Oxford Furnace, New Jersey

Oxford Furnace was a furnace used for smelting iron located in Oxford Township, in Warren County, New Jersey, United States. Built in 1741, it was the third furnace in colonial New Jersey and the first constructed at a site where iron ore was mined. Other furnaces used ore extracted from bogs in South Jersey, impure deposits called bog iron. Oxford Furnace operated the longest of any of the colonial furnaces, not being "blown out" until 1884. In 1835, it was the site of America's first successful use of the hot blast, in which preheated air was blown into the furnace, cutting production time.^[1]

Though worn down by time, much of the site still stands. Oxford Furnace is listed on the State and the National Register of Historic Places.

Notable residents

Notable residents of Oxford Furnace include George M. Robeson (1829-1897), Union Army general during the American Civil War, and United States Secretary of the Navy during the Ulysses S. Grant administration.^[2]

References

1. ^ Lewis, W. David. "The Early History of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company: A Study in Technological Adaptation", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. October 1972.
2. ^ George Maxwell Robeson, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed August 24, 2007.

External links

• The Oxford Furnace Incident