Let’s Talk Connellsville
By William Balsley and Karen Hechler For the Herald-Standard
Gibsonville? Have you ever heard of Gibsonville? Did it have anything to do with John Gibson, the main character in our last column? Where was Gibsonville located?
Remember we mentioned that there was one old stone blast iron furnace in Connellsville. That furnace, built by John Gibson’s sons, was known as the Etna Furnace built in 1815 on Trump Run. It went out of blast between 1836 and 1840. The remains of this furnace are located under the former YMCA building along South Pittsburgh Street.
Prior to our iron making days in western Pennsylvania, bar iron was imported from the Philadelphia and Baltimore areas. One early trader who brought iron to our Connellsville area was William McCormick, who married Effie Crawford, daughter of Col. William Crawford (Crawford’s Cabin and Crawford Avenue).
McCormick was a teamster from Winchester, Va., who came into this area around 1770. Along with iron, he transported salt and spices to the nearly self-sufficient setters. The iron producers back in the east would shape and bend the bar iron into U shapes that would fit the backs of mules so that the iron could be hauled by mule trains to those people beyond the Appalachians who had no other access to this vital product. These traders hid the food along the rough road that they traveled so that food would be available for the hard working mules carrying the precious iron to the western folks.
But as more people came into our area and discovered the natural resources needed for an iron industry here in the west, it wasn’t long before iron furnaces were constructed and in operation turning out the necessary pig and bar iron to fashion into useful tools and weapons. Our own Fayette County had more stone blast iron furnaces than any other western Pennsylvania county.
An iron furnace in a frontier location became the hub of an early industrial site, and a community grew up around that industry. Just like today, people locate close to where employment opportunities exist, back in the early 19th century, workers settled near to where they could get work. Gibsonville, an iron furnace community, to the best of our knowledge, was located approximately in the area where Falcon Stadium sits today.
What activities went on in one of these early villages that sprang up around an iron furnace? The furnace was surrounded by small log or frame cabins to house the workers and their families. There might have been close to a hundred or more people living there. If took 15 to 20 men working around the clock to tend to the operations at the blast furnace. Other jobs requiring workers included: cutting wood to make charcoal, making charcoal, hauling the charcoal to the furnace, raising food for the employees, their families, and the horses, and hauling ore, limestone and pig iron. There was need for between 30 and 50 horses for all the hauling jobs required to keep the industry operating. Etna Furnace had a daily output of about 15 tons of bar iron.
Although we had coal in the area, even in George Washington’s journal upon visiting Col. Crawford, he mentioned seeing outcroppings of good quality coal. We used charcoal in iron production up to the mid 19th century. Europeans had already begun to make iron and steel using coal as fuel. Here in America, things were different. In the early 1800s, the forest in this area were so thick that people were anxious to have the trees cut down so that farmland would be available.
Bill said that the favorite wood locally for making charcoal was white oak. The white oak was cut from the area above Isabella Road in Connellsville. He said it took five acres of timber per season to operate the furnace. Eventually the hillside was bare of trees.
The charcoal was made in kilns or ricks, which were piles of wood in the shape of beehives and covered with dirt. One man was on duty at all times to control the fire at the slow burn needed to produce charcoal. If the fire broke out of the ricks too soon, more dirt was thrown on the pile of wood to maintain proper baking temperature.
The iron was obtained in the hills south of Connellsville in what is now South Connellsville. The limestone was also dug out of the hills surrounding our town.
According to the Centennial History of the Borough of Connellsville 1806-1906, the workers in Gibsonville were charged no rent. An interesting note was that one person in the village was know as the “Doctor’s Man.” He went to get the doctor if someone got sick. The way to call the “Doctor’s Man” was to blow on a tinhorn that was part of each families’ household equipment. That sound would bring the “Doctor’s Man” to your house. While there, he would take note of your symptoms so that when the actual doctor arrived, he would have the proper medication.
Workers must have been quite loyal back in the early 19th century because the furnace operated with practically the same workers for the entire time the furnace was in operation. Some workers did leave toward the end of operations because a small rental charge for the cabins was enforced.
It’s hard to imagine as you park your car along a South Side street on a football Friday night and head for Falcon Stadium that you are traveling across an important section of Connellsville’s early industrial past. If you walk along the side of the former YMCA building and go down the stairway behind the building, you are on the area where Etna Furnace was operating and turning out tons of bar iron. You are in the vicinity of Trump Run, which supplied the water for the iron industry. And when you enter the stadium, you might be right where Gibsonville once flourished, and where people lived, worked and earned their livelihood for nearly 30 years in Connellsville’s early history. And now you have heard of Gibsonville; it actually did exist.