AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Historic Poole Forge is a 26-acre township park and National Register historic district in Narvon, Pennsylvania, where the iron-plantation legacy of the Revolutionary War era meets the natural beauty of the Conestoga River. Visitors can stroll nature trails past a restored 1770s Ironmaster's Mansion, pause at a mid-19th-century covered bridge, and enjoy picnics, playgrounds, and seasonal gardens—all free and open daily from dawn to dusk.↗↗
A Forge at the Heart of American Iron
In 1775, James Old, a Welsh ironmaster, purchased a stretch of land along the Conestoga River and established a forge that would help arm a nascent nation. Pig iron arrived from nearby furnaces—Hopewell, Joanna, Elizabeth, and Cornwall—and Poole Forge refined it into bar iron sold to blacksmiths and shipped to Philadelphia for Revolutionary War armaments. At its peak, the plantation encompassed 472 acres with 38 adjoining buildings and twin water wheels driving 500-pound forge hammers.↗↗
The forge operated under several generations of ironmaster families—interlinked by marriages with the Coleman, Jacobs, and Davies dynasties—until 1852, when the charcoal-based iron industry could no longer compete. What remains today are the buildings that outlasted the industry: the Ironmaster's Mansion, the Paymaster's house, two tenant houses, the ruins of a lime kiln, and an elegant covered bridge.
