Furnace Town Historic Site

From 1828-1850 the Nassawango Iron Furnace was in its heyday. Many workers – miners, sawyers, colliers, molders, draymen, and bargemen – labored to make iron. Furnace Town (also called Nescongo or Nasseongo) was a company town, built by the Maryland Iron Company. About 300 people lived and worked here. There were blacksmiths, broom makers, wainwrights, wheelwrights, bakers, cobblers, coopers, and weavers among the skilled workers. By 1850 bankruptcy was declared. The sale advertisement listed 7,000 acres embracing immense beds of iron ore. Included in the offering were the Furnace, the Grist Mill and Saw Mill, the Iron Master’s Mansion, houses, store, barns, buildings, tools, 21,000 bushels of charcoal, and 1,650 tons of ore. A few families stayed on to run a boarding house and the Grist Mill. By 1929, only the foundations of the buildings and the Furnace remained. All of the wooded structures had rotted away, and the Forest reclaimed the previously bustling worksite. Restoration work began under the guidance of the Worcester County Historical Society in the 1960’s. In 1982, Furnace Town Foundation Inc. was formed to own, operate, and interpret the museum historic site.