Comments on: Meekertown’s ‘Moral Darkness’ http://tcextra.com/terrycowgill/2007/01/22/meekertowns-moral-darkness/ What's Going On Here? Wed, 21 May 2008 23:27:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: Geoff Brown http://tcextra.com/terrycowgill/2007/01/22/meekertowns-moral-darkness/#comment-4415 Geoff Brown Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:24:13 +0000 http://tcextra.com/terrycowgill/2007/01/22/meekertowns-moral-darkness/#comment-4415 Well, I've read Dick Paddock's excellent article, finding it most illuminating, as I typically find his discoveries to be. One correction: in Dick's byline he says he "volunteers at Beckley Furnace". I can say, from my own experiences at Beckley, that this is an understatement. Dick is one of the most dependable and energetic volunteers the Friends of Beckley Furnace have. Furthermore, he always to seem to be coming up with something new and tittilating -- at least to people with an interest in the Salisbury iron district and its history. Geoff Brown another Twin Lakes resident, and a sometime Beckley Furnace volunteer Well, I’ve read Dick Paddock’s excellent article, finding it most illuminating, as I typically find his discoveries to be.

One correction: in Dick’s byline he says he “volunteers at Beckley Furnace”. I can say, from my own experiences at Beckley, that this is an understatement. Dick is one of the most dependable and energetic volunteers the Friends of Beckley Furnace have. Furthermore, he always to seem to be coming up with something new and tittilating — at least to people with an interest in the Salisbury iron district and its history.

Geoff Brown
another Twin Lakes resident, and a sometime Beckley Furnace volunteer

]]> By: Geoff Brown http://tcextra.com/terrycowgill/2007/01/22/meekertowns-moral-darkness/#comment-4373 Geoff Brown Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:21:49 +0000 http://tcextra.com/terrycowgill/2007/01/22/meekertowns-moral-darkness/#comment-4373 "Coal burner" was shorthand for "charcoal burner", and of course you are correct that this was integral to the iron industry -- as most everything was around here a century or so ago. (By the way, if the Lakeville Journal had been around before 1846 or so, your paper would have had the euphonious name of the "Furnace Village Journal" -- just as an indication of how the iron industry dominated the area.) What a charcoal burner did, in a nutshell, was cut trees, stack them into a relatively air-tight pile, and burn them in a way that controlled the amount of oxygen that could get in, to make charcoal for the blast furnaces that dotted the landscape. It was particularly hard, particularly dirty, particularly hazardous work -- imagine falling into the top of a burning charcoal pit you had climbed on to tamp down; generally fatal, but fatal much slower than falling into the top of a blast furnace you had been charging from the top! Anyway, charcoal burning is a topic about which lots of people around here know much more than I do, and I hope they will check in with their additional knowledge. Geoff Brown “Coal burner” was shorthand for “charcoal burner”, and of course you are correct that this was integral to the iron industry — as most everything was around here a century or so ago. (By the way, if the Lakeville Journal had been around before 1846 or so, your paper would have had the euphonious name of the “Furnace Village Journal” — just as an indication of how the iron industry dominated the area.)

What a charcoal burner did, in a nutshell, was cut trees, stack them into a relatively air-tight pile, and burn them in a way that controlled the amount of oxygen that could get in, to make charcoal for the blast furnaces that dotted the landscape.

It was particularly hard, particularly dirty, particularly hazardous work — imagine falling into the top of a burning charcoal pit you had climbed on to tamp down; generally fatal, but fatal much slower than falling into the top of a blast furnace you had been charging from the top!

Anyway, charcoal burning is a topic about which lots of people around here know much more than I do, and I hope they will check in with their additional knowledge.

Geoff Brown

]]>