Nov 2007

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 50
Weather - Cool, but warming a bit throughout the day. No Rain.
Camped at Wal-mart in Milford, Delaware

Narrative:

This morning, Mom wanted to visit the Velocipede Museum as did I. We were really in luck, they are only open on Saturdays from 11 - 5, and we got there about a quarter to 11 on a Saturday. (I took the rig into the New Castle Wal-mart we stayed at last night for LOF (lube & oil filter), so we didn't head back into town until that was done).

It turns out this is a private collection that is generously shared with the public. A friend of the collector hosts visitors on Saturdays when she's available. This is Caroline and Julia (her dog) who greeted us and allowed us to enjoy the velocipedes.

Mom's grandmother, Maude Cummings had a bad foot which made it difficult for her to walk. Mom's grandfather, Charles Kingsbury Stinson, suggested she ride a bicycle for exercise. He designed a skirt, split in the middle, for this purpose. However when she went riding in Boston, some people felt it was improper for a lady to ride a bicycle and threw things at her, so she rode only at night and probably didn't continue very much longer. This was in the late 1800's or early 1900's.

The collection includes a large wheel bicycle with steps and a platform so you can try sitting on it. I found it to be somewhat scary and uncomfortable so am personally quite glad this form of bicycle became obsolete.

There are also some very old contraptions, children's bikes and even motorized bicycles! Some are replica's, which is fine - it still gives you and idea what they looked like and how people rode them. I've got descriptions attached to these, so will just post the thumbnails. These should be roughly by age (older to newer). Click to enlarge and see the descriptions of the ones you like (if you don't like this approach, let me know via a comment).

Finally, there was an stationary bike that didn't look very interesting to me until I read the description. One like this was used in the Virginia State Prisons to generate electricity for lights! We sure take our modern conveniences (like electric lights) for granted.

What a treat this was. I had never seen things such as some of these 'velocipede's (a 'dandy horse'?). Also, I would have to assume that a wooden tricycle in 1885 would have been enjoyed only by wealthy families. Nowdays, even rundown apartment have bikes, trikes and all sorts of toys strewn about - such toys are available to almost all children in the western hemisphere at least.

Just down the block from the Velocipede Museum was one of the houses on the "New Castle Heritage Trail". We decided to go ahead and take the tour. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed in the inside so there's only one photo:

Our tour guide, Sara, felt as bad about this as we did. Unfortunately it seems some scumbags go around photographing old museum artifacts, then go back after hours to take what's of value - so insurance companies are increasingly telling museums not to allow photography. What a sad reflection on how a small few can mess things up for others.

This house was built in 1738 by Doctor Finney, a wealthy landowner in town. For the next 60 years, this was the grandest mansion in town. It was built in the 'georgian' style, with a central hall & staircase and symetrical rooms on either side. One was a parlor, the other a multipurpose room (office, dining room, family room or whatever was needed). When the Finney family no longer needed the house, they rented it to the Van Dyke family. George Washington attended the wedding of Governor Van Dykes daughter in the house in 1784 (I tried to stand on the same spot as George, to the left of the fireplace). It was said of Gen. Washington's stay that he kissed the bride and the other pretty girls, 'as was his wont to do'.

Several of the items in the house came from the period the Van Dykes lived in the house. One chair was donated from their other home that was said to be the chair Gen. Lafayette sat in when he visited the Van Dykes.

By the time this house was built and furnished (mid 1700's), most of it's furnishings were made in the Colonies. The workmanship on the wood furniture I saw was quite good. Even the tallcase cloce was made in Wilmington.

The house was not insulated when it was built of course and the New Castle Historical Society doesn't have the money to retrofit it with insulation, so it is quite cool inside even now. Sara said that when it starts getting really cold here, the heating bill can go as high as $1,400/month so they generally close down in January and February.

One interesting feature was a desk in the multipurpose room. It had 9 hidden drawers or compartments. Sara explained that in the 1700's, there weren't any banks or police in New Castle, so someone with money, like Dr. Finney, would need a place to hide valuables.

The Finney's had four live in servents, one of whom was a slave and another was an indentured servent. Because of their wealth, the Finney (and later Van Dyke) women would not have worked in the Kitchen except to give directions or oversee/plan dinners. The kitchen was also fairly well appointed for the 1700's however and had all the latest gadgets. One thing we saw in this kitchen was a tall wooden mortar and pestle. (I looked up the spelling on this, it is pestle). When the house was built, there were no grain mills in the New Castle area, so women had to grind grains into flour for baking.

Our guide, Sara said that while kitchen fire was one of the leading causes of women's death during the colonial times, it wasn't necessarily burning to death. Sparks that flew out from the fire could cause burns that weren't fatal, but could become infected and without antibiotics, cause death a few weeks after the initial injury.

The Amstel house did have a lot of closets. Early houses for working class people didn't really need closets because few people had very many cloths. A wealthy family such as lived here, had quite a bit of clothing as well as other household cloths (table cloths, towels, napkins, etc.), so closets are another clue this was a mansion during it's day.

The second historic home we toured was also very old, but otherwise quite the opposite of the Amstel house. Again, no photographs were allowed inside, but this is the exterior of the "Dutch" house (the little one with the red shutters, not the big, brick one next door).

Our tour guide in this house was Mimi. Mimi had been a high school teacher, so Mom had a little more trouble tripping her up with bits of history, "Did you know..." (she pretty much knew it all. I think Sara mentioned she might have been a teacher also and was likewise very knowledgeable, although Mom enjoyed trying.)

Historians aren't sure who built the house or exactly when it was built, but probably in the range of 1690 to 1700. They do know a working class Dutch family lived in the house for most of the 1700's. The town was never 100% Dutch and the house was also likely a combination of cultures (even if a Dutch family resided in it, they would have acquired Swedish or British goods in trading with neighbors or even picked up some of their customs). This wasn't the first house built in town, bit is the oldest surviving house in New Castle. None of the original furnishings remain (except for a few items that were boarded up with the kitchen fireplace.) Period appropriate items were carefully researched & located by Louise Crowninshield, one of the founding members of the New Castle Historical Society.

Like the Fairbanks house we saw up in Dedham, the house didn't just sit around but was modified and added to as the residents needs evolved. Originally, it was a one room home with a giant fireplace along one wall. Later a wall was added in the middle with two fireplaces in the center, one for each room. Even later the roof was raised and two bedrooms added upstairs. At some point a kitchen was also added in the back with yet a third fireplace.

Dutch eating customs were somewhat different than we're used to. Everyone in the family worked on food preparation during the morning. Men and older boys might hunt or fish, younger children might gather oysters, clams, nuts or berries. Women might prepare food in the kitchen, milk goats or bake. At lunch, all of the food would be arranged on the table. Then the father would sit down alone and eat his fill (or be joined by a grandfather if one as in the household).

After the father ate, the food would be cleared and a very large family bible brought to the table. The father would read from the bible, and also teach the older boys to read and write (this was probably the only book the family owned). Then the food would be brought back in for the children to eat. Finally, after everyone else was done, the women would eat. They were considered the most expendable. In fact, malnutrition was another leading cause of death for women during this period. (Mom also points out however that malnutrition was not limited to women during this period).

In the afternoon, the father and older boys would go to their shop to work (or fields if a farmer). Women and girls would work on sewing, washing, or mending as all cloths were handmade and each person needed two sets of cloths for each season (Summer & Winter, Work Cloths and Church Cloths).

There is an interesting story about the Pirate Period (from 1650 - 1724). In Cape May, NJ, we learned that the NJ townfolk were not too fond of the Pirates and had even tainted a local pond to keep the pirates from coming there for the water. Delaware folks didn't feel the same way and Captain Kidd regularly visited New Castle. At one point, the British were coming to look for Captain Kidd, he townfolk welcomed them and invited them to stay the night. However, during the course of the night they stole the soldiers cloths so they couldn't pursue the pirates.

We saw a lot of interesting Dutch furniture, household items, cookie molds, etc. and learned more about them. But by the time we'd done all this, there wasn't enough time left to visit any more homes in New Castle (I was interested in the Read house, but like other things, just won't get to it).

So we finally started down the coast of Delaware. We saw more fall foliage (OK, this is from a different state so cut me a little slack for uploading yet more leaves!)

We saw more seaside vista's such as this:

And finally, because Delaware has so many wetlands, we saw a very interesting sunset:

We did get to Milford after dark, but the pharmacy was still open and they did have Mom's prescription. We picked that up, did a little shopping, and settled in for the night.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 80 (From Strasburg, PA, through a small corner of MA, then into Newark DE and across)
Weather - Overcast & cool
Camped at New Castle, Wal-mart

Narrative:

Before we left the campground this morning, I asked where I could get Propane. They gave me a map saying about a mile and a half down the road was an Amish farm that sold propane. So after slapping more duct tape on the RV, off we went. (After all those repairs I did before we left, it still leaks). Down the road a mile and a half we turned left, then left again at the third farm on the left. We went down a long driveway to the back barn and found an office where the farmer sold propane as well as other misc. farm supplies. This was a normal looking place except for the Amish horse & buggy of another customer parked outside the office (and maybe cloths hung out on a line to dry instead of in a dryer, and in November, rather drab cloths come to think of it). The folks in the office wore the traditional Amish cloths such as we'd learned about yesterday and spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (I believe this is an anglicazation of "Deutsch", the German word for German, which the Amish speak). If I hadn't forgotten most of my German, I wouldn't have had any trouble understanding them. But they spoke English to me and filled up my propane at a fairly good price.

We continued south, driving through more rural, Pennsylvania farmland. We just started passing some suburban housing when we saw the Maryland sign. Hmm, most of the time we can barely tell the difference when we cross a state line. Sometimes (like this), there's a big difference. I suppose it has to do with land use or zoning policies. For today however we were determined to get to Delaware, so we just drove through the top corner of Maryland. At least we can attest that the top corner of Maryland still had nice fall colors when we drove through it today!

We quickly found out that the University of Delaware is right across the next border in Newark, Delaware. It's probably a very good school, but I think all of the classes let out for lunch at the same time and 90% or more of their students cross Hwy 273, which we were on, on their way to lunch. Three months later, we finally made it passed the University and I pulled into a shopping mall so we could check the internet for Wal-marts. When Mom had one of her prescriptions filled in Maine, they only gave her a 30 day supply and no refills. This was just about gone, so we needed to find another pharmacy so Mom could call her Doctor and get a new prescription faxed & filled. We picked out the Wal-mart pharmecy in Milford so she could make the appropriate phone calls (this time, they specified 5 refills I think), then decided to head to New Castle and see what was there. Delaware is only 12 miles across at this point, so I figured we could be in Milford by nightfall.

By the way, none of the tour books we had listed much for Delaware. I've learned since that the state has been something of a butt for jokes because of it's lack of tourism promotion (Wayne's World and a Simpson's TV episode I believe). We had seen a slight reference to a historic district in New Castle however, so thought we'd check it out. We almost missed it, there was only one small sign on the highway and it wasn't really clear where to turn - so we almost ended up on a big bridge back to New Jersey, but I turned around quickly and got back on the road to downtown New Castle.

It wasn't really clear where we were supposed to go once we got into town, so I parked and looked around for somebody to ask. One building said something about City offices, so I went inside. They gave me a brochure for a "New Castle Heritage Trail" and suggested we start in the old courthouse. I figured it was too cold for Mom, but went back to let her know and to my surprise, she also wanted to check it out. While she complains about the cold, I think it's the rain that she really doesn't like, cold seems to be OK. At any event, we bundled up and headed off to the courhouse.

Before we even closed the door behind us, Janet came up to welcome and greet us and quickly began filling us in on all the interesting Delaware history and background about the Old Courthouse that the tour guides seem to have missed! Janet was a wealth of knowledge. Delaware was claimed by the Dutch, Swedes, and British. The Dutch came first, but their 1631 settlement further south didn't survive. The Swedes settled in the Wilmington area, then Pieter Stuyvesant established Fort Casimir in 1651 to solidify Holland's claim on the area. The town grew up around the fort, which no longer survives except for perhaps a sign and this model of it in the Old Courthouse.

The town changed hands several times over the next few years between the Dutch, British, and Swedish until finally the British captured the area for good. This painting hangs in the Old Courthouse to represent many of the different people who claimed this area, including the original owners, the Lenni-Lenape.

Having solidified their claim to the territory, the British named it in honor of Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, first governor of Virginia.

William Penn requested the area, which he was granted, so he could secure access to his colony of Pennslyvania (Penn had called the area Sylvania, latin for woods, but King Charles II renamed it Pennsylvania to honor Penn's father). When Wm. Penn first came to America in 1682, he landed at New Castle. In order to create an adequate buffer for this territory from the river, they drew an 12 mile arc from the cupola on the top of the old courthouse. Delaware is still the only state where part of the state line is a perfect arc. Also, since the purpose of the area was to secure Penn's rights to the Delaware river, the state line runs along the low tide mark on the New Jersey side of the river, not the center of the channel as is the normal practice. There is currently a case in the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge this!

Here is a picture of Wm. Penn when he was about 22. A couple of years later he became Quaker and would no longer wear armor. He established the Colony of Pennsylvania (in payment for loan his father had earlier made to the King) was to provide a place where religious freedom was tolerated and invited Quakers, Amish and others to settle there. By the way, the Colony of Pennsylvania never made money for the Penn family.

So now that Delaware is set up as a British Colony (or at least the three lower counties of Pennsylvania), New Castle became the capital of the lower colonies. When the original courthouse burned down in 1729, a new, larger courthouse was built in in 1732. The lower floor was a proper British courtroom. Three judges sat on a raised platform at the head of the courtroom. A witness box was off to the side for people giving testimony. Lawyers sat at tables in the center. Like Valley Forge, these had baize (hand loomed wool) table cloths to make it easier to write with quill pens. The defendant sat behind a rail, not with their lawyer as they do today. The general public sat on benches behind the defendant's box.

By the way, we've often been running just ahead of things as they close down for the season (or sometimes behind) - this time we got really lucky. They have just renovated the Old Courthouse, it had only been reopened for a month when we got here! It was quite interesting sitting in a 1700's English style courtroom, but it really got interesting when we went upstairs. The upstairs room is where the Colonial Assembly met. On June 15, 1776, this is where the representatives from the three 'lower counties' met and voted to not only break away from Britian, but also from Pennsylvania (the more liberal Delawarian's had never been a very good fit for Wm. Penn's Quaker or conservative counties up north).

June 15th is still a state holiday in Delaware called "Separation Day".

(There were more paintings upstairs of the Delaware delegates to the Constitutional Assembly in Philadelphia, but I was afraid I'd be there three weeks if I tried to capture all of them).

Finally, one of the rooms in one of the newer wings has been set up to tell the story of Emeline Hawkins and her family. Emeline awkins was a slave in Maryland, when in 1845, she and her family fled to escape slavery. Delaware was a slave state, but was very torn and even remained with the Union during the Civil War. Emeline and her family were captured and brought to trial in New Castle, where they also received support from abolitionists. If you can't get to New Castle, you can follow the whole story here:

http://history.delaware.gov/freedom/default.shtml

I was also curious why New Castle is such a small town, when it was in fact older and more storied than others. There are a couple of reasons for this. During the Revolutionary War, the Colonials were concerned about the town's security, afterall the British controlled the Delaware River during most of the war. Therefore, they transferred the Colony's capital to Dover, which was further inland so not as much at risk.

Another reason New Castle flourished at first is because it was a major crossing point between cities to the north and south. Many passengers would transfer between small boats (packet boats) and stagecoaches to ride between Philadelphia and Maryland. Plum Alley was the path between the boat landing and stagecoach stop.

New Castle's harbor wasn't very deep however, so over time boat traffic moved to Wilmington, which had a better harbor. New Castle still got a fair amount of ferry traffic between New Jersey and southern states however. After the Old Courthouse was no longer needed as a government building, it became a restaraunt, serving such notables as Shirley Temple, here with her parents, passing through on the ferry.

Even this died away however when the Delaware Memorial Bridge was completed in 1951. (This is the one we almost got stuck on by accident!) This picture is from Battery Park in New Castle, so you can see how close the bridge is to the town.

After all this is was too dark to head south afterall. Mom & I had learned about a few more things we might want to see in New Castle anyway, so we headed off to the local Wal-mart for the night (there weren't any RV campgrounds around, in fact there are only 5 open this time of year in all of Delaware!). We called the WM farther south and found out Mom's prescription wasn't ready yet anyway - so we'll stay here another day and head south tomorrow.

Delaware may not promote themselves very much, but we're finding they are just like all the other states we've been in - there's more to see here then we'll have time for!

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 15
Weather - Cold, Rain, Wind
Camped at White Oak RV Park, Strasburg, PA

Narrative:

There are about 39,000 Old Order Amish in Pennsylvania, most in Lancaster County. Several area's have gift shops selling Pennsylvania Dutch or Amish arts & crafts, but I decided to start with visiting something that would tell us more about the Amish. Last night the visitors center had recommended a place called the "Amish Village", so that's where we headed. The name is somewhat incorrect since the Amish live on individual farms, not in Villages, but perhaps the operator's felt calling it a 'village' would attract more tourists. This is typical of the Lancaster County farms we saw:

This had been a working Amish farm until the mid 1900's, but is now run to show tourists how the people lived and provide some background and education about them. The house itself was probably built in the 1840's and was lived in continuously until 1968, mostly as an Amish farm, although the last owner was a Mennonite.

The tour started with some backgound information about the Amish. They were originally part of the 1500's Swiss-German anabaptist movement which became the Mennonite faith. Anabaptists believe that infants cannot be meaningfully baptized as was common in the churches of the era, so one needed to be baptized (or baptized again) as an adult when they could fully understand their decision. However, in the late 1600's, a Mennonite leader named Jacob Amman began pulling away from the Mennonite church which he felt was straying from it's core values. The most serious issue between Jacob Amman's followers (who came to be calle Amish) and other Mennonites was the practice of "shunning" - or shutting out church members who committed an offense. Amman believed this was an essential practice for the truely faithful.

The Amish were persecuted harshly in Europe, at least in part due to the practice of shunning. As a result, many migrated to America in the 1700's and settled in Pennsylvania due to William Penn's promise of religious tolerance.

Their two guiding religious concepts are to reject Hochmut (pride, arrogance and haughtiness), and to place a very high value on Demut (humility). They have chosen to submit to the Will of God by accepting group norms rather than promote individualism which is a predominant American cultural value. This combination of values has created a unique culture of the Old Order Amish community. European Amish eventually reconciled with the Mennonites, as did most later Amish immigrants, so most of the American Old Order Amish decend from the 18th century immigrants.

This is a commonly misunderstood aspect of the Amish. The reason they do not use electricity or motor vehicles is not that they believe their religion forbids it, but because they, as a community, see this as a way to remain humble and avoid the worlds temptations. The communities remain insular, they use services - mostly from friends they trust, but as much as possible stay only within the Amish community. They speak Pennsylvania Dutch at home, which is basically a hybred German/English language. They learn English and old High German at school and use High German for the prayer services. They still avoid buttons, belts and mustashes since persecuting soldiers wore them in the 1600-1700's. They continue to practice norms in dress and appearance related to religious persecution that happened 300 years ago, perhaps at least partly due to their insularity? Of course, fancy clothing adornments would also imply a haughtiness which would be unacceptable. Either way, if the particular group's norm is to dress a particular way and a member doesn't, they might be 'shunned' until they made ammends. Shunning is a very powerful incentive for group members not to stray from the group norm, so these practices remain among the Amish long after the rest of the world has moved on.

So after learning some background, we toured the house. This began in the sitting room. This was fairly large and had long, wooden benches. The Amish don't build churches. Instead, they meet every other week in one of the district members homes in the sitting room. The district owns the benches and takes them from home to home for the services.

In the kitchen, they did have a refridgerator and light - but both were powered by propane. There were a few items displayed on the wall, which is allowed as long as it is for a practical reason - dishes that are frequently used or a pouch to hold sewing sissors - not for display for display purposes.

We then went upstairs, where none of my pictures came out (I keep trying to take pictures in dim light without a flash, ugh). However, we did learn a lot about the clothing styles. Most of the dresses worn by girls and women have at least some parts attached with straight pins, I'm not sure why - our tour guide seemed to think that the Amish would say that it worked, so why change it. Amish girls wear white tops until they marry, then not again until they are buried. (Note, there is no central Amish church organization or authority, so there can be and is variation between the different groups). Several of the beds had nice Amish quilts on them, each was for sale - but a little beyond my price range. I did spring for a nice hotpad later, Mom says this is a 'log cabin' pattern.

A second kitchen/laundry room was in the basement. This was used for canning or in the summer when it was cooler. The wood barrel is a butter churn, but these are rarely used today since they can make more money selling the cream to large dairy's then by using it themselves. The old wringer washers are still used today with a gas motor, so they can still avoid using electricity.

Outside was a typical barn, as well as a water wheel. These are still used by Amish farms to pump water to the farm animals and sometimes also the house - again, avoiding electricity.

Another building was a typical one room school house such as Amish children are still educated in. They only send their childen through the 8th grade. Since many states require education until a child is 16 years old, there was a lawsuit that wasn't decided until 1972 by the Supreme Court - which ruled that freedom of religion is a higher priority then compulsary education, so the Amish are allowed to continue this practice.

This farm also had a blacksmith shop, rather critical since they still use horse & buggy transportation and horse drawn farm implements . There were also other farm buildings that have now been converted to gift shops. So we both bought a few things, not necessarily just Amish things, and moved on. While we enjoyed learning about this unique group of people, we also felt there was a sort of surrealness to their practices. Neither of us felt this is the sort of lifestyle to which the rest of us should aspire.

So moving on, one of the other things we saw as we drove around was a sign for a Doll Store. This was Mom's cup of tea, not mine. However I went on inside more out of curiousity than interest. I did find the newborn dolls awfully tempting - they almost look a little too much like the real thing. Mom, of course, enjoyed the whole store quite a bit:

We had already visited a railroad museum in Danbury, CT, but when we left the Amish farm, we were only a few miles from "The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania". I thought a museum might be a good idea since it would be dry and warm, whereas it was very cold, windy and rainy outside. However, Mom was sufficiently unhappy with the weather that she refused to go in. I set her up in the RV, which has heat, electricity, food, and whatever else she might need, and proceded to go through the museum. When I got back though she still was fairly unhappy. I guess the weather bothers her whether she's in it or just looking at it. I did try to go through the museum fairly quickly and will not bore you with too many repeats from Danbury I hope (the museums were quite different).

This one is supported by the State of Pennsylvania, so has enough funding to really restore their exhibits. They also have probably the largest building in the country built specifically to house a railroad museum.

They appear to be building up the interior space to also resemble a typical town along the railroad station, but there are only two 'buildings' in use at present. The 'train station' is fairly well appointed, including this ticket master's office:

Another 'building' is set up with lots of interactive exhibits (Lego trains anyone?) and informative displays. One display explains how a freight yard was used to disassemble arriving trains, sort the cars according to destination, then reassemble new trains, a process called 'classification':

Like the Danbury RR museum, this building also had several working model railroads. I guess the same people who like real trains like toy ones also. This one was particularly well done, based on an industrial city from the 1950's.

There were also replica's of a couple of the earliest train engines from the 1800's:

Here is an example of one of the exquisitely restored and/or maintained steam engines. This one was built in 1905 and is of the very common 4-4-0 design (4 small wheels on a truck in front to help steer around curves, and 4 large drive wheels on a separate truck in the back). This particular engine was painted up and used in the movie "Hello Dolly" in 1968 (in case it looks familiar to anybody).

Across the street from the museum is the Strasburg Railroad Station. There are some very nice cars and engines that actually run and can be used to take a nine mile round trip train ride - but only on weekends this time of year, so we just stopped for a couple of pictures. I just included this one since I liked the colors, the train rides are on passenger cars of course.

Since it had been so nasty and cold out today, Mom was pretty much out of sorts. So even though it wasn't very late and we hadn't driven far at all, I found a fairly nice campground that was still open and parked for the night. It continued to rain during the night, but stopped by morning. Mom seems to have recovered after a good nights sleep - so we'll continue on afterall. (I also brought up a map on the internet to show her - this storm seems to be covering the entire country - north Florida was just as cold as where we were! Not sure that's what she wanted to hear though.)

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 38
Weather - Cool, but decent (mid 50's)
Camped - Lancaster, PA Walmart (No, I am NOT driving up to Hershey again!)

Narrative:

I set the alarm last night so we would be ready at 8 AM when the rental car place opened. By 8:15 we hadn't heard from them so I called. Sure, they could get us a car today, but by 4 PM and the price was $10 higher then what they quoted me when I made the reservation the night before. Maybe my skin is just too thin, but I had a problem with this change in time & price and told them to forget it. So again, no Philly.

We hung around the campground for awhile to catch up on laundry and other chores, then decided we still had time to head at least a little bit south today. Shortly after we left, Mom spotted a red tailed hawk - since this was her find, she wanted me to upload this even though the picture wasn't that great. I shouldn't complain though, it's probably a good sign that we still find interest in such things after 2 1/2 months on the road.

A few miles farther we saw a brown sign for Cornwall Furnace (brown usually meaning a point of interest, park, museum, or such). We didn't have any information about this but I thought it sounded interesting and turned off. When we got to Cornwall, we found a really cool gothic looking building that said it was the "Cornwall Iron Furnance" museum. The furnace itself is about in the middle (where the Chimney is). It was 'fed' from the upper floor of the building on the left, and molten iron used for molds or 'pig iron' in the molding room at the bottom floor of the building on the right.

The visitors center had a really nice interpretive area with displays about the history of the iron furnace, how it worked and types of products it made. You could also take a tour of the furnace itself as well as some of the support structure. Unfortunately there were too many steps for Mom, but she was able to watch an introductory film and go through the interpretive displays, which had all the essential information. I also took the tour and bought a book in the gift shop, so she didn't miss very much - except Fred, my tour guide.

I think it would be easier to understand all this if I mix up the information from the Interpretive displays and the furnace tour, and just present the iron making story from Cornwall.

Iron making itself dates back to the late bronze age. There is a great deal of debate, but most evidence points to the Hittites developing the first smelting process to reduce iron ore into workable iron. The iron in iron ore,is bound up in molecules with oxygen. Smelting is a process where carbon is used to break up the Iron Oxide molecules into separate Iron and Carbon Dioxide molecules. (Smelting is used for other metal ores as well, but this discussion is about Iron, so I'll ignore those). When iron smelting was first developed, people couldn't heat the ores high enough to actually melt iron, so they used a furnace called a 'bloomery'. This worked and continued to be used to make wrought iron until the middle ages, but it didn't produce very much iron for all the effort.

Even bloomeries needed a higher temperature then could be created by a wood fire alone, so used charcoal and air bellows to increase the heat produced by the charcoal. As demand for iron grew during the middle ages, people began to build bigger and bigger furnaces and develop techniques to increase production. Waterwheels were introduced to pump larger bellows needed for bigger furnaces. Some of the large bloomery furnaces probably started getting hot enough to actually melt the iron ore and there was probably a gradual shift to blast furnaces as the benefits became apparent. The first written record of a blast furnace (one that produced molten iron intentionally) was in 1340 in Belgiam.

So most of the early middle ages, Bloomeries could produce only about 15 kg of iron per firing, and firings were not continuous. The later ones brought that output up to about 300 kg, but still wasn't a lot of output for the effort. The Cornwall blast furnace produced about 2 tons of iron per tap (twice a day), quite an improvement over bloomery outputs. By 1883 it was obsolete however as coal burning 'hot' blast furnaces required none of the forest chopping/charcoal making effort and produced about 5 times as much iron. (100 tons/week vs 20 tons/week).

Early immigrants to America bought iron from England, but this was slow and very expensive and probably couldn't meet the demand of a rapidly growing population. So the early colonists had a pretty big incentive to look for their own sources for iron (also some immigrants probably brought iron working knowledge & skill over with them). The first successful iron works was built in Saugus, Massachussets in 1646. By the 1730's, there were already six iron furnaces in Pennsylvania when a man named Peter Grubb moved to the Cornwall area. He was a stonemason, but recognized good iron ore outcroppings next to his property. Shortly after, he acquired that property and by 1742 has built the furnace at Cornwall.

Over the years, this developed into a small, self contained community (company town).

A cadre of workers chopped wood, then colliers converted it to charcoal needed by the furnace. 340 acres of wood were needed per year.

Molders used clay to prepare molds for cast iron products. They were amoung the most skilled workers, but were only paid for the good pieces they produced.

The founder was in charge of the whole operation, he determined the proper amounts of ore, limestone and charcoal to load into the furnace, controlled how much air blast was used and when to tap the molten iron.

Minors dug the ore in an open pit mine. Although the furnace was closed in 1883, the mine continued in operation until 1952, and again as an underground mine until 1973 when it was flooded by Hurricane Agnes. (The mine was fairly well spent by then, so engineers advised against the cost of pumping it out and reopening it). During 234 years of operation, the Cornwall mine produced 106 million tons of iron ore. The type of ore found in Cornwall was Magnitite (FE3-O4), also called Lodestone.

The top of the furnace (Tunnel Head) is 31' from the floor and 17" wide. It gradually widens to a maximum of about 9' (the Bosh), then narrows again to about 4 ' at the bottom (or Crucible). The walls were as much as 9' thick at the base, so the entire furnace was about 28' wide on each side.

Of course, the tour couldn't take me into the inside of the furnace, so a diagram may prove useful. Throughout the day, loads of iron ore, limestone and charcoal and shoveled into the top (tunnel head). As these make there way down, the charcoal burns hotter and hotter until the ore starts to melt. Air is pumped into the furnace from three sides (the dark line leading to the bottom of the furnace from the left - the final tube is called the Tuyere.

Limestone is used to bind to impurities in the molten iron and settles to the bottom as slag. Slag is lighter then the molten iron, so can be poured off first and separated from the more pure iron.

Carbon from the burning coal binds to the oxygen in the iron ore and escapes out the chimney as carbon dioxide (CO2).

This type of furnace was kept running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for most of the year. It took two days to restart it, so this isn't something you'd want to put out any more often then necessary. During the first hundred years or so when the water wheel was used to provide the blast (air pumped into the furnace), the furnace was only shut down when the creek froze in the winter for about three months. Any maintenance work was done to the furnace then (relining the inner brick walls for example). In the 1840's, a steam engine replaced water for pumping air, so the furnace only had to be shut down for about a month for maintenance.

Also, around 1800, the bellows were replaced with blowing tubes. These look like big water tanks, but used a piston to pump air through a duct system into the furnace. There were two tanks, one on each side of a giant water wheel, so air would always be pumping. (I thought this shot showed the wooden blowing tubes, but it just shows the wheel & giant axel that drove the tubes. My pictures from the tour didn't come out as good as I'd like)

So we visited the tunnel head and saw where charcoal, limestone, and iron ore was dumped into the furnace. Then we climbed down to the wheel and blowing tubes pumped air into the furnace, so the main section left was the bottom of the furnace (hearth) where the final product was tapped. Twice a day, when the iron was ready, a clay dam stone would be removed and first the slag run off. Then another clay block removed and the molten ore poured out.

Some ore was collected in ladles and poured into prepared clay molds. The Cornwall furnace produced iron plates for stoves as well as cast cooking pots and pans. Here is a picture of the hearth, with a couple of molds ready for pouring (there was some scaffolding on the right side, so this is showing only part of the front view).

This was called a 'Ten Plate Stove', since molds were made of ten separate plates, then assembled to make the stove:

Also, molten iron ran down ditches that had been previously formed in the floor of the furnace room (molding room) and into slots molded from pieces of wood. Early iron workers thought this arrangements looked like baby piglets sucking from the mother sow, so these bars were called 'Pig Iron' and the name stuck.

Pig iron was the main product produced by the Cornwall furnace. This wasn't very useful by itself, but was the major product required for other iron work by forges and foundries. Cornwall was also a fully integrated iron works, so did produce cast iron products and also bar iron from a forge, but also sold pig iron to other foundaries and forges. In 1865, a 100 pound bar of pig iron was valued at $2.

The differences between the types of iron works are then:

The blast furnace, which produces molten iron, 'Pig Iron' - or the raw iron product after smelting.

The foundary, which produces cast iron products. Many furnace operators also ran a foundry at the same location.

The forge, which converted the cast iron (primarly 'pigs') into stronger wrought iron.

The iron formed from smelting is hard and brittle. It can be useful for objects which need to withstand a lot of heat but don't have to take much of a pounding, which would crack them. If cast iron is pounded, it realigns the iron molecules and strenthens them. It also removes even more impurities. Wrought iron (usually in bar form) was the product needed by blacksmiths to make horseshoes, farm implements, hinges, door and window latches. Bar iron could also be run through a rolling mill and converted into nails.

By the late middle ages, Europe had developed a water driven Trip Hammer, which could forge much larger quantities of pig iron into wrought iron then could be done manually. Here is an illustration of a trip hammer in use in England. The bright glowing object is a piece of pig iron that has been heated red hot, then is being pounded by the trip hammer as the water wheel alternately raises and drops it.

This very similar trip hammer was in use in PA near Caldwell. It is probably the only wooden trip hammer left in existance in the western hemisphere. The large hammer head would be on the left, but is not attached.

I never quite understood why ore had to be 'smelted' before, or what the big deal was with the 'iron age', so this was all very educational for me. It was also interesting to note how much wood had to be converted to charcoal to smelt iron so that by the time the American colonies were getting started, most of Britian's forests were gone and it and needed American pig iron to keep it's forges working. This was why the English Parlement passed laws requiring raw pig iron to be shipped to England for processing. However the colonists also needed wrought iron products and it certainly was not cost effective to ship the pig iron to England then have to buy the finished iron products back at much higher prices. Hmm, it's interesting how all this starts to fit together...

So, having spent most of the morning doing chores and most of the afternoon learning how iron was made, we didn't have much time left. We did pass this beautiful United Methodist Church in Cornwall on our way out of town - loved the way they mixed stone and brickwork in the same building.

However, it was too late to do much else. We did have time to stop in Lancaster, learn where the best places were to learn about the Amish (on tap for tomorrow), and find a Wal-mart to stay in. (We were still close enough to Hershey to go back to the nice RV campground, but I think emotionally we needed to feel like we were moving south - even if it wasn't very far.)

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 90
Weather - Sunny & Warm (mid 60's, but for November?)
Camped at Hershey Thousand Trails RV Park (yes, again we have gone in a circle)

Narrative:

I again was having delusions about visiting Philadelphia, so decided to drive back up to Hershey, thinking I'd rent a car, drive RT to Philly, then head south from there. It had rained hard all night, so we weren't expecting a very nice day, but as the day wore on the weather got nicer and nicer until it was more like spring then November.

The first place we stopped was in a small town called New Oxford. I saw a few old railroad cars by the road and a really cute little train depot. It looks like it is probably set up as a museum or a model train club meeting house, but it was closed so I couldn't really tell.

Right next door to this however was a Christmas Shop. We have been trying to avoid doing things that are just as easy to do back home, but it looked pretty interesting so we went on inside. The shop owner specializes in only christmas supplies and ornaments made in Germany. He had a lot of beautiful and interesting things, but what really caught Mom's attention was they way they made things out of wood. The tree cost $10/cm however, so Mom will just have to put a picture of it up for Christmas.

Knowing I wouldn't have time to make ornaments for folks this year, I bought some suitable Christmas Card stuff and we got back on the road. We had decided to take the scenic route today and enjoy some of the Pennsylvania countryside since up until now we'd been using highways to get to specific cities quickly. Southeastern PA is quite different that Western PA, which we drove through some time ago to visit Pittsburgh. In this area of PA, we saw a lot more farm country like this:

After crossing the Susquehanna river again at Columbia, we realized we were only a couple of blocks from another clock museum, "The National Watch & Clock Museum". While we'd already visited one, I thought we might as well check this one out also since it was right there. I liked the one in CT better, Mom liked this one better, so I guess different styles just appeal to different people. This one clearly has better funding. It has also built a "School of Horology" where students can learn traditional watch and clock making. (Horology is the study of Time and Timekeeping).

I learned a few more things about clocks (they explained this at the first museum, but sometimes it takes me a couple of times). In mechanical clocks, there are three basic components:

(1) A source of energy to power the clock. For 'tallcase' clocks, or grandfather clocks, this is a series of weights. Chains and pulley's allowed the weights to pull the clock for a fairly long time. In watches and smaller clocks, this was often accomplished by winding a spring.

(2) An 'escapement' - or a way to control how the energy is released (or 'escapes'). Various gears and lever's are used to prevent all the energy from being released at once and control the speed of the clock.

(3) Regulation. Pendulum's swing at a constant rate and are a good way to control the release of energy and also give clocks their characteristic tick-tock.

This museum also had a 'Monumental' clock called the "Engle Clock", completed in 1876. These were popular in the late 1800's as form of entertainment - you had to pay 25 cents to see this one. It was also the inspirition for the clock that we saw in the Hershey Museum.

Personally, I prefer the chimes and functionality of the grandfather clocks. But I guess if you lived in 1880 and didn't have radio or TV, this would be pretty interesting.

This clock museum also has a Jeweler's Shop exhibit to show how people purchased watches and clocks around the turn of the century and the types of products available to them.

So now having visited two clock museums, I think we're probably ready to clock out. (OK, who says I don't have a sense of humor?)

After leaving the clock museum, Mom wanted to look for a glass factory that was also in Columbia. We had a little trouble finding our way around, but finally located it in the middle of a block of row houses (as in it was in the alley, not on the streets). The Susquehanna Glass Factory does give tours, but wasn't doing so this week since they were having a big sale (20% off everything in the store). They had a lot of beautiful, but not cheap, cut glass - I indulged in a couple of pink wine glasses (I'm taking odds on whether they'll make it home without breaking). Mom elected not to go into the store since only the retail shop was open.

Continuing on with our scenic route, we got lost in Millersville and found out there is a hugh university there, part of Penn State we believe (and very hard to find your way out of once you get into it). We also passed a couple of really interesting old houses. These two are connected, which seems odd since they appear to have totally different styles of construction?

It was getting late, so I decided to quite the scenic route and head back up to the RV park. We check in and called the rental car company and set up a reservation for 8 AM, thinking it would take us a couple of hours to drive to Philly (each way), leaving us about 4 hours to sightsee. Early to bed to make that 8 AM rental car appt, and again in Hershey, no good internet signal - so I put off the blog entry for a couple of days...