Clove Spring Iron Works stock certificate 1873 (New York)

Very colorful piece.  Very nice center vignette of a stylized state seal of NY.  Miner with pickax vignette at the left.  Beautiful red under print contrasts nicely with the green print of the rest of the certificate. Unissued and not cancelled. Dated 187_.

Incorporated 1873, the company operated furnaces as early 1831 and was taken over by Elisha Sterling for this incorporation.  In 1873 The Clove Spring Iron Works built what we today call The Beekman Furnace.   The furnace had one stack, 50’ x 12’, and was built in 1873 for charcoal processing from the local Union Vale Mine. The furnace was enlarged and changed to anthracite in 1877.  The furnace shut down in 1893. Mining boomed until the 1890's and many of the small ponds scattered about town today were originally open ore pits which filled with water when mining was abandoned following the discovery of the great iron ore deposits in the Midwest.

The company served the Clove Spring iron mine in Dutchess County, eastern New York state, near the village of Verbank (east of Poughkeepsie).  The land is now part of Tymor Park in Union Vale used for general recreation.