Centre Furnace Mansion Tour

The Centre Furnace Mansion was where the Centre Furnace ironmaster and his family lived. It is appropriately called a mansion, since a mansion is the largest house in a village. This was the largest and grandest house in Centre Furnace Village. It sits on a small knoll and looks over the community.

The house as it is now was built in the late 1820s, with some major changes made around the time of the Civil War. Here you're looking out from the historic grand front entrance. If you were visiting the Mansion to see the Thompsons, who lived here during much of the 1800s, you would come up this way into the house.

Hearth Room

Today we enter through the side door to the "Hearth Room" on the ground floor of the Mansion. The big fireplace in the original kitchen was used not only to cook meals for the family who lived here but also all the single men workers from Centre Furnace. Some months over 600 meals were served here. The lintel across the top of the furnace is iron and was cast here at Centre Furnace. The first ironmaster's house at Centre Furnace was built about the time the furnace started, in 1791 or 1792. Centre Furnace founder John Patton lived here. We know from tax records that is was a one-story log house with a separate log kitchen. The kitchen is about the same size as the Hearth Room, so we think it might be the same room.

The Hearth Room during restoration in 1984


The Hearth Room today