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The Roaring Run Furnace was the only national register site owned by the Jefferson National Forest. It is located in the New Castle Ranger District in Botetourt County. The furnace is located on Roaring run Branch, a tributary of Craig Creek, five miles from the James River. Until recently little of the historical documentation of this site had been recovered from primary sources in the various state and local archives. The information recently recovered suggests that the furnace reflects the national and statewide economics of the iron industry during the 19th century. Additional documentary research will be conducted at a future date.

The first mention of the furnace is in a deed dated May 1, 1838 in which Nathaniel O. Smiley and his wife Elvira sold their one-quarter interest of the Roaring Run Tract “on which is being built a furnace”. However, the Roaring Run Iron Works was incorporated in the Acts of the general Assembly of Virginia in 1837. Other owners were John Garth and Benjamin E. Scruggs. The property (9,240 acres) was purchased from John T. Anderson and his wife Cassandra. It is believed that the furnace went into blast during that year (1838) since a deed dated April 2, 1839, states that John Garth and his wife Emily sold “a certain portion and twenty-fourth part of the said Roaring run Furnace Lands, mules, stock, tools…” to Maurice Langhorne, Jr. and William B. Cook. The property was briefly owned by John Graime (Graham) but was sold back to Langhorne and Scruggs for $1,000 less than their selling price of $23,660.

In 1844, Langhorne and Scruggs agreed to sell the entire property and furnace to Samuel C. Robinson. The purchase price of $21,000 was to be paid in pig iron in four years time. A detailed account of the transaction was located in the Botetourt County Court House (Deed Book 27, Page 214). This deed sheds considerable information on activities at the furnace and how the iron was marketed. In conjunction with the furnace there were also a gristmill and sawmill. Livestock included 21 mules, a small stock of hogs, poultry, and a cow and a cafe. Two horses were used in towing the pig iron by oat on the James River and Kanawa Canal. There was also a lot in Lynchburg that was used for the storage of pig iron. Forty-five laborers with teams were employed at the furnace. In addition, the furnace was under contract to deliver 800 tons of pig iron to J.R. Anderson in Richmond. Scruggs and Langhorne were responsible for providing the funds necessary for the operation of the furnace during 1844. (In a later version of the deed, the slaves were excluded from the sale.)

Operations at the furnace form 1845-1850 are unclear at the present time. Lesley (1866) stated that the furnace was rebuilt in 1847; however, the source of this information is not known. Recent examination of the cast iron lintels of the tuyere arches at the furnace show that some of these bars of iron came from the Jane Furnace, which was abandoned about 1850 (Lesley 1866). Several of these iron bars are clearly marked with the raised letters of “Jane” and with the letter “W”, probably for its owner William Wilson. The Jane Furnace is located approximately 12 miles east of Roaring Run.

The manuscript, Federal Census for Botetourt County in 1850, shows that Samuel Robinson owned 57 slaves. All but four of the slaves were males between 15 and 60 years old. The Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia for 1849-50 indicates that the Lynchburg and Botetourt Iron Company was incorporated under the direction of Samuel C. Robinson, George C. Wright, and Francis B. Deane, Jr.

In 1851, W. Langhorne and B. E. Scruggs sold the furnace tract to Francis B. Deane, Jr. for $10,500 “paid in hand”. At this point it is believed that F. B. Deane, Jr. and S. C. Robinson became equal partners of the Roaring Run Furnace. Eight hundred tons of iron was produced in 35 weeks in 1854 (Lesley 1866). It is believed that a small percentage of the iron produced at the furnace was used at the small foundry at the furnace to produce “hollow ware” for local consumption and was sold to the Langhorne (later Deane) Foundry in Lynchburg and to the Tredegar Iron works in Richmond. However, by January of 1855, they were in debt for $31,066 to a number of individuals, banks, and William T. Anderson and co. (Botetourt County Deed book 33, Page 2). At that time, the furnace and property was given in a deed of trust to William W. Boyd and Robert I. Davis and was to be sold at auction to the highest bidder. The details of the deed of trust do shed some light on the operations of the furnace. Deane and Robinson were allowed to remain in possession of the property until they completed work on agricultural implements and machinery. They were also given the use of the “shops, machinery, and foundry” to complete these projects. A property list indicates that parlor and cook stoves were being cast at the foundry and two tons of “hollow ware” was on hand.

The location of the foundry and the shops to produce these items is unclear; however, the deed mentions that they were located separately in a parcel removed from the blast furnace. Historical research suggests that they may have been located in Lynchburg. Such a lot was mentioned in the deed of sale from Scruggs and Langhorne to Robinson and Deane. Additional data to support this location comes from the fact that M. Langhorne, Jr. owned and operated a foundry in Lynchburg. This foundry was later purchased by F. B. Deane in 1857 and offered, “chilled railroad car wheels made exclusively of the best Virginia cold Blast Charcoal Pig. Deane previously had a contract with the federal government to supply it with a specific amount of military ordinance in the form of “shot and shell”. However, other evidence suggests that the Deane Foundry in Lynchburg was owned and operated separately from the operations at the Roaring Run Furnace in Botetourt County (Botetourt County Deed Book 33, Page 2). Based on analogies from other furnace operations in the area, some founding was probably conducted at the furnace on the same casting beds the pig iron ingots were cast on. Still other documentary research suggests that they were located near the furnace but so located as to permit it to be sold off with 50 acres so the furnace could be run separately.

The status of the furnace and the completion of the tools and equipment are unclear. The furnace and property were supposed to be advertised in a Lynchburg and Richmond newspaper. The notices for the sale have yet to be located. However, the accounts for the sale of the furnace property have been recently located (Botetourt county Deed book 33, Page 151). A majority of the equipment from the furnace was sold in late February 1855. The domestic items were sold at public auction in November 1855. A large stock of mules was sold and was listed by name. a partial list of other items included was: plows, axles, axes, corn shellers, several hundred plugs of tobacco, harness, carts, and wagons. Domestic items included: beds, chairs, tables, carpets, dishes, cooking stoves, oil lamps, candle sticks, decanters and glasses, and a refrigerator.

A deed dated April 24, 1863, indicates that the furnace and property were sold to the Trustees for the stockholders of the Petersburg Iron Works of Petersburg. In the deed recitals, it is stated that the foundry was operated on the premises. The property included 9,250 acres “with all the buildings and furnaces and all property whatsoever connected with the blast furnace proposes. And not to include flasks, patterns, and other foundry fixtures; but to include every species of the property fixed to the freehold”. The property was sold for $25,000, and the flasks and patterns for an additional sum of $3,000. There is no documentary evidence at the present time that would suggest that the Petersburg iron Works operated the blast furnace during the Civil War. Further research of the Tredegar Iron Works located in the Virginia State Library may shed additional information on the status of the furnace during the war years. It is speculated that if Roaring run had been in blast that it also would have been damaged by General Hunter’s troops when they destroyed Grace Furnace located five miles to the west. The Tredegar Iron Works leased Roaring Run Furnace after three of the valley furnaces owned by the Tredegar Iron Works were heavily damaged. The documents suggest that Tredegar leased the furnace to supplement the iron production loss at the furnaces. Roaring Run Furnace may have operated for a single blast early in 1865 prior to the end of the Civil War in April. There is no evidence that suggests that the furnace ever again went into blast.

In 1878, the president of the Petersburg Iron Works was authorized to sell the Roaring Run Furnace property at public auction. The property was sold in 1880 to J. H. Bramwell, the former manager of the Quinnimont Furnace in West Virginia. Bramwell had a mine opened and planned on operating a charcoal furnace for the production of boilerplate iron, the finer grade of charcoal sheet iron. These plans for the furnace were never completed although it is believed that iron ore was mined for the project. The furnace property was sold again in 1882. H. L. Horton, a New York financer who planned on operating a “modern” coke blast furnace, purchased it. At this time, a considerable number of mining prospects were excavated in the hillsides around the furnace. These are highly visible at the present time and can be confused with the earlier mining, which consisted primarily of surface, and pit mining. The Virginias, a mining periodical published in the 1880’s frequently referred to the wealth of iron ore waiting to be mined on the property. In addition it was said that the flow of water from Roaring Run was ample to supply power for a furnace and ore washers. However, the coke-fired furnace was never built.