History

The Robesonia Furnace, originally called the Reading Furnace, was established in 1794 by George Ege (who also owned nearby Charming Forge) on a tract of land formerly owned by Conrad Weiser.  Ore for the furnace operation came from the Cornwall Mines, twenty-five miles distant in Lebanon County.  Ege erected several log and stone tenant houses near the Furnace and built a Furnace mansion, circa 1807.  After Ege's death in 1829, a trustee, who subsequently offered the property for sale in 1836, ran the property.  At that time the property included 6-7000 acres of land, an ore right to the Cornwall Mines, the Ironmasters Mansion, a gristmill, saw mill and several other buildings.

After an assortment of proprietors, the Furnace was sold in 1845 to Henry P Robeson, who came from the Manada Gap Furnace in Dauphin County.  Robeson replaced the charcoal furnace with an anthracite furnace with a hot blast, capable of producing 50 tons of iron a week.  In 1854, Robeson, Brooke, and Company built a new stack, which yielded 240 tons of iron a week.  In 1855, the Lebanon Valley railroad was completed through what was to become Robesonia in 1859, greatly facilitating the shipment of both raw materials and finished product.

In 1876, George Taylor became the Superintendent of the furnace.  Taylor was interested in further increasing production.  In 1884, they abandoned one stack and enlarged a second stack to increase its capacity to 1,000 tons of iron per week.  At that time the firm decided to manufacture only one kind of pig iron, named "Robesonia", made exclusively of Cornwall ore.

In 1885 the furnace was sold to White and Co. of Philadelphia for $850,000, and became a stock company- the Robesonia Iron Co., Limited.  W.C. Freeman of Lebanon became president of the company.  However, George Taylor remained as superintendent until his death in 1903.  Immediately after his death, a new and greatly improved furnace was erected, which remained in service until 1914.

In 1912 the company, having accumulated a huge mountain of slag, used some of the slag to make cinder block.  They built a number of buildings in the complex utilizing the block, including a fire-house, several tenant houses and a chemical laboratory.  The houses and the fire house are still standing.  Further improvements were made to the furnace in 1921 when automatic fill was instituted, and in 1924 when an automatic pig-casting machine was erected, as well as a large electric gantry crane.

The increased productivity and efficiency of the furnace eventually led to its demise.  When the furnace was established, it acquired a right to free ore from the Cornwall Ore Banks, for a period of about 130 years.  Initially this involved approximately 2,000 tons a year. With modern production, 100,000 tons a year were being taken from the mine for Robesonia.  Although the original agreement only entitled them to ore for one furnace, by maintaining two furnaces, one always ready when the other ran out of blast, the company ate up tremendous amounts of ore.  Legal battles with the Cornwall proprietors resulted in the court establishing their right to supply one furnace, but would not allow them to utilize the other furnace when the primary furnace was not in service.

When Bethlehem Steel acquired the Cornwall Mines, they decided that to stem the drain on the mines their only choice was to acquire and dismantle the Robesonia Furnace, which they proceeded to do on April 18, 1927.  Subsequently the furnace complex was dismantled and the homes and other buildings were sold off individually.

Today, the furnace town is primarily a residential neighborhood of Robesonia Borough.

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