Towns and Nature: Sharon, PA: 1870 Stewart/Otis Iron Furnaces

Friday, April 15, 2022

Sharon, PA: 1870 Stewart/Otis Iron Furnaces

(Satellite, the river has moved since 1893! The steel plant is long gone)

It started as Otis Iron Co. in 1870 but became Stewart Iron Co. in 1872. [RootsWeb] Since Otis Steel was founded in Cleveland in 1873 [ClevelandHistorical], it sounds like Charles Otis decided to move from Sharon to Cleveland.

HagleyDigitalArchives
Stewart Furnace Company works, Stewart Iron Company, Ltd. (Sharon, Pa.)

The plant occupies thirty acres of ground. Four acres are covered by the mill and furnaces, and the remainder by dwellings to accommodate the families of employee. The buildings consist of the rolling-mill, 60x336 feet in dimensions, machine shop, two casting houses, large stock house, office and furnaces. The furnace is double, one stack being sixty-five and the other seventy feet in height, with boshes twelve and two-thirds and thirteen and two-thirds feet respectively. The full capacity of the two furnaces is about 62,000 net tons, but the average annual output is 55,000 net tons per year. Lake Superior ore is consumed, with coke manufactured by the company at their own coke works, at Uniontown, Fayette County, where they have 120 ovens, employing 120 hands.
History of Mercer County, 1888, pages 196-197
[RootsWeb]

The first blast furnace built in Sharon was the 1845 Clay Furnace. [RootsWeb-sharon6] "In 1870 there were in Mercer County 458 manufacturing establishments, 164 steam engines and 120 power water wheels; 2,435 men were employed. There were in 1874 about thirty blast furnaces with rolling mills, having as their main product bar iron, “T” rails and iron nails. All were shut down by the panic. There was over production it was said, and the country was never expected to catch up with it capacity to produce." [RootsWeb-sharon8] Stewart Iron survived the 1873 panic because they did another name change in 1877. [RootsWeb]

In fact, they lasted until at least 1927.