Hopewell Furnace

Wednesday, we had the day off from going to Classical Conversations so my friend Ronda and I decided to take the kids to Hopewell Furnace and check it out.  I had never been there before but have wanted to go and see what it was all about for a while now.  The kids had a lot of fun.  It was free admission and we pretty much had the place to ourselves!

"Hopewell Furnace is an early American industrial community that operated from 1771 to 1883. The cold-blast iron furnace and accompanying community has been restored to the way it looked during the 1830s and 1840s, when the furnace was at its height of activity.

By 1789 the Hopewell Furnace was Pennsylvania's second largest producer of iron. Its stated capacity was 700 tons of iron per blast year. A "blast year" usually lasted 10 - 11 months"

Checking out the water wheel:

One of the furnaces on the property:

"An iron "Molder" was one of the most skilled and best paid workers in the early iron industry. The best paid iron molder at Hopewell Furnace in 1836 was John Sheeler. He was paid $434.83 for producing enough cast iron stove plates to make 352 1/2 stoves."

"Men known as "Fillers" worked 12 hour shifts 7 days a week entering 400 - 500 lbs. of iron ore, 30 - 40 lbs. of limestone and 15 bushels of charcoal every half hour into Hopewell's furnace to keep it in "blast"."

They had their own bookstore and general store.

Hopewell was also farmed to help feed the workers and animals that lived there.

The kids loved the little stream that ran through the park.  They saw a bunch of fish and a snake that they were very excited about :P

One of the staff houses.  Not all of the staff was able to live on the premises but the ones that did lived in these little houses and paid $12-$25 in rent a year.

The gardens:

Oh, we had taken Bolt with us and Mason just loved her :)

Not so sure how Bolt felt though :P

Katy had a good time too :)

We finally got the kids to leave and drove the 5 minutes over to Hopewell Lake, had lunch and let the kids run around for a couple hours. 
In the evening Chase had his very first T-ball practice.  Ricky got home in time to go with us and I was very thankful because Joanna and Katy just wanted to run around the whole time!  Ricky and I took turns running after them.  Chase really liked his practice and he says he really likes baseball.

We took Bolt with us again and she fell asleep on me.  She really likes sleeping upside down like this, it's too funny.

Water break...

It was a beautiful day.

The puppies are getting ready to go to their new homes.  They are 9 1/2 weeks now and I separated them from Blondie so they are eating all on their own and doing well.  I've decided to make them all sweaters to go home with.  This was for the littlest girl and she looks ridiculously cute.