Weaver's Lydia Furnace snapshot photos, 1940/1944

Containers:

Box 12, Folder 20

Biographical / historical:

William Weaver purchased the Lydia Furnace in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1825. He called it Lydia because of his sister, Lydia Weaver. It was renamed the Bath Iron Works and called the Bath Furnace due to its close proximity to the local Rockbridge Baths resort. The furnace sat on the Big Calfpasture River near the western entrance of Goshen Pass, on the southern bank of the Maury River. It operated as a cold blast, charcoal fired iron furnace. The massive chimney structure stood roughly 35 feet tall and 80 feet in diameter. Because the facility predated local railroad expansion, teams of mules and horses hauled iron ore and raw supplies to the site by wagon. Weaver even constructed a private toll road through the pass to streamline the heavy transport.

When the road through Goshen Pass was improved, about 1940, the rock from the furnace stack was removed and built into the retaining wall of the road. The rock can be seen near the south end of the swinging bridge that crosses the Maury River, just below the mouth of Guy's Run. A large tree grew out of the top of the furnace stack. The tree was still standing in 1944, as shown in one of these snapshot photos. It may have not been far from the mouth of the Little Calfasture River.

Includes a typed description note by Leslie Lyle Campbell, 1944.

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