On June 21, 1793, James Robertson and William Shephard purchased 640 acres on the West Fork Creek and erected the first iron works on Tennessee's frontier. Robertson's operation was an integrated ironworks consisting of the furnace and a forge, which was built near the mouth of Barton's Creek. On June 18, 1804, Robertson sold Cumberland Furnace to Montgomery Bell. During the War of 1812, Bell furnished General Jackson's Southern Army with cannon shot from two-ounce canisters to 32 pounders. Anthony Van Leer operated a furnace near |
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| Bell's beginning in 1815. On July 25, 1825 Montgomery Bell sold Cumberland Furnace and his Jones Creek forge to Anthony Van Leer and his partners, Isaac H. Lanier and Wallace Dickson (Dixon). Van Leer introduced further improvements and increased the iron plantation to 20,000 acres. The federal census of 1850 showed Van Leer's Cumberland Furnace employed 121 persons and produced two hundred tons of castings and fourteen hundred tons of iron blooms.In 1862 after 76 years of production he shut down furnace operations. |
Mary Florence Kirkman and her younger brother inherited the Plantation from their grandfather. After the Civil War, James and Mary Florence Drouillard reopened Cumberland Furnace and operated it as a family business until 1882. In 1943, by order of the court, the ironworks building and property were sold to Sol Chazen, a Chattanooga scrap dealer. This is the oldest community south of the Cumberland River, and the oldest in Dickson County. In 1988 Cumberland Furnace was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District |
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