David Thomas: Father of the American anthracite industry

Abstract

At the Yniscedwyn Iran Works at Ystradgynlais in the Swansea Valley David Thomas conducted experiments during the late 1820s to smelt iron ore using the plentiful supplies of local anthracite coal. Hearing of Nielson's use of the bot blast in furnaces in Scotland, Thomas tried out the new method at Yniscedwyn. By a judicious method of using the right mixture of ore and fuel, he succeed in making firstclass pig iron in 1837, and in so doing, played a major part in transforming the Swansea Valley into a major iron producing centre. But his greatest influence was upon the iron industry of the United States.
In Pennsylvania lay a huge anthracite coalfield waiting tobe developed. News of Thomas's success in Wales of led the directors of the newly-formed Crane lron Company to invite him to come to Pennsylvania; David Thomas was hired for an initial period of five years. He
and bis family sailed in May 1839. He settled on a site near Allentown for his first furnace, running the first pig iron in 1840. Within a few short years, Pennsylvania was outstripping South Wales as the world's largest iron producer. Ten years of feverish activity, led by Thomas, completely changed the Lehigh Valley, where the iron industry, fuelled by anthracite coal, was transformed from a rural, plantation-based system into a modern, large-scale enterprise. Its importance in the industrial history of the United States can perhaps be compared to that of the Severn Valley in Britain a century earlier. Both valleys in their respective times became the world's major centre of iron production.