Vesuvius Furnace

The Vesuvius Furnace is an abandoned pig iron furnace in the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Lawrence County, Ohio.

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Vesuvius Furnace was constructed in either 1833 ^{2 3} or 1836 ¹ by Samuel Gould, Jno. Hurd, and Jos. Smith under the company name Gould, Hurd & Company, with the furnace named after a volcanic mountain in Italy. ² It featured a stack 31 feet tall with a bosh 10½ feet wide with a daily capacity of eight to ten tons. Initially, the furnace utilized a cold blast process fueled by charcoal, but in 1837, furnace entrepreneurs conducted an experiment that resulted in the implementation of the hot blast process at the Vesuvius Furnace that was utilized until 1868. ^{2 4}

In 1839, operations were sold to Wm. McLund and Wade under the name of McLung, Wade & Company, and then to Jno. Ellison, Jos. Dempsey, and Jas. Rodgers under the name Dempsey & Company. ² It was then rented to Calvin Brooks, Washington Boyd and Thos. Allen Dempsey circa 1858, to S.W. and T.A. Dempsey and Jos. Gilliland in 1863, and to C.W. Amos, G.N. Gray, T.A. Demosey, L. Amos, and Oliver Lyon in 1868. It was then sold to the Aetna Iron Works in 1872, with equipment from Little Etna moved to Vesuvius in 1886.

Vesuvius Furnace was then leased to the Ironton Coal & Iron Company in November 1899, and operated thereafter as the Vesuvius Charcoal Iron Company. ² Operations ceased in 1906 with land surrounding it becoming a part of the Wayne National Forest’s Lake Vesuvius Recreation Area. ^{1 2 4} In 1991, a roof was added to the rock furnace to protect the massive stonework and firebrick from further water damage. ⁵

Directions: Vesuvius Furance can be seen in the Lake Vesuvius Recreation Area in Ohio.

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Sources

1. Rowe, Frank H. “Franklin Furnace.” History of the Iron and Steel Industry in Scioto County, Ohio. Columbus: F.J. Heer, 1938. 80-82. Print.
2. Kouns, Sharon M. “Iron Furnaces.” The Lawrence Register.
3. “Vesuvius Furnace.” Briggs Lawrence County Public Library.
4. Willard, Eugene B., Daniel W. Williams, George O. Newman, and Charles B. Taylor. “The Iron Industries.” A Standard History of the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio. Lewis Publishing Company, 1916, pp. 265-289.
5. Iron Furnaces in the Wayne National Forest Area, United States Forest Service, 2015.