The Pleaugh homestead near the Carp River Forge is pictured. (Negaunee Historical Society photo)

NEGAUNEE — In July of 1854, Philo Everett and a group from Jackson, Michigan, incorporated the Jackson Mining Company for the purpose of ming copper in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Taking the advice of a French-Indian trader, Everett stopped to investigate the tales of rich iron deposits near the headwaters of the Carp River.

They abandoned their plans to go to the Copper Country. Ore samples were tested and proved to have excellent qualities for making iron Forges are man’s most ancient means of producing iron and cheaper than building blast furnaces. Bloomery forges are named from a piece of iron, the “bloom” is their product. fired with enthusiasm, the Jackson Company recruited workers and put such a forge into operation on the Carp River about four miles from the Jackson mine.

An earthen dam was built and sufficient water power was generated for the sawmill and the forge.Nearby hardwoods supplied material for charcoal to fire the forges. There was land for the forge buildings, dwellings for workers and storehouses.

The forging process went as follows, raw iron was roasted in a charcoal fire to drive off impurities, the ore was pulverized, alternating layers of ore and charcoal were added. After hours of burning the iron collected in a mass at the bottom of the hearth. This mass was removed with tongs and hammered under a water powered trip hammer to form a bar shape, 4x4x24, convenient for shipping. Iron made at the Carp river forge from the Jackson mine ore, was found to be of very high quality.

The trip hammer used at the forge laid at the site for a century and it was brought into Negaunee for an exhibit during the 1944 centennial celebration. However, that piece of history was lost due to the fact that it was probably taken to the scrap iron drive during the war. The building of the forge was the beginning of the first settlement in Marquette County.

The Carp River forge was located west of the Negaunee cemetery on the Carp River. It was the site of a sawmill, quite a few buildings and the first post office in Marquette County. Philo Everett was the first postmaster. After Marquette was established there was no post office or postmaster so when mail was brought in by boat or by dog sled it went directly to Carp River.

After many difficulties and hardships, because of isolation and harsh surroundings the firs “bloom” was made by Ariel Barney on Feb. 10, 1848..Efforts to forge iron ore near the mine continued, but transporting heavy iron “blooms” through the rough wilderness to the harbor in Marquette proved to be time consuming and expensive.

When the plank road was to be built in 1853, a survey was done and one man of the survey crew said, “When our boat landed in Marquette, we hired two buckboards and two wagons for the trip to the forge and the Jackson Mine. The trail was so steep, muddy and rough, most of us made the ten mile trip on foot. We stayed overnight at the forge in a log cabin and walked to the mine the next day and then visited the Indian Village at the east end of Teal Lake. We borrowed a dugout canoe that the Indians had just made out of a pine.tree.

We went fishing and caught several trout which we had for dinner at the forge that night. The next day we walked back to Marquette and were nearly driven crazy by the mosquitoes and black flies. The Carp River forge continued under several different ownerships but it was never able to make a profit and it finally closed in 1854.

With the completion of the Soo Locks the following year, movement of the rich Jackson iron ore directly to the furnaces of Cleveland and Pittsburgh became possible and soon fortunes were made. The 1,000 tons of “bloom” iron forged in the wilderness on the Carp River didn’t male any money for the ironmakers, but it did make the quality and value of iron ore in the region known the world over.