MORE IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES OF IRON ORE.
Several persons, among whom w as Eli Trego, Esq, of Danville, well known for his extensive and practical knowledge in every thing pertaining to the Iron business of Pennsylvania, have this week been engaged in making a thorough search for Iron Ore in Union county, near this Borough.
They announce, as the results of their examination, that they have discovered Iron Ore of the very best qualities and inexhaustible quantities and apparently more favorable for mining operations than any of the neighboring Iron districts. Several extensive vein of rich Ore were discovered upon the land belonging to the heirs of Dan Caldwell, four miles above Milton [Daniel Caldwell originated the White Deer & Watsontown Ferry, in 1800] , from thence they traced the Ore in a Southwesterly direction, upon the farms of Messrs. Hatfield, Dersham, Brown, Finny and Spotts, within two and a half miles of Milton.
The above named gentlemen have all made partial excavation and all without exception realized their most sanguine anticipations in finding veins of rich Ore in apparent abundance.
The conviction was forced upon the minds of those engaged in the search that nothing is wanting but men of capital to lay hold of the inducements that so abundantly present themselves, to make the neighborhood of Milton rival in a very short time any of the other Iron districts of the State in enterprise and successful manufacturing operation.
A more desirable location for Furnaces, Rolling mills, Factories, &c, can hardly be conceived than that of the Caldwelle property at the mouth of White Deer Creek, a water power surpassed probably by none in the State, and Ore, Limestone and Wood in abundance, separated from the Canal only by the width of the Susquehanna river, the enterprising capitalist can I hardly ask for greater or more permanent inducement than are held out for profitable investments - Miltonian
Map of Milton Pa, 1850, showing the Trego Foundry
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Fire at the Trego Foundry, April 1857
On June 22nd 1861, the foundry in "upper Milton", owned by E.S. Trego, burned to the ground.
The foundry was rebuilt - The Miltonian reported in December of 1870 that John K. Trego succeeded E.S. Trego in ownership of the Milton Foundry.
Robert Correy, J.F. Foust, and Henry F. Bailey purchased the Trego foundry and added a saw mill to the buisiness
"The castings for the saw mill were furnished by Trego and Brother, and were very cumbrous and costly, the amound paid for them being equal to the price of the two lots of ground on which the mill stood" - 1873, the first Steam Saw Mill in Milton Pa
1892 - The Trego Foundry For Sale
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As mentioned in the Reminisces Of Milton by Kohler
Both of these foundries turned out the several castings used in plows, sled runners for boys, wagon wheels, washers, quoits, griddles and smaller articles needed in machine or construction work. Heavy pieces, like draw-heads and car wheels were cast later at the car works, which seemed to absorb these smaller foundries.
New sled runners and wagon wheels made both of these foundries accessible to the boys, who were permitted to watch the patterns go into the sand boxes and the molten metal fill the space when the patterns were removed.
Cold weather quickly snapped the sled runners then in use, and a wheel could be broken or stolen or lost from the wagons, so that this trade was not to be sneezed at, and the boyish heart palpitated with anxiety lest his new runner would not come out of the sand just right.
The grandfather of your present Burgess made patterns for such foundry work, and it was one of the places where the finer sort of wood working could be watched. He was just overhead ,at one time, of the place where the plow handles were made by Jimmie Longan and others.
The knowledge I gained from watching these foundrymen, came handy while trying a death case in Brooklyn. The man was killed by the fall of a derrick boom on his head while he was unloading Belgian blocks from a scow at a Brooklyn wharf. At the top of the derrick mast was an iron ring with three eyes, to one of which the steel rod supporting the swinging boom was attached by a shackle. This eye gave way, with a load of stone at the end of the boom, and the question of negligence, alleged against the employer, was whether the ring with the eye that broke was made of cast or wrought iron. Upon examination of the break, the grain and appearance brought me back to my iron sled runner days, where the breaks were similar in grain and appearance. I picked up in the cellar of my office building several broken castings, and insisted in court that the ring was not wrought iron, as the defendant claimed, but cast iron, and never intended to carry the load which broke it Out of four days' trial, two days were devoted to expert testimony on the one question of whether the ring was wrought or cast iron, the defendant's expert claim-ing that the hammer marks, when it was made on the anvil, showed that it was wrought. The judge let the jury decide, afterwards remarking to me that he was surprised that I knew so much about iron.. I laughingly replied that in my younger days I had bought cast iron and saw it made in the foundry.
The widow won, but I was never certain that it was cast iron, though my experts swore that such a ring could have been moulded in any first class foundry. I know that Mr. Rhoads could have made the pattern and that it might easily have been moulded in either the Trego or Lawson foundry."
As a great, great granddaughter of Eli Skiles Trego (1808 – 1893), I enjoyed reading this posting. There were three generations of Eli Trego’s – all involved with iron works. Eli McKenty Trego (1784 – 1856) built the first charcoal fire furnaces in the Danville area (1839), teaching his son’s Eli Skiles and John the iron trade. One of Eli Skiles’ sons (my g-grandfather), named after his grandfather Eli McKenty Trego (1846 – 1924) worked at the family Iron Foundry in Milton before and after serving in the Civil War cavalry. Grandson Eli M. later established his family in Berwick, PA, being employed with the American Car and Foundry. My grandmother, Jesse Trego (1885 – 1955) and siblings were proud of their rich family iron history of Milton, PA. and Central Susquehanna Valley.
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