Hopewell Furnace's Ledgers
Account documents recording operations of Hopewell Furnace from 1784 to 1896 and from 1935 to 1941 have been recovered at the Site and conserved by the National Park Service. The NPS scanned these documents to allow inspection by interested parties.
There are a number of different document types, ranging from daily journals, which record gains to and losses from the furnace account to consolidated accounts for the furnace enterprise and specific portions (e.g. the store). These documents talley credits and debits between the furnace and individuals (including workers) and buisnesses for a wide range of economic activity at the furnace.
There are a number of different document types, ranging from daily journals, which record gains to and losses from the furnace account to consolidated accounts for the furnace enterprise and specific portions (e.g. the store). These documents talley credits and debits between the furnace and individuals (including workers) and buisnesses for a wide range of economic activity at the furnace.
The ledger images are stored on a National Park Gallery website, which was released to the public on Sept 16, 2016. This web site provides all of the digitized pictures of the original Ledgers, Journals, and various kinds of books.It should be noted that updates and improvements are expected to be made to this website periodically. The NP Gallery website contains over 18,000 pictures of the original Hopewell Ledgers pages.
If you have any questions or comments about the database click on the following link to send an e-mail to:
If you find anything of interest in the database and would like to make a donation using your PayPal account or major credit card i.e. Visa, Master Card, Discover or American Express please click on the Donate button shown below.
Please indicate below the “Purpose” in the “Special instructions to the seller box” that this donation is for supporting the Hopewell Ledgers database. If the donation is above $25 then this entitles you to a 1 year membership as well.
If you find anything of interest in the database and would like to make a donation using your PayPal account or major credit card i.e. Visa, Master Card, Discover or American Express please click on the Donate button shown below.
Please indicate below the “Purpose” in the “Special instructions to the seller box” that this donation is for supporting the Hopewell Ledgers database. If the donation is above $25 then this entitles you to a 1 year membership as well.
The following PDF file contains an Alphabetized list of activity by worker name, with the corresponding SM numbers (Source Material number). This is helpful once finding a specific name in the Ledger Database to finding the original source page in the NP Gallery web site shown above.
The following PDF file contains an alphabetized list of activity by company or business name.
The Friends of Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site
Genealogists may obtain occupational related data for their ancestors as well as other recorded notes. Historians may gain insight into the people involved with these Iron Plantations and how they became an economic center. Please review information on the following Interpretation Page to gain additional insight into the nature of these documents.
Comments about improvements to this website may be sent to
us and these comments will be forwarded to the NP Gallery website team.
us and these comments will be forwarded to the NP Gallery website team.
Version 4 Uploaded 2024 Jan 3 Added PayPal button
Added the SM 41 R Reports
Version 3 Uploaded 2023 Nov 3 Appearance Improvments
Added the SM 41 R Reports
Version 3 Uploaded 2023 Nov 3 Appearance Improvments
Information from the ledgers has been compiled in summaries as described below. These summaries identify economic actities including what type of items were typically bartered.
The following PDF file contains a summary of all of the known accounting books summarizing names and current location of the books.
The following was added January 3, 2024
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SM 41 Ledger is currently held at Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
The source of these reports are associated with SM 41 Ledger.
To see these reports go to the following new page
