Woodstock Iron Works
The Woodstock Iron Works ran from 1848 to 1884 and was located in what is now Upper Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada. In its prime, the iron ore that came from the works was thought to be some of the highest quality ore. The Iron works was closed in 1884 due to increased competition from the United States.
Discovery
While there were suggestions that settlers around the Woodstock area had recognized iron deposits in the surrounding landscape in approximately 1820, it was not until sixteen years later in 1836 that Dr. Jackson of Boston, who was on a geological survey conducted by the state of Maine, confirmed the presence of iron ore. The ore was immediately recognized as high quality with great potential. Dr. Jackson allegedly identified it as a compact red haematite, the mineral form of iron that can range in colours from black and silver to red. The ore was said to be able to produce a yield of 44 percent pure iron or 50 percent cast iron, and one cubic foot of the iron would weigh approximately 200 pounds. Surveyors speculated that there was roughly 45,000,000 cubic feet of ore, which translated into about 225,000,000 pounds worth of iron that could be mined from the area.Mining Company
In 1837, local residents petitioned the provincial government asking to incorporate a mining company in order to harvest and explore the economic potential of the ore. It took the provincial government ten years of study and examining until the York and Carleton Mining Company Bill was passed, thus permitting the company owned by Mr. Norris Best and Mr. Ellis Smith to construct roads and obtain woodland among other necessities in order to create and maintain a functioning iron works. Then in 1848 the first of two blast furnaces was erected on the western bank of the Saint John River near the mouth of Lanes Creek. The first furnace was thirty seven feet in height and thirty three feet wide at its base being constructed of sandstone. The crucible, which is where the ore was melted, was three feet six inches by four feet and was six feet high, the capacity of this first furnace was approximately seven tons per day, later on a smaller second furnace was constructed which had a production capacity of around five and a half tons per day.The main fuel of the blast furnaces was hardwood charcoal, which was obtained from local wood lots mainly consisting of maple, birch and beech trees. There were ten charcoal kilns located on the premises of the iron works and each had an approximate capacity of seventy five cord of wood which would yield between 2,800 and 3,200 bushels of charcoal. It took three tons of ore to produce one ton of "pig" Iron, which is the most basic form of processed iron, and one hundred and twenty six bushels of charcoal were required to produce one ton of the pig iron the annual capacity of pig iron produced was 2150 tonnes, which was enough to plate two naval frigates from the time period. The Dispatch, a local paper in 1898, stated that in 1864 12,000 cords of wood were used in the production of iron in Woodstock, this was enough wood to have cleared four hundred acres of woodland.