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Copake Iron Works
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 The above coordinates will take you to the Copake Historic Iron District. Here you will learn about iron production during the mid to late 19th century and the mining, quarrying, and charcoal production associated with the production of iron. What makes this site unique is the completeness of the grounds. From Richmond Massachusetts to the Salisbury area in Connecticut; it was the iron-limestone-charcoal connection of the Taconic range that connected the tri-state area.
Visit the many buildings from the 19th century iron industry, visit the museum, and if you have time go for a swim in the iron ore bed (now the swimming hole for the State Park)
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Drawing by Christiane Marks
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 The Copake Iron Works Historic District includes 11 contributing buildings, three contributing sites, eight contributing structures, and three contributing objects. They are associated with the remaining vestiges of the Copake Iron Works, an iron extraction and production operation established in the mid-19th century.
This site is unique in the northeastern United States which has no other comparable collection of accessible structures and artifacts of Iron Making. The Copake Iron Works’ furnace still stands, part of Taconic State Park. In the 1930s, following a flood, laborers removed the Stockbridge marble blocks from the exterior of the furnace stack and used them to stabilize the highway that ascends the mountain to Bash-Bish Falls. What remains of Copake Iron Works is “relatively authentic,” said industrial archaeologist Victor Rolando of Bennington, Vt., during a program at the park in 2003. It includes the remains of a charcoal blast furnace (ca. 1872), frame office and attached brick powder storage building, brick engine house and pattern shop, four frame ironworker dwellings, and a substantial Greek Revival dwelling. Also included in the district are a series of retaining walls, remnants of a cast iron penstock, and a bridge abutment. Also located in the district is the Church of St. John in the Wilderness (previously listed).
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Ore, Limestone, Wood, and Water Power
 These four critical ingredients were needed to establish an iron works in the mid eighteen-hundreds, all were abundantly available at this site in Copake Falls. Quality iron ore, limestone for flux, an abundant source of hardwood for charcoal, and sufficient water power to drive the bellows for the furnace - all of these critical components were in Copake! The Iron Works were located on the Bash Bish Creek, which supplied the power for the furnace, and later the forge that was developed. There were extensive beds of first quality iron ore surrounding it. Some of the best, but cold, swimming in the area is at the "Ore Pit' in the Taconic State Park. The limestone came from a quarry, not far distant, in what is now the hamlet of Copake. Teamsters brought in crushed limestone from Copake village. Colliers supplied charcoal from the nearby Massachusetts mountainside. The hardwood was harvested in the mountains above the iron works and one can still see evidence of the "charcoal pits" where the wood was converted into charcoal.
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The Pomeroys
The original furnace at the Copake Iron Works was constructed in 1845 by Lemuel Pomeroy and his sons of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and was called "Lemuel Pomeroy & Sons," of Pittsfield, Mass. The firm was composed of Lemuel Pomeroy, Sr., Lemuel Pomeroy, Jr., Robert Pomeroy, and Theodore Pomeroy. They had formerly, for a period of about ten years, been running the old Livingston furnace in Ancram as well as a furnace in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. They were attracted to Copake by the large bed of fine ore and the excellent water-power. The capacity of this furnace was some fifty or sixty tons per month. In 1848 the "Copake Iron Company" was formed by the admission of Isaac C. Chesbrough and William L. Pomeroy as members of the firm.
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The Miles
The Pomeroys in 1861 sold the works to John Adam Beckley, who a year later conveyed it to Frederick K. Miles. In order to keep up with technology, the Miles family “made substantial improvements to the ironworks including [in 1872] a new 32’ high ‘hot-blast’ furnace. The new furnace had a pre-heated blast. Fuel was one of the most costly aspects in the production of iron. It’s the same thing today. A hot blast reduced the amount of charcoal needed. The brick engine house and a works railroad with a small locomotive were added at this time as well. It is clear that most of the surviving buildings and structures represent improvements made by Miles.”
Following Frederick Miles’s death in 1896, and the junior Frederick Miles’ passing the next year, Will Miles gradually shut down the furnace, though he continued a separate business, Columbia Plow Works, until the early 1920s, forging single-bottom farm plows in eight styles.
Will Miles sold the ironworks property to the state of New York and it became part of Taconic State Park in 1928.
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Blast Furnaces
 This drawing shows a typical blast furnace, a stone tower 25 to 35 feet tall, built at the base of a natural or constructed "furnace bank"; to allow charging from the top. Across an elevated walkway, fillers rolled barrows of iron ore, coke, and limestone.
Bellows driven by a water-wheel provided the powerful continuous blast of air required to attain the high temperature necessary to smelt iron. The bellows used by the Copake Iron Works furnace were different than the leather bellows pictured here, consisting instead of a pair of large blowing-cylinders run by an overshot wheel about twenty feet in diameter.
The liquid iron was periodically tapped from under the cast arch, and run into ladles to be poured into box-molds or flat sand castings, or it was run into troughs to make iron "pigs."
A blast furnace relies on the fact that the unwanted silicon and other impurities are lighter than the molten iron that is the main product. Charcoal, limestone and iron ore (iron oxide) were poured in at the top, and air was blown in through tuyeres near the base. The resulting "blast" promotes combustion of the charcoal (more modern furnaces use coke or even anthracite), creating a chemical reaction that reduces the iron oxide to the base metal which sinks to the bottom of the furnace.
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Charcoal
The blast furnace at Copake Iron Works needed a tremendous amount of charcoal in order to keep it fired and thereby create a steady production of iron. The making of the charcoal became an industry in itself. Hardwood trees were chopped down, dried, stacked and fired in 30-to-40-foot-diameter pits. A collier (charcoal maker) carefully stacked the wood around a chimney. The stack of wood was covered with leaves and dirt and was set on fire in the center. The fires were allowed to smolder for ten to fourteen days, under the careful, round the clock, supervision of the collier. The colliers were careful to make sure that enough heat was produced to expel moisture, tar and other substances from the wood without burning the wood up entirely. Wood was not charred until just before it was needed to keep it from getting wet and becoming useless.
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