Is it true Ridgefield once had an iron smelting operation?
Though Ridgefield was no “little Pittsburgh,” deeds in the late 1700s and early 1800s mention the “Iron Works,” a short-lived operation near Lake Mamanasco.
In 1789, Timothy Keeler Jr., Nathan Dauchy and Elijah Keeler built a pond to serve a new iron works along the stream that flows out of Mamanasco. It was in operation a year later.
However, by 1797, a deed refers to land situated “where the Iron Works lately stood.” Even as late as 1834, deeds mention places near or at “where the old Iron Works stood.”
Where it stood was along North Salem Road, between Sherwood and Ridgebury roads, in the little valley through which the stream from Mamanasco flows to the Titicus River. Across the highway — south of Craigmoor Road — is what’s left of the pond, long called Forge Pond because it was used by the Iron Works. After the Iron Works ceased functioning, the pond powered grist and saw mills on or near the old works site. Today the pond has become a wetland, part of the Garden of Ideas.
The Iron Works probably converted iron ore to pig iron. Whether various implements were then manufactured from the iron at that location is unknown. Certainly local blacksmiths could have gotten their supplies there.
The usual iron works included a 20- to 40-foot-high stone furnace. Ore was heated to melting in crucibles inside the furnace, and the impure slag that rose to the top was skimmed off. The pond’s water was needed to operate the huge bellows that would pump air onto the fire.
Because it wasn’t easy to build up the 2,200-degree heat needed for refining, furnaces ran constantly, and were shut down only for repairs or cleaning.
While there was no rail or water transportation to haul in large quantities of ore, iron was found in Ridgefield. A 1792 map of Connecticut, drawn by Samuel Huntington, bears the legend “Iron mines” in a section of Ridgebury north of George Washington Highway and along Briar Ridge Road. This map is not known for its accuracy in placing landmarks, but it nonetheless makes it clear that iron mines existed in northern Ridgebury at the time the Iron Works was in operation. It is quite likely that the works got its ore from there.
Why did the Iron Works last so short a time? Perhaps the supply of good ore was quickly exhausted.
Maybe fuel was a problem. Iron furnaces required tremendous quantities of charcoal, obtained by slowly burning wood in closed mounds. Trees were becoming less common as the area developed.
Another possibility is that a competing iron works at Starrs Plain in Danbury ran the Ridgefield operation out of business.
Still another possibility is the place burned down.