A Brief History of the Forges & Manor of Ringwood

The Land

The Highlands Region of Northern New Jersey and Southern New York contains rugged hills that are the remnants of an ancient mountain range that has crumbled, eroded and been worn down by 2 million years of alternating ice ages. The last glacial arm retreated about 10,000 years ago from this region after carving out river valleys and leaving hilly granite Gneiss stubs with rich veins of magnetite iron ore. The hard iron deposits here once lay upon the land and bizarre formations even jutted up into the sky in sculptural continuations of the veins that descend down into the earth for thousands of feet.

The area probably forested quickly after the ice age and as animals moved in, men followed to hunt them. The great eastern forests contained many hardwoods including Chestnut, Hickory, Elm, Oaks, Walnut and others. Some of these giants were later to be reduced by plights and disease but for generations their pre-Columbian canopy extended all over the land. The water in the region drained through the valleys in swift rivers with occasional marshes backing up in smaller valleys. Here were all the natural resources for the Colonial iron industry, ore for smelting, timber to make charcoal for fuel and water for powering the machinery.

Prehistory and Colonial Ringwood

Prehistoric artifacts found on the grounds of Ringwood confirm Native American occupation of the site dating back to the Archaic and Woodlands periods of prehistory. These Munsee-speaking Lenape peoples lived in a hunting and farming paradise at the head of the "Topomoack" or Ringwood River Valley and traded with other natives in the Pompton area. The Lenapi recognized special earth forces at work here, and as long as their memory is, this has been sacred ground with supernatural occurrences attributed to the area. Perhaps it is the earth's immense magnetism here that affects all type of matter including us. It is said that the Highlands were a gathering place for all of the diverse prehistoric Native Americans of the Northeast.

By the 1740s, Colonial prospectors had begun to smelt the local iron ore and settled here to utilize the waterpower. Cornelius Board first recognized the rich magnetite ores, and after him the Ogden family started the first Ringwood Company, building a blast furnace here in 1742. By 1765, Peter Hasenclever made Ringwood the center of his ironmaking empire which included 150,000 acres in New Jersey, New York and Nova Scotia. Importing more than 500 workers from Germany and England, Hasenclever began similar ironmaking plantations at nearby Long Pond Ironworks and Charlottesburg between present-day Butler and Newfoundland as well as other operations in New York State. This ironmaking technology transfer from Germany in Colonial times had a huge effect on America's iron and steel industry over the next 2 centuries. Hasenclever's various works operated as self-sufficient plantations; here at Ringwood was an iron furnace, 3 forge operations, a grist mill, saw mill, worker's houses, stores, farms, all in all a very large community.

Ringwood and the American Revolution

During the American Revolution, Robert Erskine managed the three principal ironmaking plantations from his headquarters at Ringwood. Siding with the Patriot cause, he became General Washington's map maker. As the army's first geographer and Surveyor-General, Erskine produced more than 200 highly accurate maps. The Colonial Manor House at Ringwood saw at least 5 visits from General Washington on important business. Ringwood iron was used for parts of the great Hudson River chain, as well as for camp ovens, tools and other hardware. Erskine died here in 1780 and is buried in the old cemetery along with more than 400 pioneers, early ironmakers and Revolutionary War soldiers, including French soldiers of Rochambeau's army. General Washington valued Ringwood for its iron products, Erskine's map-making defense agency and as a safe route through northern New Jersey. The military road was actually routed right through Ringwood, the half-way point from West Point to Morristown. General Washington was also at Ringwood on April 19, 1783, the very day that a cessation of hostilities was declared between American and Great Britain. This momentous day in history was 8 long years to the day from the first shots of the war fired on Lexington Green.

The 19th Century Manor and Industry

Martin J. Ryerson purchased the historic ironworks and began building the present Manor House in 1807 while still operating the iron mines and forges on the property. Ryerson ran 5 forge-furnace complexes in three counties from his headquarters at Ringwood for the next half century. Ryerson made shot for the war of 1812 and negotiated land and water rights with the Morris Canal Company for expansion of Long Pond (Greenwood Lake) and construction of the Pompton Feeder on the Morris Canal. The Ryerson Steel Company is still in operation today.

New York's Peter Cooper, a remarkable inventor and industrialist and his young son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, purchased Ringwood in 1854. The properties were purchased for the rich local iron deposits but Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt set about making the old Ringwood estate their summer home. Hewitt enlarged the Manor in the 1860s and 70s. The completed house contains 51 rooms built in a wide range of styles, that characterize the Victorian Period. This impressive house is 226.5 feet long and features 24 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, 28 bedrooms and more than 250 windows. The forges, mills, village and farms that serviced the iron industry gradually turned into the Victorian summer estate of the Hewitts, one of the wealthiest and most influential families of 19th-century America.

Ringwood is to industry what Williamsburg is to politics. Although eventually the industry moved west to the coal fields, bar iron was made at nearby Long Pond until 1882, and Ringwood's iron mines finally closed in the 1950s. A major supplier of metal to the Union cause during the American Civil War, the Cooper-Hewitt Iron Company developed new methods and products throughout the industrial revolution to become an important factor in America's growth, and the fifth-largest corporation in America. A collection of iron products and artifacts adorn the Manor grounds. The next generation of the Hewitt family divested themselves of involvement in both politics and the iron and steel industry, and having little use for the large estate, they gave Ringwood Manor to the State of New Jersey in 1936.

Every day we are finding new (old) roads in Ringwood State Park that have historical significance. These roads lead past 18th century mines, 19th house foundations, prehistoric Indian Rock shelters, streams, lakes, furnaces and foundries.