The first American smelt of anthracite pig iron was performed July 4, 1840 by principal-partners David Thomas, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard at their Lehigh Crane Iron Works in their first hot blast furnace along Catasauqua Creek aided by Samuel Thomas and the employees of the LCIW, in what became Catasauqua, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania.
These useful materials are achieved by adding additional processing—by taking pig iron as an ingredient into a reverberatory furnace (and in later years, a Bessemer converter).
By mid-1792, prominent Philadelphians had formed the Lehigh Coal Mine Company (LHCM Co.) to bring anthracite to cities reachable via the Delaware River Valley, especially Philadelphia, the nation's largest and most industrialized city at the time, though no one fully understood how to use anthracite as a sole fuel—just that it 'could' burn 'some' of the time with a hot enough base fire, so could augment furnace fuels.
The LHCM Co. had great difficulty getting many ark-loads of coal to the docks in Philadelphia, much less having capabilities to make reliable deliveries of the fuel to industries risking its use for the 46–47 miles (74–76 km) trip from Lausanne along the Lehigh River's variable water height and many rocks and rapids then surviving the over 70 miles (110 km) on the equally untamed Delaware River.
In the midst of the War of 1812, iron industry magnate Josiah White set his foremen to systematically conducting experiments as how stone coal could be made to burn reliably.
It was recognized as some use aiding other fuels, and pack animal loads occasionally reached the city, which had mills and foundries desperately needing to circumvent the British Naval Blockade, so Bituminous Coal coastal shipments up from Virginia might resume.
Between 1814 and 1818, industries along the Eastern seaboard were still thirsting for energy relief when inquiries to the LHCM Co. by Hazard and White indicated the operation and rights of the company were available.
This initiated the process that lead to the Lehigh Canal, which was the beginning of regular high volume and reliable coal deliveries in late 1820.
Research into the smelting of iron using anthracite coal (without coking it first) began in the 1820s in Wales by Thomas,[1] experiments in France, most notably by Gueymard and Robin at Vizille in 1827,[7] and in the 1830s in Pottsville[7] and Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
In May 1837, Solomon W. Roberts of Philadelphia came to Yniscedwin, saw the furnace in operation, and at once reported to his uncle, Josiah White, of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, the successful application of the hot blast there.
[8] The first key breakthrough occurred in 1828–29,[1] when Scotsman James Beaumont Neilson patented the hot blast technique & process, which he had conceived in an attempt to improve the efficiency of conventionally fueled furnaces.
[9] The first person to employ the hot blast technique to anthracite smelting was Dr. Frederick W. Gesenhainer, who filed for a patent on the process in 1831 and received it in 1833.
[10] While distinguished visitors, including Governor Joseph Ritner, acknowledged his success, he sold out his share in Valley Furnace and went to New York City.
George Crane, owner, and David Thomas, superintendent of the Yniscedwyn Iron Works, had themselves[a] conceived of the idea of using hot blast to smelt anthracite.
[16] It was built by William Lyman obtained the aid of a Welsh emigrant, Benjamin Perry, who was familiar with Neilson's process and the Yniscedwyn works, for the blowing-in.
[19][20] The opening of bituminous coal deposits suitable for coking in the western part of the Allegheny Plateau resulted in the gradual displacement of anthracite as a fuel.