A project that we hope to have our
Furnace
look like in the future
In
1873 The Clove Spring Iron Works built what we today call “The Beekman Furnace” Even today as you walk Clove Valley Road you can see a number of houses that existed
from that a Irish community that worked the furnace. Work typically involved 12 hour
shifts in dangerous conditions. Iron furnaces ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for many months on
end. The roar, fire and heat were continuous, while the furnace cast an eerie glow that could light up the night for a considerable
area. Smoke from the charcoal production hung in the air, while the valley and the surrounding hills were
stripped bare of trees for the needed charcoal. Mining boomed until
the 1890's and many of the small ponds scattered about town today were originally open ore pits which filled with water
when mining was abandoned following the discovery of the great iron ore deposits in the Midwest. By 1900 the population
sank to one thousand and dropped to 800 by 1940. Gone was the boom time but for a short time it was special,
it was an Anthracite Furnace that burned a metamorphic rock It was technology at its finest for that time. It roared and lit
up the night and it will always hold a special place with the town.. Some of the stones of the old Beekman furnace were used
to build the dam at Furnace Pond; others are being used to line driveways. A group of community members in 1989 led by the
Town Historian Lee Eaton successfully petitioned the town to take ownership and protect it from further demise. Today it sits
behind a fence waiting for someone to stop and read about it’s mighty feats.
