Forging a Lifestyle: Ironworking with the Potts Family March 9, 2013

On Saturday, March 9, 2013 at 1:00pm, Pottsgrove Manor will open a new exhibit on Pennsylvania’s colonial iron industry with a lecture from historian Dan Graham.

In 1715, a Germantown blacksmith named Thomas Rutter built the first ironwork in the colony of Pennsylvania along the Manatawny Creek, setting the stage for the development of an ironworking empire in the region. John Potts’ father, Thomas, entered into business with Rutter in 1725, and the next few generations of their families came to dominate the colonial iron industry through technical skill, business acumen, and profitable marriages. In the exhibit “Forging a Lifestyle: Ironworking with the Potts Family,” the ins and outs of the early iron industry will be explored, from the physical work that was involved—mining, making charcoal, powering the forges and furnaces—to the business decisions that were made by those who owned and ran the ironworks, like the Potts, Rutter, Nutt, and Savage families.

The exhibit will kick off with Dan Graham’s lecture: “Colonial Pennsylvania Cast Iron Fire Backs, Stove Plates, and Warming Stoves, 1726-1760.” Graham has done extensive research on the Potts and Rutter families and the early Pennsylvania iron industry. His talk will focus on two of the products that came out of the early Pennsylvania iron furnaces, fire backs and stoves. He will trace the development of stoves from the simple five-plate jamb stove to the elaborate ten-plate cooking stoves and the Franklin stove. After the lecture, guided tours of the new iron exhibit will be offered.
The exhibit is open to all ages and can be viewed on a guided tour of Pottsgrove Manor during the museum’s regular hours between March 9, 2013 and November 3, 2013. There is a suggested donation of $2 per person for the tour.