Lewis Henry Morgan, a New York capitalist, spent time in Marquette County before the Civil War studying the life and habitat of the American beaver. Morgan was an investor in early railroads in Marquette County. He also saw an opportunity to make money in the iron industry. In 1863 he formed the Morgan Iron Company to build a blast furnace.

Over 2,000 shares of stock were sold at $25 apiece for a beginning capitalization of $50,000. Major investors in the company were Ely, White, Fay and Donkersley. Cornelius Donkersley was appointed the company agent, iron master and superintendent of the construction and operation at the furnace.

A blast furnace is usually built near water, railroad lines and vast stand of hardwood. Morgan was also close to iron ore and other minerals needed in the blasting process. Donkersley set about clearing thousands of acres of hardwood for construction of buildings and also charcoal production.

The furnace was built near the “Little Carp” River and the Marquette and Ontonagon Railroad, 6 ½ miles east of Negaunee off of what is now County Road 492. The furnace was built at the foot of a ledge of marble which was used not only as building material, but for flux to create hot blast temperatures.

George Craig was contracted to build the 45-foot tall stack. It would be able to fire up to 800 degrees in temperature. George Rublein was hired to build 21 charcoal kilns nearby, as each ton of pig iron produce would require 115 bushels of charcoal. By May 1863 more than a dozen houses had been built for the workers and supervisor of the furnace. Other buildings on site were a foundry, machine shop, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop and a telegraph office at the railroad station.

The Morgan Furnace produced its first pig iron in November 1863 and within the first 4 months paid for itself with a profit of 220%. Production jumped from 337 tons to over 4,000 tons in the first year. The Civil War was still raging and the demand for steel was high. At the time, three mines were operating in Marquette County: the Jackson, the Cleveland and the Lake Superior.

The pig iron produced at the Morgan was a very high quality ore and was used in the manufacture of rail cars, locomotive wheels and boiler plates. Ken Lafayette in his book “Flaming Brands” described the process of creating pig iron. Ore was mixed with flux, then heated by charcoal until the metal became liquid.

The molten metal was tapped from the furnace every few hours and ran into the nearby casting house. Here, long channels in the sand floor called “sows” guided the red hot metal into many smaller lateral molds called “pigs.” After cooling, men with sledge hammers broke the pigs from the sows and wheeled them to stock piles.

After 3 years of operating, all of the hardwoods in the Morgan area had been removed for the formation of charcoal. In one year alone, 800,000 bushels of charcoal were used to fuel the furnace. Donkersley decided to blow out the furnace in Nov. 1868.

The company then concentrated on making a wooden tramway to reach hardwood stands 9 miles north of the furnace, near Reany Creek. The wooden rails were made at the sawmill at Eagle Mills. The tramway had to cross rugged terrain and several ravines. Beehive shaped charcoal kilns were built at 3 locations along the road, 6 miles, 8miles and 9 miles away- at least 24 of them.

The nine kilns location in section 9 was the headquarters for the hardwood cutting, charcoal making and hauling operating according to William Pleau of Negaunee. He described 50 teams of horses hauling the charcoal to Morgan using wooden dump carts, two trips a day.

A dozen homes in the woods surrounding the kilns near the Reany Creek housed the workers. Many of the skilled woodsmen at the kilns were French Canadian. Evidence of these charcoal operations can still be found today in spikes, RR ties, chains and ruins of the kilns. The History Center is fortunate to have on display in the main gallery, a steel kiln door from the Section 9 Kilns that was run by Louis Ruel and his brothers.

Thomas Clancey of Ishpeming wrote an article for Michigan History Magazine about furnace life:

“Social activities of a small character were quite common during the winter months. At the completion of the Morgan furnace casting house, it was thoroughly white-washed and boarded up. Evan’s Orchestra from Marquette was imported and a dance and supper were furnished at $5 a couple. They were a sociable lot about the furnace location and thought nothing of loading a sled full of people and driving from the Morgan to Champion to attend a dance. A great rivalry existed between the different furnaces. The one that produced the largest tonnage of iron per run, considered themselves the champions of the district. At the end of a cast, a dinner would be held for the contesting teams, liquid potations would be indulged in and the winning team would ofttimes be compelled to maintain its supremacy by the appeal to bare knuckles!”

At its peak of production in 1876, the village of Morgan had over 700 residents, including William Bradley the physician, George Beardsley, station agent and Cornelius Donkersley furnace operator and postmaster. The community had a school with around 70 students. Donkersley tried to keep the furnace running and requested charcoal from the Champion area as a fuel sources. However, by the end of the year, due to lack of fuel and the low prices of ore, the furnace fired its last blast in December 1876.

Morgan remained inhabited for several years by workers of the Read sawmill in Eagle Mills. All that’s left of the Morgan community today is the rubble of the furnace ruins near the LS&I tracks.