Records show that many African Americans passed through Hopewell Furnace, employed for short periods of time. But the only concrete evidence of anti-slavery sentiment at the Furnace was a pamphlet that listed the names of two “Iron-masters” working at the Furnace, and called for all religious people to put an end to slavery (Walker 1974, 306). The Furnace operated until 1883 and is now part of the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site (“ Hopewell ” 2005).
https://sites.psu.edu/localhistories/woven-with-words/the-underground-railroad-in-the-19th-century/
“We know Mark Bird had 17 or 18 slaves here at the furnace,” said Hebblethwaite, citing records mandated by Pennsylvania’s Gradual Abolition Act of 1780. “That made him the single largest slave owner in Berks County.”
Hebblethwaite is part of an effort to discover the African-American history of Hopewell, which is more than slavery. Eighty years after it was founded, the furnace did a complete turnaround and became a site of emancipation.
By 1850 – the year of the Fugitive Slave Act — it had become a prominent stop on the Underground Railroad. Runaway slaves fleeing north could get a job temporarily, cutting wood for charcoal to burn in the many furnaces in the area.
“What better place to hide?” said Hebblethwaite. “If you’re a runaway, heading north, you could very easily find a job, and find a job that’s going to keep you in the woods, until the threat passes, and you can keep heading north.”
Roving gangs of slave catchers made money by returning black people to the South – born free or enslaved didn’t matter to them. Working as a woodcutter made capture less likely.
The owners of Hopewell knew this was happening. The historic accounting ledgers show some workers were hired for very short terms, sometimes just a few weeks. It’s very likely the owners abetted the passage of fugitive slaves by putting some money in their pockets and sending them on their way.
A lot of those runaway slaves came through Six Penny Creek, a tiny community near Hopewell where furnace workers built homes out in the woods.
“Very thick. Always was,” said John Cole, 77, who has lived here all his life. A natural horticulturalist, Cole spends most of his days walking the woods, tending plants both wild and cultivated. “You gotta have heavy pants, something that stickers won’t go through.”
Cole’s family has owned this land for about 150 years, a legacy of his great-grandfather, Isaac Cole. Isaac — who was black, as is John — was a woodcutter for the Hopewell Furnace from 1858 to 1883. He bought land with his wages. In 1856 he built an African Methodist Episcopalian Church, Mount Frisby, which had a small congregation until the 1880s.
Cole served in the Civil War, enlisting with a Union troop in 1864 when he was 40 years old.
George Cole, John’s father who owned a trucking company, sold a bulk of the family property — 70 acres — to the government so it could establish the French Creek State Park.
The builder of the furnace, Mark Bird, along with most ironmasters in the 18th century, was a slave owner. In 1780 Bird was listed as the largest slave owner in Berks County. He had 10 men, 4 women, 3 boys and 1 girl.
These slaves worked at his forges in Birdsboro and are said to have dug Hopewell's original headrace that turned the water wheel supplying air to fire the furnace. Over two centuries after the erection of the furnace, visitors can see remnants of the east headrace near the Big House. Although slavery in Berks County declined rapidly after 1780 when the state assembly passed an act ordering gradual emancipation, African-American's continued to work at Hopewell. "Black Bill" Jacobs lived his entire life of about 100 years at Hopewell, working first as a teamster, then as a coachman and a gardner.
Some of Hopewell's African-American workers lived in the nearby woodlands. Beginning in 1835 this remote area around Hopewell figured prominently in the Underground Railroad movement. Runaway slaves from the south came across the Pennsylvania border and over the intervening hills to the home of Elizabeth Scarlet and her son Joseph, the Quaker owners of Scarlet's Mill. Here a community founded by African-Americans from the south who had escaped their bondage grew up in the valley of Six Penny Creek, close to Hopewell, Joanna Furnace and the forges in Birdsboro.
Many former slaves earned their living supporting the iron industry working as woodcutters, colliers, and teamsters. Some, such as Isaac Cole, became landowners too. The names of runaway slaves employed as woodcutters were probably not entered into the furnace records in order to protect their identities. Some may have worked for contractors, thereby not showing up in Hopewell's records.
African-American workers such as Draper Nixon, Edward Ford, Stephen Brown, Peter and Henry Jones, John Hart, and Joseph Tolbert were credited in 19th century Hopewell journals for cutting cord wood used to produce charcoal to fuel the furnace, Other African-Americans worked as teamsters, hostlers, colliers, miners, fillers and maids.
In 1856 the African-American community at Six Penny Creek established an African Methodist Episcopal Church on land owned by the Cole family. This church served as a station on the Underground Railroad and as the site of the oldest African-American cemetery in Berks County. Tombstones record the burial of many former Hopewell Furnace workers. The cemetery, carefully restored and maintained by the Cole family, serves as a silent reminder of the once thriving African-American community that helped fuel the iron industry in southern Berks County.
https://www.nps.gov/hofu/learn/historyculture/african-americans.htm
Isaac Cole, a free African American, worked as a laborer at Hopewell Furnace. In the 19th century, Hopewell Furnace offered equal pay for equal work regardless of race or gender. Through his work at Hopewell Furnace, Cole was able to purchase some 100 acres of land which housed several structures including the Mount Frisby AME Church.
Berks County maps from 1860 and 1876 show Isaac Cole as a land owner in the African American community at Six Penny Creek in what is now French Creek State Park. In 1864, Cole volunteered to serve in an infantry regiment of the United States Colored Troops of the United States Army. His regiment saw action at the Battle of Honey Hill, South Carolina, in 1864 and participated in the occupation of Charleston in 1865. Isaac Cole’s grave at the Mt. Frisby Cemetery is marked with a government-issue veteran’s headstone. The Mt. Frisby Church is located on Cole family property and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.