2021-1-28, Ironwoods Preserve Trail, Madison, CT

 On 2021-1-28, I visited the Madison Land Conservation Trust Ironwoods Preserve Trail in Madison, CT.  I made an interactive map on which I put location numbers that I will refer to.  Here's a link to my interactive map: https://arcg.is/1PSj4D   You can turn on and off various layers on the interactive map including aerial imagery, LIDAR, contour lines, and USGS historical maps.    

Here's a static screenshot of my interactive map.

1.  Where I parked, in a long gravel parking lot provided by Madison Land Conservation Trust.

2.  I found that the configuration of the trails had been substantially changed since the maps on the Madison Land Conservation Trust website had last been updated.  I took a picture of the ravine here with a dam at its northern end.

2.  Tom Ebersold led a hike to on Ironwoods Preserve Trail on 2021-2-21.  Here's a picture of me and Mark from Orange.

3.  A closer view of the ravine near the dam.

4.  A view from the Blue Trail of Greist Pond.

5.  I spotted some ruins from the Blue Trail.  Early 20th century?  LACLEDE KING is what the lettering on one of the bricks says.  I Googled "LACLEDE KING" brick and got this: "your brick was made by the Laclede-Christy Clay Products Co. The Company started as the Laclede fire brick co in Cheltenham (St.Louis)MO in 1865. It became the Laclede-Christy company in 1928. It went out of business in the 1970's."

6.  A view of Greist Pond through the trees.

7.  A small dam-created pond.

8.  A view from the Blue Trail of a sizable stream called Iron Stream.

9.  This gravestone-like stone gave the history of various enterprises that existed near this point, including  some sort of iron works that produced the waste material that has been piled on top of the stone and that can be found lying on the ground near the dam.

9.  The waste material.

Near 9.  The dam was breached long ago.  Apparently, there used to be a wooden trough that took water from the top of the dam to a 10-foot waterwheel that powered the bellows for the iron works and something called a "trip hammer."

Here's some information about the iron works provided by South Central Regional Council of Governments.

The North Madison Iron Works

In the late 1700s, Henry Hill, Joseph Pyncheon and Redad Stone 

acquired a four-acre mill site on Joshua Blatchley’s farm. After 2 to 3 

years as a sawmill it was converted to an iron works, which operated 

successfully until about 1820, by which time readily available bog 

iron ore and wood for charcoal had been quite depleted.

The iron works was small, the forge hearth being about 3 feet square 

and 1.5 to 2 feet deep with an open top. An air pipe entered one 

side about half way up. Next to the 16’ x 30’ forge building was 

a charcoal house about 14’ x 22’. The nearby mill was probably 

powered by an overshot wheel about 10’ x 4’ wide. The mill contained 

a large bellows and a heavy trip hammer and anvil.

In operation, the charcoal-fired forge reached high temperature 

aided by a continuous blast of cold air from the waterwheel-powered 

bellows. After being washed, pieces of bog iron ore the size of pingpong balls were fed directly into the fire. At a temperature of 2600 

to 2700 degrees fahrenheit, the silicon-based impurities melted and 

formed a liquid slag about the irregular agglomeration of iron. The 

molten slag was raked or drawn off. Tons of that slag still litter the 

site.  After about 6 hours of this, the small lumps of ore became a spongy 

lump of malleable iron weighing about 30 to 40 pounds.

To further reduce the slag inclusions and to refine them, the hot iron 

was repeatedly drawn out into bar shapes under the weight of the 

drop hammer. Any remaining impurities ran lengthwise within the 

bar and provided great toughness and rust resistance.

Bog iron ore is a deposit of ferric hydroxide or limonite in the 

bottoms of ponds, swamps or bogs. These deposits result from the 

action of iron “fixing” bacteria that decay the swamp vegetation. 

Deposits range from the size of peas and cotton balls to solid layers, 

most often colored reddish or dark brown, and contained from 20 

to 50% useable iron. Interestingly, the ore can regenerate in 5 to 25 

years depending on the amount of decaying vegetation, the amount 

of iron in the water and on the condition for bacterial activity

10.  A steel plate that I noticed lying on timbers that may have been part of a bridge.  I think "BSCO" stands for "Bethlehem Steel Corporation."

11.  Madison Land Conservation Trust preserves usually have maps at major intersections.  Most of the map display boards were empty on 2021-1-28 in the Ironwoods Preserve, maybe because the maps are being revised due to the changes in the trails.

David Reik