Mt. Vernon Furnace, Lawrence County, Ohio
Built: 1833
By: R. HAMILTON, JOHN CAMPBELL & WILLIAM ELLISON
Daily Ton: 16
Stack: 32 Feet
Blast: Hot Charcoal
Researched by Sharon M. Kouns
John Peters, Sr. worked at Mt. Vernon Furnace from 1835-1840. He then joined J. O. Willard and leased Buckhorn Furnace. John Campbell was the manager of Mt. Vernon Furnace in 1835.
Ironton Register, March 3, 1887 – Mrs. C. A. Magee, of Mt. Vernon furnace, is very sick. Her husband had to suspend school on account of her illness.
Ironton Register, April 6, 1899 – (taken from obituary of Mrs. Katherine Scott) . . . About 1848, Robert Scott came to this county and was for years a prominent iron man. He was the manager at Mt. Vernon Furnace for ten or fifteen years, in those early days of the iron business when furnace life was a social affair and iron-making enterprise.
Ironton Register, February 15, 1866 – CAMPBELL, ELLISON & CO. – The name of the old firm, Campbell, Ellison & Co., has changed to Campbell & Co. This is in consequence of the decease of Wm. Ellison. Mt. Vernon Furnace and the Ironton Foundry are the principal establishments of the firm.
Ironton Register, November 19, 1885 – (Iron News) Col. Geo. N. Gray has rented an Mt. Vernon furnace and has gone to work getting ready for a blast, which will not begin before next Spring. The Colonel went out last Monday to give out the wood chopping. The contract provides for such timber as will give him a two-load job. He has nothing to do with the ore mining, as he gets his ore at a stipulated rate from the Campbell Iron Co., a corporation recently organized for mining and selling ore and lime from Mt. Vernon lands. Neither does he run the store. Col. Gray is an energetic and judicious furnaceman who will certainly succeed in his new venture.
Semi-Weekly Irontonian, November 8, 1907 – Andrew B. Ellison, son of John, together with Robert Hamilton and John Campbell, and others, were the subscribers to the building of Mt. Vernon Fce. In 1833. Mr. John Campbell was employed by J. Riggs & Co. in keeping books and helping oversee the building of the Hanging Rock Forge and Lawrence Furnace for one year and ten months. His salary made part of a loan of $1500 he made that company for his expenses were few in the woods, and he had something less than $800 when he came to Hanging Rock in 1833.
His subscription to build Mt. Vernon was by borrowing, which had to be paid in 1835 and later. For this purpose, he arranged to procure funds from his father and his aunt, Fidelia Hopkins, of Ripley, O., upon his home visit in January 1835, and which he might, in the summer of 1833, have procured from his two uncles, Jos. N. Campbell, Judge of Common Pleas of Ripley, or John W. Campbell, Federal Judge of Columbus, both of whom died of Cholera that year.
Messrs. Ellison and Hamilton, who invited Mr. Campbell to Hanging Rock in 1833, and gave him early employment til 1835, joined him in subscribing for the erection of Mt. Vernon Furnace in 1833, of which they made him Manager in 1835; they also accepted in 1837 as the husband of a young lady who was the cousin of one and the niece of the other, and these were the only occupations in which Mr. Campbell ever engaged, clerking, Superintendent and Manager.
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