Warwick Furnace
Warwick Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Built 1737 by Anna Nutt and Co. Made first Franklin stoves, 1742. Supplied shot and cannon for American revolutionists. Furnace a mile and a half away on side road; iron mines a mile west on the highway.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Warwick Furnace was raised in 1737 by Anna Nutt and Company, a rare colonial ironworks led by a woman, in the wooded iron country of Chester County. Here in 1742 workers cast the first Franklin stoves, Benjamin Franklin's efficient new fireplace design, and in the following decades the furnace turned out shot and cannon for the American revolutionaries. The furnace and its ore mines lay scattered across the surrounding hills, feeding a young nation's fight for independence.
Why it matters
It shows Pennsylvania's colonial iron industry arming the Revolution—and a woman-run enterprise casting one of America's first branded consumer inventions.
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Related people
- · Anna Nutt
- · Benjamin Franklin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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