Natural Hardwood Charcoal: The Founding Fuel

[SANFORD SMITH] Hi, Sanford Smith here with Penn State Cooperative Extension. The topic of this video is historic charcoal making, and I'll just stop here for a moment and say this is not the type of charcoal that many people barbecue on today called briquettes. The type of charcoal I'm talking about is natural hardwood charcoal made directly from wood and only from wood, and it was used to smelt iron ore to make all kinds of products in the early colonial days, as well as in our country's later history. Natural charcoal was once produced widely through the forests of eastern North America where wood and iron ore were abundant. Primarily, it was used for smelting iron ore in blast furnaces from the early 1720s until the early 1900s. Sometimes people ask why iron makers didn't just use firewood to smelt the ore. Simply put, firewood does not burn hot enough, but charcoal, which is pure carbon, burns very hot and can easily melt iron ore when blasted with air. It is sometimes called lump charcoal or natural charcoal today, but it was often just referred to as coal in the past. Charcoal iron was not only used to forge tools, agricultural implements, cookware, and stoves, it was essential for making the rifles, cannons, and their ammunition needed by the colonial forces during the American Revolution and both armies in our Civil War. In the mid to late 1800s, charcoal iron was also essential for building machines, engines, and railroads. These drove the Industrial Revolution in America. This is why I like to refer to charcoal as our nation's founding fuel. The method for producing charcoal from wood was not complicated, but it was laborious. Here's how it was made. All the trees in a forested area were harvested and cut into smaller pieces to begin the process. The wood was generally cut near the sites where the charcoal was to be made, though occasionally it was transported to coaling sites by horse, ox, or mule power. Wood choppers from iron furnaces harvested the wood needed to make charcoal every year. This was carried out from November through March, and all the work was done by axe. They practiced strict safety and always worked far enough apart to prevent trees from falling on one another. In their day, woodchoppers earned very good pay, forty cents for each cord of wood they cut. While all the wood used to make charcoal was cut to four feet in length, if it was over ten inches in thickness, it needed to be split lengthwise down to seven inches or less in thickness to assure that all the wood was transformed into charcoal uniformly. These large, thick pieces of wood were called billets, and they made up most of the wood that was used to make charcoal. Smaller pieces of wood, roughly one to four inches in thickness, were also used to make charcoal. These were called lapwood, and they were important for filling in gaps and reducing air space while the charcoal was being produced. The sites where charcoal was produced were called charcoal hearths or flats. Though the entire location with the wood stacked on it was called a charcoal pit, there was no pit involved in the making of charcoal. These pits were in fact completely level and round, and they ranged in size from 30 to 40 feet in diameter. After the winter wood cutting season was over, many of the wood choppers became charcoal makers called colliers from the months of May through October. Some of them were experts in their trade, and they were called master colliers. They had the experience and skills needed for coaling large volumes of wood into charcoal safely. Master colliers always had several assistants as well. Proper wood stacking in a charcoal pit had to be done just right. If the wood was stacked improperly, it might not turn into charcoal at the same time during the coaling, and if the hearth site was not perfectly level, the wood could fall over and quickly burn to ashes. You'll notice in this historic image there were three distinct layers of wood in every charcoal pit. The entire stack of wood in the pit was between thirty and forty feet wide and twelve feet high, and much of the wood was cut with an angle or bevel on the ends to give the finished pit a rounded shape. A critical element was the three-sided triangular wooden chimney built in the middle of the pit as the wood was stacked. This was essential for air and fire control. This entire mound of wood, thirty to fifty cords, was then covered with leaves or leafed over as they called it. It was accomplished by raking up the leaves from the forest floor nearby and piling them several inches deep over the pit. The colliers used wooden baskets to carry the leaves to the pits. The final step in preparing the pit for a burn was to cover it over with soil and, if available, dusty ashes from previous charcoal burns. Believe it or not, this covering along with the leaves created a waterproof and airtight layer that was needed to produce charcoal. After the mound of wood was almost completely covered with soil and ashes, the pit was lit at the top using a shovelful of hot embers. These were placed in the opening of the triangular chimney, which was flush with the top of the mound and full of kindling. The chimney was then covered with a flat piece of wood, leaves, and lastly soil and ashes to begin the slow, smoldering charcoal-making process they call the burn. Three to four colliers constructed and coaled between eight to nine pits at a time continually throughout the summer months. Each pit took approximately two weeks to coal. They watched over the pits twenty-four-seven to be sure the wood coaled slowly and steadily. The rate of coaling was controlled by poking small temporary vents with their shovel handles in the sides of the pit to draw the smoldering fire down through the mound of wood. When the coaling fire reached the bottom of the pit, 10 to 12 days after the coaling was started, all the temporary vents were closed in the pit and it was allowed to cool down for several days. Lastly, the charcoal pits were raked out after the coaling period was complete. This was done slowly to watch for any sparks and check for heat in the charcoal. If any were observed, they were quickly smothered with dust or dirt. When all was safe, the charcoal was loaded into large charcoal wagons pulled by mules or horses back to the furnace, and after checking one last time for any heat, it was stored in the coal shed where it was kept dry. This lengthy charcoal-making process required the colliers to live outdoors near their charcoal pits for long periods of time during the summer months. While there were some accounts of colliers living in log cabins that they constructed in the forest, their typical living structure was more like a conical hut covered with wood slabs, bark, leaves, and soil. Here they ate and slept in shifts day and night in remote forests. They sometimes worked as family teams, but they were often considered a race of hermits who preferred to avoid civilization. The iron made in charcoal furnaces was known to be strong and of high quality, and there were many years during the mid-1800s when over one and a half million forested acres were cleared in Pennsylvania to produce charcoal. That's every year. Even though forests regrew and could be utilized for producing charcoal every 30 years, eventually the demand for iron became too great. The supply of wood in forests simply ran out, and the use of charcoal to make iron was replaced by mineral coal and coke. This required the iron industry to relocate to more central areas near railroad lines. Today, all that remains of this industry are some stone furnace stacks, a few original buildings, slag waste piles, and numerous antiques that were forged with charcoal iron long ago. Interestingly, in the forested areas that regenerated back into forests after charcoal was produced, the sites of historic charcoal hearths can still be observed as flat or round spots on the ground, and if you dig down a little bit, you can also find small pieces of charcoal that were left behind there. Also, LiDAR imagery shows these historic hearths as small circles from high above. So the mark that was made on the land by the colliers is visible from space. On the 250th anniversary of the United States, we honored our founders and the founding documents that made our nation what it is today. This video honors some of the other important founders, the common people such as woodchoppers and colliers who worked tirelessly to grow our nation's fledgling iron industry by producing the founding charcoal fuel. It is estimated that at its peak, the charcoal industry in the United States employed about 10,000 colliers to make charcoal fuel. Today, charcoal making is a lost occupation with a rich but forgotten history. Let us not forget the skills, devotion, and sooty sweat of these colliers and woodchoppers who helped the United States move ahead into a strong nation. Well, I hope you've enjoyed watching this video and learned a lot about charcoal and charcoal making and how important it was to this country. I hope now you can see why I call it the founding fuel. Thank you very much for listening.