Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/476

460 was (according to Overman ), "the first coke furnace whose operation was successful erected in this country. It is fifty feet high, fifty feet at the base, twenty-five feet at the top, and measures fifteen feet at the boshes." In 1840 two large blast-furnaces were built by the Mount Savage Iron Company, at Mount Savage, Md. These furnaces also used coke, of which there-was made, "from 1840 to 1850, between 50,000 and 75,000 tons"—"most of which was used at the furnaces." All the coke for the above furnaces was made in pits.

The manufacture of "Connellsville coke," which is regarded as especially excellent for smelting iron, was commenced in 1841. Weeks (writing in 1883) gives the following account of the beginning of the coke business in the Connellsville region: "Two carpenters, Provance McCormick and James Campbell, overheard an Englishman, so the story runs, commenting on the rich deposits of coal at Connellsville, and their fitness for making coke, as well as the value of coke for foundry purposes, and they determined to enter upon its manufacture. Mr. McCormick, who is still living, an old man of eighty-four, has given me an account from memory of this enterprise which I quote: 'James Campbell and myself heard, in some way that I do not now recollect, that the manufacturing of coke might be made a good business. Mr. John Taylor, a stone-mason, who owned a farm on which the Fayette Coke-works now stand, and who was mining coal in a small way, was spoken to regarding our enterprise, and proposed a partnership—he to build the ovens and make the coke, and Mr. Campbell and myself to build a boat and take the coke to Cincinnati, where we heard there was a good demand. This was in 1841. Mr. Taylor built two ovens. I think they were about ten feet in diameter. My recollection is that the charge was eighty bushels. The ovens were built in the same style as those now used, but had no iron ring at the top to prevent the brick from falling in when filling the oven with coal, nor had we any iron frames at the mouth where the coke was drawn. In the spring of 1842 enough coke had been made to fill two boats ninety feet long—about eight hundred bushels in each—and we took them to Cincinnati, down the Youghiogheny, Monongahela, and Ohio; but when we got there we could not sell. Mr. Campbell, who went with the boats, lay at the landing some two or three weeks, retailing one boatload and part of the other in small lots at about eight cents a bushel. Miles Greenwood, a foundryman of that city, offered to