Taken from a portion of the chapter…
Similarly, Youngstown’s growth into one of Ohio’s major industrial centers gave the
region a reputation as a significant purveyor of iron used in the production of war armaments for
the North and, especially, iron for railroad construction. In 1860, Ohio had more miles of
railroad lines than all other states, and they linked passengers and freight to nearly every region,
including the east coast, the Mississippi Valley, and the Great Lakes.1 Consequently, Ohio’s
expansive transportation network was a potential target for Confederate forces. From June 11 to
July 26, 1863, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan led a cavalry on a raid across southern
Indiana and through Ohio. As the Confederates prepared to enter Ohio on the night of July 12,
Governor Tod issued a proclamation to the Ohio militia to protect the state’s southern counties,
and called upon citizens to “take their axes and obstruct the roads over which Morgan’s troops
would be compelled to pass.”2 However, most militiamen did not receive Tod’s proclamation in
time, and Morgan crossed into Ohio on July 13, destroying bridges and railroads, terrorizing
civilians, raiding government stores, and taking supplies from warehouses. Morgan continued
through portions of the Hanging Rock region, and eventually led the cavalry north and east,
nearing the Mahoning Valley. Joseph G. Butler, Jr., at the time only a young man living in Niles,
recalled these events in July of 1863:
One Sunday in mid-summer, when the weather was extremely warm, a horseman
rode into Niles with the news that Morgan had crossed into Columbiana County
and was headed north, of course directly for Niles. It was generally believed that
he meant to raid the Mahoning Valley, destroy the iron mills, and capture the
money in the banks. The money was not such a great amount, perhaps, but the
1
Knepper, Ohio and Its People, 3rd edition, 219-220.
2
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Generals and Soldiers, vol. II (Cincinnati: The Robert
Clarke Company, 1895), 492.
iron mills were of immense value to the government, as from them and from the
blast furnaces came a great deal of material needed to win the war.3
One of the Mahoning Valley’s most notable furnaces used to make pig iron for rail production
was Alexander Crawford’s Mahoning furnace in Lowellville. Morgan’s raid supposedly targeted
the Mahoning furnace, which would have cut off Crawford’s raw pig iron source used to
manufacture rails at his rolling mill in New Castle.4 Union forces captured Morgan’s remaining
cavalry at Salineville in southern Columbiana County, only thirty-three miles south of
Lowellville, leaving the Mahoning furnace, as well as the valley’s industrial infrastructure,
intact.
Exactly one month after Morgan’s capture, Youngstown’s Republican newspaper, the
Mahoning County Register, reported that, “Despite the war, great activity in business enterprise
has been apparent in Youngstown this season.”5 A number of new stores and private homes were
completed across the town, and additions and enlargements were made to existing businesses,
including Homer Hamilton & Co., one of Youngstown’s largest foundry and machine shops
founded in 1861 by Homer Hamilton, William Tod, and John Stambaugh (Figure 4.16).6 One of
the new and more radical industrial enterprises to enter Youngstown was Shunk & Lane, which,
in August of 1863, began the construction of an “establishment for the manufacture of ingot or
bulk steel…by a new process, known as the Bessimer [sic] patent,” on the town’s east side near
the Himrod furnaces.7 Though the newspaper reported that the new company would use the
3
Butler, History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, vol. 1, 818.
“Century-Old Furnace Reaches End of Line,” The Vindicator, September 16, 1962. This information
regarding General Morgan’s intentions to destroy the Mahoning furnace raid is only reported in this
article. No other first-hand accounts or sources confirm the information.
5
“The Iron Business of Youngstown,” Mahoning County Register, August 27, 1863.
6
Homer Hamilton began his career as a machinist in Warren before coming to Youngstown and forming
a partnership in the foundry of J & C Predmore. Tod and Stambaugh purchased Predmore’s interest in
1861.
7
“The Iron Business of Youngstown,” Mahoning County Register, August 27, 1863.
4
Bessemer process, Shunk & Lane’s intentions were to use one of their partners’ own inventions.
Christian Shunk of Canton, Ohio, was the company’s primary partner who, in 1856, patented a
process for “improvement in refining iron by means of blasts of air.”8 In other words, Shunk
invented a pneumatic process for making steel or refined iron by blowing air through molten pig
iron, which then decarburized the metal, creating steel. His claim was:
First, blowing atmospheric air into and through a mass of molten crude iron from
the ore, or from the remelted pig iron, to commingle the gases of the air with the
particles of the fluid iron and its carbon, for the purpose of decarbonizing and
converting the same into refined iron or steel, and malleable semi-steel, without
the use of fuel to keep up combustion, such conversion being effected by the
gaseous matter of the atmosphere.
Second, imparting a rotary or spiral motion to the molten iron, by or
during the introduction of the air-blast.
Third, the application of the flux or solvent in the manner and for the
purpose herein described during the atmospheric refining process.9
Shunk, of course, was not the first to patent such a process, nor was he the first in the
United States. Around 1847, William Kelly of Pittsburgh began to experiment with pneumatic
refining of pig iron as a means to save fuel and speed production of wrought iron at his forge and
blast furnace near Eddyville, Kentucky.10 He continued perfecting this device in the early 1850s,
when, at the same time, Englishman Henry Bessemer began similar experiments, but with the
intention of producing steel rather than wrought iron. Bessemer, who had little background in
iron making and only achieved some success as a mechanical inventor, took out a patent for his
process in 1855, while Kelly still looked to commercialize his converter to ironmasters in the
United States.11 Kelly patented his “pneumatic converter” in 1857 for “Improvement in the
Manufacture of Iron,” and began promoting his process to ironmasters, one of which included
8
Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1863, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1866), 855.
9
Ibid.
10
Gordon, American Iron, 221.
11
Thomas J. Misa, A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925 (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1995), 6.
James Ward in Niles.12 Around 1857, Kelly travelled to Niles in an attempt to sell Ward his
converter, which Kelly promised would decrease the cost of puddling at his Falcon Iron Works.
Ward, considered an “authority on the iron question,” had several dinners with Kelly at his home
in Niles to discuss the converter. Ward failed to see the value in the pneumatic process and called
Kelly “crazy” after he left the dinner table.13 Ultimately, Bessemer’s process won out and, with
the help of engineer Alexander L. Holley, several iron and steel companies in the United States
acquired the rights to Bessemer’s patent after the Civil War. In Youngstown, however, Shunk’s
pneumatic process proved a failure. Though the exact reason is unknown, it was likely due to
flawed manufacturing or lack of enough working capital and outside investment for machinery
designed to produce six tons of steel per day.14…
12
Gordon, American Iron, 221.
Joseph G. Butler, Jr., Recollections of Men and Events (New York: Putnam Publishing, 1927), 45; Year
Book of the American Iron and Steel Institute, 1917 (New York: American Iron and Steel Institute, 1918),
287, 321. Joseph G. Butler, Jr. recalls that, during Kelly’s visit to the Ward household, he was “much
exercised over the fact that he had neglected to patent his discovery,” but had high hopes that he would
still benefit financially from his process.
14
“The Iron Business of Youngstown,” Mahoning County Register, August 27, 1863.
13