McCall's or Glasgow Forge
[Built] 1725
Philadelphia, now Montgomery County
Along the banks of the Manatawny Creek, which rises in Rockland township, Berks county, and empties into the Schuylkill River at Pottstown, several furnaces were situated, among them McCall's Forge or Glasgow Forge, by either of which names, according to Colonial records, the place seems to have been equally well known. The tract of land containing it was conveyed in trust by William Penn to his son John, October 25, 1701, and comprised all of the present township of Douglas and the upper half of Pottsgrove; and the whole of Pottstown to the Schuylkill, 14,600 acres in all. This was sold by John Penn, June 20, 1735, for the sum of two thousand guineas,—$9,333 —to George McCall, the son of Samuel McCall of Glasgow, Scotland.1 "Fully ten years before the date of this purchase, in company with Anthony Morris, 3rd, George McCall had erected an iron forge (called "McCall's Forge," on Scull's map of 1759) at Glasgow on Manatawny Creek, which he named for the place of his nativity. Some time after, he engaged Nicholas Scull to survey plantations on a certain part of his property for which he permitted his five sons to draw lots."
He had also an interest in Colbrookdale Furnace, then managed by Thomas Potts, Jr., which supplied McCall's Forge with pig iron.2 Thomas Potts, Jr., was acting for Anthony Morris, who was a relative of his, and also for George McCall, in the management of McCall's Forge.
A merchant of note and enterprise, McCall rapidly acquired a fortune. He had a store and wharf at Plum Street; and was said to have invested largely in real estate. In 1722, he was elected a member of the City Council. He married Anne Yeates in 1716; was a vestryman of Christ Church, and in 1718, a tenant of the parsonage house, contributing largely to the rebuilding of the church.3 He died in 1740, and by his will, dated September 21, 1739, bequeathed 500 acres of what, until 1753, was known as McCall's Manor, to his son, Alexander McCall, and which subsequently became known as the Forge Tract. Here the McCalls, Samuel, Archibald and Alexander, engaged extensively in manufacturing interests, and operated the old forge and a grist and saw mill. Samuel McCall, on September 8, 1752, sold the old forge property to Joseph and John Potts and James Hockley, and in 1789, it was sold at Sheriff's sale to David Rutter and Joseph Potts, Jr. Later in the same year Rutter sold his share to Samuel Potts, and it continued in the Potts family until 1832.
In 1820, there were at the place a small sheet iron mill, two bloomeries, a grist mill, a saw mill, two mansion houses, ten log tenant houses, and two stone tenant houses, and at the present time work is carried on there by the Glasgow Iron Works and Rolling Mills.
As the name Manatawny (meaning, "the place where we drink"), indicates, there were a number of Indian tribes in the neighborhood, who viewed with dismay the large amount of wood used to make charcoal for the furnaces. To their far-sighted Chiefs, this wholesale destruction of woodland presented a melancholy picture and possibly contributed not a little to their disaffection.
Probably the life at forge or furnace in those days differed not materially from that of the sixties in the last century, when the workmen lived scattered over several miles of country, and were wakened to come to work by one long blast of five minutes, blown at four o'clock in the morning. So much a subconscious part of the day's routine had this whistle become, that the manager of one iron works was startled awake one morning by the fact that the whistle had not blown, and by inquiring the reason from the engineer later in the day, confirmed the impression that "it was no use trying to fool 'Mister' even when he was asleep."
Margaret Wister Meigs
1 McCall Family, by Frank Willing Leach.
2 History of Montgomery County, by W. J. Buck.
3 Descendants of Joran Kyn, by Gregory B. Keen, p. 76.
Source: Committee on Historical Research, Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Forges and Furnaces in the Province of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1914, pp. 39-41.
Submitter's Note: in the original book, footnote numbering restarted at 1 on each page where a footnote occurred. They are renumbered here in sequential order.
Submitted by: Nancy.