron foundry located in Washington Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. The original manuscript has been edited by Henry Harold Bisbee and Rebecca Colesar as Martha, 1808-1815: The Complete Martha Furnace Diary and Journal…(Burlington, NJ, 1976).
Martha Furnace, situated in Washington Township, Burlington County, New Jersey on the Oswego Branch of the Wading
River, produced pig iron. The furnace opened in 1793 and was owned by Isaac Potts, who named it after his wife. Only seven years after Potts had completed the furnace he sold it to John Paul, Charles Shoemaker, Morris Robeson, and George Ashbridge. The furnace ceased operations in 1844.
Sources:
Bisbee, Henry H. and Colesar, Rebecca Bisbee. Martha: The Complete Furnace Diary and Journal: 1808-1815 (Burlington, N.J.: Henry H. Bisbee, 1976).
Boyes, Charles S. Early Furnaces in New Jersey (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1931).
The source of this collection is unknown.
This collection consists of a typescript copy of a journal written by an unknown Martha Furnace employee from 1808-1815.
The notations indicate what life was like working for a furnace works and what its employees did both at and away from work.
See other iron works’ records.
Processed by James Lewis, January 2001 as part of the “Farm to City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
