Some students of Germanna history have an erroneous picture concerning iron. They fail to realize the length of time that iron has been in use, and the widespread use of it. The Bible credits a sixth-generation descendant of Adam, Tubal Cain, as the first ironworker. Iron tools have been discovered in the pyramids of Egypt. Homer said that the Greeks used iron by Fifteen Hundred BC (OK, he didn't phrase it just that way). So the use of iron was early, and the manufacture of it was wide spread.
The problem that was occurring by 1700, was that wood for making charcoal was becoming scarce. The wood had to be in the vicinity of the furnace, as it was too expensive to transport the wood, and the charcoal could not be transported. Iron production in England had already been cut back for a lack of wood, and she was importing iron from the Baltic countries, where there were a thousand trees for every citizen. Queen Elizabeth I in England had been forced to order that the trees could no longer be cut in some regions.
In the Siegen area, two measures were adopted to cope with the shortage of wood. One was that furnaces could operate for only six to ten weeks per year. As a consequence, the citizens around Siegen would have been hard pressed to say they worked in the iron industry, since that could only account for a couple of months of their labor per year. Additionally, ownership of the furnaces and hammers had been subdivided by inheritance, so any one individual might only have the use of a furnace or hammer for a few days per year. This led to a mixed economy in which agriculture or other industry was probably more important than iron.
The other measure, enforced by law and tradition, was a method of replacing the trees used for making charcoal. An area would be subdivided into approximately twenty strips. Each strip underwent a cycle, in which, in the first year, young trees would be planted. While the trees were young, grain could be grown between them. When the trees became too big, and competition for water and sun prevented the two from growing on the same site, the strip just grew trees. But, even here, the strip could be used for pasture. Finally, when the trees matured, the ones on one strip would be cut down. The bark was peeled off and used in the tanneries for making leather. The wood became the raw material for charcoal. The small twigs and branches were gathered up for fuel in the homes.
In Virginia, it was a general rule that it took an acre of trees to produce the charcoal needed for one ton of iron. The Tubal Cain furnace in Virginia, in its late years, might produce 1200 tons of iron per year. Thus, the wood from about two square miles would have to be cut and converted to charcoal each year. If the trees grew back in twenty years, then forty square miles would be needed, or an area of a little more than six miles by six miles, to support one large furnace. From calculations such as this, one sees that there could not have been too many large furnaces around Siegen.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.