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 Scranton, Pennsylvania and

John F. Davis 

The Scranton family had a huge problem with their new Blast furnace. They had tried twice to 'blow' the furnace without any success. The first failure had been attributed to insufficient draft but improved conditions for draft was not successful, and so the failed second attempt. The promoters along with the head of the firm, Colonel George W. Scranton, were desperate to achieve success. The Colonel was anxious to the extent that when work to disgorge the furnace proved difficult, he spent many hours wielding a sledge hammer until he collapsed with exhaustion. This effort was considered, by his physician, Dr.B.H.Throop,  to be the cause of his later ill health and eventual death. 

The foundation for the No. 1 furnace had been layered out in 1840 by Mr. W.W. Manness. The structure was 35 feet high with an 8 foot bosh. In 1841 the furnace's water wheel was constructed by Thomas P. Harper. Much work and finance had been sunk into the enterprise. The future prosperity of the Scranton family was in the balance. 

On January 6, 1842, a third attempt was made to blow the furnace with no success. By this time George's brother, Selden T. Scranton, who was there to see the furnace put into operation, decided to seek expert help from another person experienced in the making of iron with anthracite fuel. He set out for Danville, 60miles away, another iron producing area where two anthracite furnaces were operating successfully.  He returned on January 10 with a native of Tredegar (in South Wales) called John F. Davis.

The techniques of the hot-blast process of smelting iron ore had been developed, with some success, in South Wales. Welsh workers in Danville, and other nearby towns, were using the technique effectively and Davis was familiar with the process.

A number of repairs were now undertaken on the furnace, and a series of blasts began on the 18 January 1842. These went on until February 26 by which time seventy five tons of pig iron had been produced. Davis now found that George Scranton's modifications to the air heating apparatus was still insufficient. He now modified the old oven and installed two new ones. The hearth was also rebuilt and the furnace was put into operation on May 23. It remained in blast until September 25, being terminated because of growing inadequacies in the blowing equipment. The total production during this time was 375 tons, although not a great amount it was encouraging after the failures of the year before. The blowing cylinders were repaired and fitted with new pistons and blasting commenced until March 1843 producing 600 tons of pig iron. With further improvements the project eventually began to pay its way. Davis was to remain employed at the works for many years.

Expansion was also taking place in the coal mining industry which supplied fuel for the iron making. With the arrival of the mine foreman, Evan Williams, in 1844 the line was set for welsh immigration into Scranton. Within ten years there were eighty-one Welsh families in Scranton. The main settlement area for the welsh, particularly Welsh miners, over the coming decades was in the Hyde Park area situated on an hill across the Lackawanna river from Scranton. By the 1870's Scranton had become the largest Welsh community in America.

The Welsh became the second largest immigrant group in Scranton until the latter part of the Nineteenth century, the Irish being the largest. 

There is no doubt that the intervention of John F. Davis helped change the history of Scranton by triggering the city's expansion, and opening the area as a center for  Welsh immigration.

As an aside: Although all immigration into America was stopped during the Civil War, large numbers of Welsh immigrants were still allowed in. Indicating, I presume, the importance of Welsh expertise in iron making in the North and South during the war years.

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