Prior to the Civil War, Virginia was one of the leading iron-producing states in the Union, and during the eighteenth century Virginia had exported more iron than all the other British North American colonies combined. Although by 1861 the giant Tredegar Iron Works, in Richmond, was the visible symbol of the Old Dominion's iron industry, scores of small charcoal blast furnaces and forges tucked among the hills and streams of western Virginia wre a continuing source of iron products as they had been for decades.

This book traces the history of the Washington Iron Works, in Franklin County, a small charcoal furnace typical in size and operation. The second Virginia works erected south of the James River and the first major industry of Franklin County, the Washington Iron Works differed from other antebellum Virginia ironworks in two ways: its continued vitality (in a period when iron-manufacturing companies rose and fell with alarming regularity) and the unusual talents and personalities of the men associated with it. The owners of the ironworks and their extended families were among the most influential inhabitants of the county in the antebellum period, and their role in the county's history is remembered there even today.

Written by John S. Salmon.