Isabella was the last iron furnace to be built in the county, in 1835, and was operated by members of the Potts family and their partners until 1855, when they lost control of it in a bankruptcy.

The tract already included a fulling mill and a sawmill, and the transaction encompassed water rights to dam Perkins Run to power the furnace.

[3][5] In the spring of 1836, Henry's brother David, formerly the owner of Springton Forge, was brought in as a partner and manager of the furnace.

Isabella Furnace was assigned to Robert Smith Potts and Addison May, who sold it in the following year to John Irey and James Butler.

[3] He sold out in 1865 to the brothers Bentley H., William D., and Horace V. Smith, members of an ironmaking family associated with Joanna Furnace and the mines around Warwick.

Potts also arranged for the construction of a spur line to the furnace from the East Brandywine and Waynesburg, which had come under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1876.

[14] In 1891, Col. Potts began building a nearby chateau-like mansion, "Langoma" (1891–95, Theophilus P. Chandler Jr., architect),[15] which he intended as a residence for himself and his son William.

William, his wife, and mother did move into "Langoma", but ironmaking at the furnace ended in April 1894, not long after Col. Potts' death.

Henry Seidel Canby referred in 1935 to "its moldering cupola furnace, like a Persian mosque of the twelfth century, its long walls and sleepy half-drained dam.

Langoma Industries intended to set up a clothing factory and a surrounding worker's town on the Potts estate.

[5] A Hexamer General Survey plan of the furnace made in 1890 shows a number of structures arranged along the hillside sloping down to Perkins Run.

Atop the hillside were a "coalhouse", "orehouse", and "screenhouse"; three large warehouses (about 100' x 50' each) with railroad trestles running into them for the delivery and storage of raw materials.

The furnace stack appears to be largely demolished, and other buildings are gone; the foundations and lower walls of the orehouse and screenhouse are still evident.