Many Nashvllians know that ironmaster Montgomery Bell (1769-1855) had an iron forge at the Narrows of the Harpeth in Davidson County 30 miles west of Nashville. Many have launched a canoe there. Far fewer know much about Cumberland Furnace, which Bell purchased for $16,000 in 1804 from James Robertson when he moved to Tennessee from Lexington, Ky. The wilderness tract included beech, elm, walnut, chestnut, oak and pine trees needed to make the charcoal to fuel the forge. Bell systematically purchased additional land, much of it in nearby Montgomery County, where he received permission from the county court to erect a ferry across the Cumberland River 10 miles east of Cumberland Furnace.
On Dec. 2, 1809, Bell wrote the Secretary of the Navy offering to provide iron munitions to the Federal Government. His request was granted and Bell sent 32 18- and 24-pound cannon balls to New Orleans, which General Andrew Jackson used to defeat the British there in 1815. In 1811, Bell bought three additional plots near Cumberland Furnace. In 1813, he bought three more.
On July 25, 1825, Bell conveyed his deed to Cumberland Furnace and several other tracts of land to Anthony Van Leer for $50,000. In turn Van Leer gave it to his children. Daniel Hillman, a business partner of Anthony’s, became a trustee for the two heirs and managed the property. He bought out the two Van Leers and, in 1833, dismantled the forge machinery built by Robrtson and rebuilt the furnace built by Bell. The country’s iron production decreased from 54,000 in 1810 to 20,000 tons in 1820. The annual output of the forge was 300 tons of holloware, 50 tons of pig metal and 6 tons of machinery which included a water wheel 36 feet in diameter. Although Bell survived the Depression, he lacked capital for his expansion plans. To meet those needs, he sold some real estate in Nashville, the Elk Tavern on College Street, a two-story house on Market Street and 21 unimproved lots in between. He put most of his money into his works at the Narrows of the Harpeth.
During the Civil War, Cumberland Furnace was bombed by Union gunboats on the Cumberland River. When his slaves escaped in hopes of becoming freed men, most either were building Fort Negley or joined the Union Army guarding bridges over the Harpeth River. Others fought in the Battle of Nashville. None were trained properly, but they did not lack courage.
Cumberland Furnace continued to operate for several months but eventually closed for the rest of the war, probably because the furnace workers had been pressed into military service.
Today Cumberland Furnace is quiet. The Cumberland Iron Works Museum, a double-pen log structure built in 1850 was operated by the Cumberland Furnace Historic Village Association and was put on the National Register of Historic Places. It is now closed and boarded up. There is now a closed filling station from which the pumps had been long removed. And there is also a small cluster of housing there. The only thing new in the village is a Trump banner hanging over the road.
Ridley Wills II died in late January, and this is his last column he wrote for the paper. We thank him for his many years of providing a written history of local events, people and places.