BEDFORD COUNTY

in Southwest Central Pennsylvania
had four old stone iron furnaces that we can find in the historical records. Robert Hornbarger, from Clearville, Bedford County stated that there were three more and gave the locations. We visited and documented two of the three sites he mentioned. The first, which we called Bedford is actually a lime kiln, as explained by Mike Reed. The second we will call Hewitt until otherwise informed. This also may be a lime kiln since no slag was found. The third site could not be located where Mr. Hornbarger had advised. The two new sites are well worth a visit, and we thank Mike for clarification and would welcome further information. A fourth site was identified by Richard Wever and we will call it Evitts, (for it's location along Evitts Creek and Evitts Ridge, south of Bedford). This is also probably a lime kiln. Another interesting site is the Bloomfield Furnace Farm which has many structure ruins from the furnace operation. The Hopewell furnace, in the village of Hopewell, has all but a bit of the inner lining sticking up under a pile of debris from a former garbage dump, and the old Lemnos furnace has only a few furnace stones left on the site.

 
Lime Kiln at Bedford

Furnace Barn at Bloomfield