William Firmstone, who had a prominent career as a blast furnace manager in this country, came here originally from England in the spring of 1835. The manufacture of pig iron by the use of coke fuel was in its inception at that time, but history shows that Mr. Firmstone was among the leaders of his day in this branch of the furnace practice.
It is recorded that in 1835 he ran the Mary Ann Furnace in Huntington county, Pa., for a period of a month, using coke made from Broad Top coal, producing good gray forge iron. He was also one of the first to introduce the hot blast in furnace practice in the United States. His first connection with the pig iron industry of this country was with the Vesuvius Furnace in Lawrence county, Ohio, in 1836, and here is where the earliest use of the hot blast for furnaces was introduced.
In 1840 he operated an anthracite blast furnace at Phoenixville, Pa., and was one of the pioneer furnacemen of the Lehigh Valley. The rebuilding of the Lucy Selina stack into a coke furnace in 1873 made it the first furnace in Virginia territory to operate with this fuel. This step had been brought about by the extension of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad through to the Ohio River. Transportation was thus opened to the coal beds of West Virginia and gave the Longdale operators a dependable source of coke supply. In 1881 the second coke stack was erected.
Source: The Iron Trade Review 6 April 1911: Vol 48 Issue 14; Page 30
0 Comments