The settlement that grew up around it was abandoned after ironmaking ceased, and the site of the furnace now lies undeveloped in Wharton State Forest.
[1] It was located on the Oswego River about 2 miles (3 km) upstream of Harrisville, New Jersey,[1] where Potts built a slitting mill and a forge in 1795.
[4] In southern New Jersey, bog ore supplied the iron,[5] while the fuel was charcoal made from large tracts of timber.
While principally concerned with recording the work done by teamsters and others, it includes many terse observations on the social life of the Martha Furnace community.
The Oswego River was dammed to provide power, via a mill race and water wheel, for the blowing tubs that drove the air blast into the furnace.
[12] Generally, Martha Furnace was kept in blast from spring until early January, when ice interfered with water power and forced its closure for the winter.
The breaching of the dam drained Martha Pond, although it still exists as a widened stretch of the Oswego River upstream of the furnace.
After an investigation by state archaeologist Budd Wilson in 1968, the ruins of the furnace stack were covered with sand and fenced off during the 1970s to prevent casual vandalism.
[18] The Batona Trail crosses the Oswego River on a former road bridge just below the dam and passes the site of the furnace.