Peter Grubb's Hopewell Iron Forge
Near Intercourse, Pennsylvania
The Grubb family of ironmasters ran an iron forge here along Hammer Creek in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. The forge used waterpower to drive heavy hammers that beat pig iron into wrought-iron bars, the raw material for tools, farm implements, and hardware across colonial Pennsylvania.
Grubb was part of a remarkable iron-making dynasty that also operated Cornwall Furnace nearby, one of the longest-running iron operations in American history. The Hopewell Forge supplied iron during a period when Pennsylvania was a major iron-making colony. Today this pastoral landscape is a quiet reminder that it was once an industrial hub supplying a young nation.
