Huntingdon County Information Page

Franklin township

A Furnace With 40,000 Acres

Did you know? By 1819 the Huntingdon Furnace estate had spread over an area of more than forty thousand acres.

Many stoves were cast there, and in 1883 the county history said the name Huntingdon Furnace could still be seen on stoves in places where wood was still burned. Out of the needs and profits of the furnace grew a forge on Spruce Creek built about 1800, the upper and lower Tyrone Forges, a rolling mill, a slitting mill, nail factories, a saw and grist mill, and Bald Eagle Furnace.

Not far away, Juniata Forge, on the Juniata below Petersburg, was built about 1804 by Samuel Fahnestock and George Shoenberger, and it was still running in 1882.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.

Checked 2026-10-03 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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