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"A Village Born Of Iron"
"The Survey" (Part 1 of 7)
The "West Point Foundry" story is one of epic magnitude. The ensuing 7 articles could never begin offering full justice to the foundry’s remarkable history, nor has the attempt here been made to do so. What follows are simple reflections of life in Cold Spring a long time ago, a life having radiated from the presence of a monumental industrial endeavor in a then obscure Hudson River hamlet.
Perhaps the complete history of the foundry can never be narrated. The intention here is only to possibly better illuminate the one direct force behind Cold Spring’s having come to light. A "village born of iron" is not an emotional exaggeration. It is a documented truth. Cold Spring, without the clamor of iron, may never have come into being. And symbolically, without a will of iron, Cold Spring may never have survived to this moment.
All that existed was a scattering of small, crudely constructed houses, perhaps a store or two and one or two inns, situated on random size plots. These openings of land were all that broke up the expansive, yet monotonous, wilderness of forested hills, rock and streams. Gouverneur Kemble and associates, probably during mid 1815, were scouting the steep ravine about 1/2 mile from the southside of the recently laid Philipstown Turnpike, which ran through the yet to be recognized hamlet of Cold Spring. The impenetrable canyon, never having delighted in full sunlight, was for eons enveloped in a pressing cocoon of unimaginable compacted forestation. Because of such extreme density, the pounding of cruel and boisterous river storms were refused admittance to the darkened gorge.
With gushing profusion, an amply endowed brook tumbled frantically along the southern edge of the ravine, spewing its turbulence into the mother Hudson. In Kemble’s eyes, the brook was perceived as nothing less than a miracle. This inexhaustible source of water would prove critically paramount to his dream of an iron foundry being located in Cold Spring. Standing on the edge of the canopied canyon, Kemble and his men gazed due west beyond the indented, wide mouthed cove, apprehending the enormous advantage to which the fabled river could be utilized for transporting products.
About 1/2 mile southwest of the pristine cove, sheltered on the south by Constitution Island and north by the Cold Spring waterfront area, lay the thirteen year old military fortification at West point. While certainly not an impregnable fortress, Kemble’s entourage envisioned an eventual strengthening of the promontoried works which could, should fate dictate, help protect what at the moment was visualized a foundry of considerable proportion.
Lying outside the perimeters of virtually undisturbed Cold Spring village were iron ore mines in great wealth and number. It was this remarkable find towards which Kemble and company were riding horseback. As Kemble fully realized, himself an accomplished ironmonger, these caverns of ore were the backbone to any foundry inception. Some seven or eight miles would be consumed from Cold Spring to present day Fahnestock Memorial Park. Any desire of Kemble constructing a foundry would take root here---this soil would harbor the nucleus in fulfilling the harvest of his dream. Without this beginning, right here, there could be no satisfaction for Kemble’s yearning. Having scanned the region for some period of time, Kemble’s caravan, astride tired, hungry horses, retreated eastward, coming to a welcome respite near today’s intersect of Routes 9 and 301. In that day, this junction was where the original Albany Post Rd. and Philipstown Turnpike crossed paths. The ironman’s keen knack of foresight saw this highway bisect as a crucial transportation and shipping artery, both to north and south as well as east to west. Cold Spring was situated only three or four miles from this crossway.
All told, Cold Spring, as small as it was, would prove ideally suited for erection of an iron foundry. The incentives were unmistakably in place, most of them natural: the brook for water power; a sheltered ravine to accept construction of the foundry; a nearby enticing cove to accommodate shipping via the river; the river itself; military protection; amply endowed iron ore mines; the presence of two, not too distant major roadway, and the incredibly bounteous collage of every specie of tree known to this region of the Hudson Valley. (Astonishingly, in due time, every single tree, not alone in the ravine, but for miles around, would be mercilessly eradicated for the production of charcoal so vital to the ceaseless melting and refining iron ore process in the foundry.)
Necessity for this 1815 survey was prompted, in essence, by two major conflicts: 1- The Napoleonic Wars of 1796-1815 saw France defending against England, Austria, Russia and Prussia.; 2 - Partially overlaid on this European struggle was the United States’ own war of 1812-15, doing battle once again against a former combatant, England. Artillery, within these campaigns, had spoken sharply as an ominous expression of a deadlier force in war. Beefing up the United States’ artillery fortunes had, as a direct result of these horrific encounters, become one of the higher priority agendas during the James Madison presidency, 1809-17. Although small of frame and height, at times hardly audible, Madison would quietly, yet forcefully, address the urgency of better preparing our country, though presently at peace, against any potential military indiscretions down the road. Our West Point Foundry descended directly from that edict.
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